Transcription of Earth Day #32
Speaker 1: You’re listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, recorded at the studios of Maine Magazine in Portland Maine and broadcast on 1310 AM Portland streaming live each week at 11:00 am wlobradio.com. Show summaries are available at doctorlisa.org. Download and become a podcast subscriber of Dr. Lisa Belisle through iTunes. See the Dr. Lisa website or Facebook page for details.
Speaker 1: The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is made possible with the support of the following generous sponsors; Maine Magazine, Mike LePage and Beth Franklin at RE/MAX Heritage, Robin Hodgkin, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, Dr. John Harzog of Orthopedic Specialist in farm with Maine, Tom Shepard of Shepard Financial, Booth, UNE, the University of New England and Akari.
Dr. Lisa: Hello this is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast show number 32, Earth Day which is airing for the first time on Earth Day April 22nd, 2012 on WLOB Radio and available by podcast at Dr. Lisa Belisle on iTunes. With me in the studio today I have Genevieve Morgan who is my co-host and wellness editor for Maine Magazine, hi Genevieve.
Genevieve: Hi Lisa, happy Earth Day.
Dr. Lisa: Thank you, I think every day is Earth Day right since we live on this lovely planet.
Genevieve: I think it should be.
Dr. Lisa: I think that has been the goal of the Earth Day movement from what I can tell. Today we have joining us landscape architect and author Ted Carter who wrote the book Reunion, How We Heal Our Broken Connection to The Earth. We also have Penny Jordan from Jordan Farms and David Banks and Bill Lunt from TideWater Conservation in Falmouth.
Genevieve: I think it’s such an appropriate show based on what I’ve been reading on newspapers about how this past year was the warmest year April to April since they’ve been keeping track of temperatures. Which, whether you believe in global warming or not shows that something is shifting.
There is always a lot of shifting that seems to be going back and forth.
One of my favorite theories which came about when I was studying biology and chemistry at Bowdoin is the whole Gaia hypothesis and this possibility that perhaps the earth itself is an organism and that all of us as little beings are little organelles within the organism and it’s just one big … The ecosystem is an organism, I love this idea that it’s a living, breathing thing.
As such there is going to be a lot of shifting and moving back and forth.
Genevieve: I just think of Horton Hears a Who that Dr. Suess book where there is the whole community on the thistle.
Dr. Lisa: Right. I think that’s actually a very medical and wellness sort of thing where this whole think of as a Leuwenhook and the microscope and there is always little something within a something within a something and it is a microcosm within the microcosm within the microcosm. It’s an interesting thing to think about ourselves as not being separate in any way from what’s going on around us and inside of us.
Genevieve: Earth plays a big role in the five elements of Chinese medicine, right?
Dr. Lisa: Absolutely, the earth is associated … the element of the earth is associated with the spleen and the stomach, the central thing from which things are nurtured and grow. If you think about the late summer, there are five elements that are associated with a season and of course we have, we think that we have only four seasons. In Maine we probably have only mud season and snow season.
Genevieve: Mud season and house guests.
Dr. Lisa: Yeah, there you go. Most people have winter, spring, summer and fall and in Chinese medicine we have five seasons, and there is that late summer season so that is the season of the earth.
Genevieve: With the people who have the earth elements predominant in their biochemistry or their temperament, how do they manifest the earth?
Dr. Lisa: The earth is a very mothering, nurturing, you think about people who are the earth mamas, and they tend to be … in Maine we have this interesting term called spleeny, which means maybe a little squeamish but that’s not what it’s like in Chinese medicine. People who have the spleen element, they do tend to be very nurturing and caring and giving. What I notice a lot actually in women is over time the spleen gets a little disrupted because they’re so nurturing and they’re so caring and giving that they actually retain, in a strange way, they’ll retain fluid and they’ll become almost squishy.
Genevieve: The spleen is crucial to the immune system.
Dr. Lisa: It’s crucial to the immune system and it’s important to note that in Chinese medicine the spleen is probably the pancreas. In ancient Chinese text The Najing it’s probably not so much the spleen as we think of it in western medicine. The pancreas was all about enzymes and the ability to digest. The spleen in western medicine is really the immune system and the blood cells but there is always a little bit of fuzziness there. It’s about nurturing one way or the other.
Talking about nurturing and Earth Day, because that’s what we’re talking about today, we actually find that if you spend time in nature then it can be very healing in and of itself. I know that you in your own life have spent some time with seedlings lately, is that true?
Genevieve: I have, I’ve been nursing my little window sill garden and it’s been so exciting. Now I have maybe three, four inch tall plants. I live in the city, in Portland, and actually because of all the … I live in the west end and all of the lead paint that has been accumulating in the soil through the decades and hundreds of years you are not supposed to eat food that’s grown in the soil in the west end. It’s a little bit of a dilemma for me now because I’m going to have to be doing a lot of transplanting. But it is a small connection that I can make physically getting my hands in the earth. It’s just been grounding for me and a terrific experience.
I encourage anybody who has any light, water and a pot to go out and grow something. Start now then you can put it in the ground or put it in a bigger pot by the time the last frost happens. Which supposedly by the farmers amanachy you shouldn’t be putting your seedlings in the ground until after the first full moon in May, then you’re safe.
Dr. Lisa: Okay.
Genevieve: My earth wisdom today.
Dr. Lisa: Very good, it’s good to have some earth wisdom. I hope that our guests coming up are going to have additional earth wisdom for us. I can’t wait to talk to Ted Carter, Penny Jordan, David Banks and Bill Lunt, we’re glad that they are here to celebrate earth day with us today.
Speaker 3: We on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast are pleased to be sponsored by the University of New England. The University of New England specifically sponsors our wellness innovation segment. This week’s wellness innovation is from the March 1st, 2012 issue of Nature. An international research team has unearthed and investigated an entire fossil forest dating back 385 million years. The Gilboa Fossil Forest in the Catskill Mountains in Upstate, New York is generally referred to as the oldest fossil forest. Yet by scientific standards it has remained mythical.
Researchers describe basis of the Gilboa trees as spectacular bowl-shaped depressions up to nearly two meters in diameter surrounded by thousands of roots. These are known to be the basis of trees up to about ten meters or 32 feet in height, they look something like a palm tree or tree fern. Their findings demonstrate that the oldest forest at Gilboa was a lot more ecologically complex than suspected and probably contained a lot more carbon locked up as wood than previously known and will enable more refined speculation about the way in which the evolution of forests changed the earth.
For more information about this wellness innovation visit doctorlisa.org. For more information about the very innovative University of New England visit une.edu.
Speaker 1: This portion of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast has been brought to you by the University of New England, UNE, an innovative health sciences university grounded in the liberal arts. UNE was the number one educator of health professionals in Maine. Learn more about the University of New England at une.edu.
Dr. Lisa: Today on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast we have the good fortune to be speaking with an individual who is very well known in his own right but has been featured several times by Maine Magazine, Maine Home Design and there was an article written about him in April 2011 issue of Maine Home Design. We are happy to have here Ted Carter who is a landscape architect and also author of the book Reunion, how we heal our broken connection to the earth, which was co-authored by Ellen Gunter and for which a fore word was written by a very well known individual whose name is Caroline Neese.
Ted, the studio is just resonating with all the positive energy you brought in.
Ted: Thank you.
Dr. Lisa: It’s really good to have you here.
Ted: Wonderful to be here.
Dr. Lisa: I have Genevieve Morgan sitting next to me.
Genevieve: Hi Ted, happy earth day.
Ted: Thank you very much.
Dr. Lisa: We thought it was appropriate to have you come in and speak about earth day because your book, which I haven’t read the entire thing, I started reading and I realized that this is pretty much the core of what earth day is trying to do, is to bring us back to the earth and understand out connection to the earth and that’s what you do.
Ted: That’s correct.
Dr. Lisa: Tell me about what you professionally do and then we’ll talk about some of the interesting off shoots so to speak.
Ted: What I try to do … in life we have job/career calling. We start off in life with a job so we can pay the rent and take care of the fundamentals of living. Then we move into the career aspect of our lives and then we move into the calling aspect. I’m in my calling years; I’m 55 years old, I’ve been in this business since I was a teenager. It started out very much as a job and making money and it was all about making money. Then it went into the artistic endeavor which was more of a career piece but as I’ve aged and as I’ve matured in my business and in my life’s profession it has gone into the calling sector which is the spiritual aspect of this work.
What I try to do is I try to incorporate the spirit of people’s … people spirit with the spirit of the land and try to get them to see the land as sacred and see the land as part of who they are. We’re chemically made of the earth and we’re part of the earth. We’re not separate. We see ourselves as separate in the head energy. Sixth shakra really separates that and that’s the place of conflict. We live so much in western culture in our heads and we need to get down more into our hearts, more fulltime and use our hand to heart connection in working with the land.
Dr. Lisa: What was your background and how did you get to a place where even when you start with that, got to make a living; how did you get to the place where you’re all tilling the soil and working with the land?
Ted: Well, my mother had an organic garden in the early 70s, very early 70s. Before it was really fashionable, it was kindof a hippie thing to do. She grew sprouts in the basement under lights so I grew up with that kind of understanding. She grew up in the Midwest in Farm Country in the Carl Sandberg area. I just, I don’t know, it was a natural calling. I knew from the time I was eight years old what I wanted to do. My dad used to … he brought two huge loads of sand in the backyard, a pile of bricks and he said, ‘Go play.’ We spent four summers, from eight to twelve while we lived in that house building these amazing villages out of brick and sand.
I use to take twigs off the tree and set them in the sand and create walk ways and driveways and things. That was fun.
Dr. Lisa: That was what you did when you were younger then you went on and you got a more formal education in the type of work that you do?
Ted: Interestingly I’m a guy that has been to the school of hard knocks. I started in solar and plant technology and I quit and I said, ‘I can do this.’ Well, I took a lot of falls along the way, I learned through experience of dealing installations, working with people. I do have a way of working with people that makes them feel comfortable, that makes them feel part of the solution, not standing on the sidelines while I come up with all of the answers. It was very organic, no pun intended, a very organic way to get started in this industry but it was almost like I had done it in a previous life time, I can’t explain it but it was one of those things that you just can’t explain.
Dr. Lisa: You had an intuitive knowledge about what you needed to do to work with the earth and to also work with people who were also helping you steward the earth?
Ted: Yes I did. I was very fortunate. As I have matured through the business I’ve worked with an Indian Shaman in North West for four years and work with Caroline Mace which you may have seen and other people who have informed me about seeing a deeper connection with our planet.
Genevieve: Have you found when you work with your clients that when you understand their relationship and your relationship to them you can create a more inviting space for them that brings them outside? Is that part of what you do?
Ted: Oh, very much so. Sometimes they think it’s just a matter of, I want to put in some plants and make home prettier but it’s very … I take them on a journey. It doesn’t have to be an expensive journey, it can be, sometimes if their mom has died or if their uncle has died that they loved, we create a sacred area for them to honor their lives and to go to reflect and meditate. They can be very simple installations but they’re very powerful.
Genevieve: That’s an interesting part of Shamanism actually, isn’t it? That not only can nature bring something to you but you can go and leave something of yourself in a sacred place.
Ted: That’s precisely the point. When I used to go out on my journey quest with Lynch, we used to go out in the desert and we would always leave … I had a little pouch and I would get something out of my little pouch and I would leave it and I would take a stone back with me but I would always leave something. He taught me how to see. We would pass a road runner, we would pass a hawk and I’d say, ‘Look Lynch, a hawk,’ and he’d say, ‘Ted, we just passed five.’ Or I’d be standing very still, one of the things we had to do, disciplines we had to do was to stand absolutely still and just watch all the wildlife come around us. What would appear was a road runner and after it was all over I said, ‘The road runner was there,’ and he said, ‘Ted, there were three more behind you, or behind the other side. You just weren’t watching.’
Nature appears to us and speaks to us and talks to us in ways that are most extra ordinary. I was in Freeport, Maine and I was giving a dedication. We blessed this house, I brought the sage and I brought the feathers and I saged the area. There was booth in the garden and I said that I liked it. I had the couple join me and I saged and I raised my shell up to invite, I said, ‘I’d like to invite mother nature to join us today.’ It was October and in a moment’s notice, in that instant a thousand birds descended into the trees. It was deafening, it was total silence and then it was just deafening. They joined us and I had, my sermon was only like five minutes long and when I was done I said, ‘I’d like to thank you black birds for joining us today,’ and I raised my feather and my shell up and they left, just like that. Just that very instant and it was quiet again.
They looked at me like, ‘Who are you?’ and I said, ‘Look guys, this wasn’t me. There is no gift here. This is reaching out to nature so nature can talk to us and communicate with us.’ This has happened to me time and time again. I don’t talk about it a lot because some people think you’re crazy but it really is there.
Dr. Lisa: Part of what I know you’re trying to do in your book Reunion is to get people back to this fundamental aspect of life. I’m reading this paragraph about seeds.
Actually it talks about World War two and the beginning of seed savers but I like this idea of seeds because it’s something that continues to exist as life even when life itself is threatened. Seed is a very big deal, it’s very meaning connotes totality. Life producing life in a constant chain; it’s the chicken and the egg separated by a little calendar time.
All living things, from a fungus to a super bowl quarterback begin as some form of seed. It comes to the seed that through the grace of good soil, water and a cooperative climate becomes the food that sustains us. Keeping it whole and safe must be instinctual. Let me do read this once again, and it comes to the seed that through the grace of good soil, water and a cooperative climate becomes the food that sustains us. Keeping it whole and safe must be instinctual at least for the many scientists who spend their lives wondering at its miracles and saving it for future generations.
There is this importance to maintaining that essence even when things are being threatened. Do you believe that we are in a state of threat right now?
Ted: Oh, there is no question. I think that we, this is not a doomsday thing that I’m talking about but we basically have betrayed the earth and betrayed our connection to the earth for the sake of short term gain. Natural forces don’t work like that. Natural forces take time. It’s taken millions upon hundreds of millions of years, billions of years, to make this planet and in a hundred years we’ve destroyed it or we’re working very hard to destroy it. That doesn’t mean that we have to do with nothing or have nothing, but we have to be conscious about the choices we make.
Sustainability issues are huge right now, they’re going to get even bigger for our children. I’m 55, I think I probably will have lived at the time of the most incredible resource depletion rate that has ever existed on this planet. In just my short time born from 1956. By the way, I was born on Earth Day and my book arrived on my doorstep, from when it was published, it took three years to publish my book, it arrived on my doorstep on my birthday; the night before my birthday.
That’s irrelevant but it’s just interesting how the universe continually speaks to us and affirms that hey, you are on the right track. These are not just synchronicities or just … they are synchronicities but they are not happenchance or luck things, they’re communications.
Genevieve: It brings to mind when the tsunami in Southeast Asia occurred and there were warning signs that the local inhabitants and villagers knew because the tide sucked way out an hour before the tsunami occurred. But all the people who were, the tourists and the people who are trying to recreate did not see this incredible change. All of the villagers went, not all but most of them went to the high lands but the rest of the tourist community was left on the beaches because they weren’t paying attention. I know that’s a terrible tragedy but an example of how we can get really cut off from what’s all around us.
Ted: That is such a good … I love that story and it is true of course; thank you for sharing that.
Genevieve: As someone who is connected to earth are you seeing the weathers in nature that show us we’re under this threat?
Ted: Yes. There is three points that I’d like to make about that. One is the crome of mass ejection from the sun, the other is the El Niño effect and the other is carbon. It’s put here by man, this massive carbon inputs. Coal fire power plants go online in China about every two or three weeks; we’ve got a huge amount of carbon released from China and other developing nations.
Genevieve: What’s the El Niño effect?
Ted: They’re natural weather occurrences. I’m going to give you a very unscientific term but it’s the ebb and flow of natural forces in the weather patterns. It sometimes moves its way … southern winds and things move up north and cause distorted climatic conditions and it comes in ebbs and flows. I think it’s about seven or ten year cycles. Just coincidentally we’ve got the sun acting up and the center El Nino at the same time.
Dr. Lisa: These are the signs that we haven’t been doing … at least the man’s part of it is a sign that we haven’t been doing as good of a job as we could be. Are there signs of hope that you’ve discerned? Are there some things that are telling you that maybe we are being a little bit more mindful than we used to be?
Ted: Oh, absolutely. My book is very good about describing all kinds of ways for us to do things on our own and take back this power. What I heard a lot when I was writing the book is people would say, ‘Oh, Ted I’m just one person, what am I supposed to do?’ The power of one is huge; Gandhi was one, Christ was one, Martin Luther King was one.
We all have a responsibility in this role and we feel, the human condition is greatly improved when we actually part of something and help with the solution. That’s part of what makes the human spirit grow and it’s not easy. But life isn’t easy and people who live difficult lives usually are some of the most interesting people you’ll ever meet. Life isn’t about being easy and comfortable.
Dr. Lisa: This is the whole Victor Franco man search for meaning. You live in a concentration camp and you come out the other side and you realize that, ‘Okay conflict can create life and hope.’ Do you have some suggestions for people who are trying to be the one person?
Ted: Yes, I have lots of suggestions but I’ll try to be brief. Water management is very important. One of the things you have to keep in mind with fertilization is that phosphorous is very hard on fresh water sources and nitrogen is very bad for the oceans. We need to really, really be discerning about how and when we fertilize. We can use organic fertilizers, great, but organic fertilizers doesn’t mean it doesn’t pollute; it still has nitrogen and phosphorus. The run off that goes into the natural water sheds is, that’s what we’re struggling with in Maine, that’s why we’re having problems in our ..2.
Dr. Lisa: Is that some of these algae blooms that may be we see?
Ted: Yes, absolutely. It is the phosphorus coming off the roadways, the road systems and everything. Let’s work in communion with nature, in cooperation with her, not against her. We’ve worked against her for so long trying to keep it in the way we think it should look. We’re having to create new ways of engaging. I create beautiful landscapes, people love them. People just love them but they’re landscapes that … it doesn’t mean you can’t have form and beauty and everything like that but you also need to work, it’s and and both world, it’s not an either or world.
Dr. Lisa: Has that ever been a source of conflict for you? The work that you’ve done with Caroline Mace and some of the spiritual work that you’ve … the paths that you’ve followed in the past?
Ted: I think you have to meet everybody at their own level. That’s a matter of discernment, it’s not a matter of judgment. But some people are ready to hear the message, some people are not, some people are half way there. What I try to do is just push them a little further along the path just to say, ‘Get out of your head, move into your heart.’ When I start a lecture I always have people close their eyes and move it from your head and just feel your energy sink down to your heart. Through the heart that’s where the intuitive comes; it’s a female energy. Male is the head, female is the heart and the bridge is the neck. That’s why we have so many neck problems in this country.
Genevieve: Ted, how do people get in touch with you professionally?
Ted: It’s hard to remember all these websites but if you just put Ted Carter Landscaping Maine, I’ll come up. I’m right at the top.
Genevieve: Do you work with acreage of all sizes?
Ted: Oh, yes. I work with all types of land forms and sizes.
Genevieve: So if you have a small little postage stamp plot, still okay?
Ted: Those are my favorite actually. Yes.
Dr. Lisa: Well, I think this is a good place to end, the sense that we all have the power to make changes in our small lives, in our larger lives and starting with ourselves. I know that this is something that you’ve espoused in your own life. Thank you for coming in and talking to us about this today Ted.
Ted: Thank you so much.
Dr. Lisa: Today on our earth day edition of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, we have great good pleasure to be speaking with Penny Jordan who is a fourth generation farmer here in Maine who grew up in a farm she currently operates alongside her brother and sisters. This is Jordan’s farm and Cape Elizabeth?
Penny: In Cape Elizabeth, yeah.
Dr. Lisa: Penny you do so much more than just farming, although that’s in itself a lot. It’s interesting because you also have over 30 year experience in project management and business planning, you have a masters degree in social work focusing on community organizing and program design, I mean it’s just so many different directions you’ve gone in and yet you’re back to your roots.
Penny: Right, right. I came back to the farm in Cape Elizabeth in the year 1999 when Unum and Provident merged. I was able to go onto graduate school for my masters in social work with the intention of bringing youth to the farm. I had always wanted to do a nonprofit and really make it based on agriculture because you learnt so much from work ethic and just connection with your roots, no pun intended, as you work on the farm.
As I did that and completed that everything came together and I always say that my time at Unum was probably my best education for I call it my MBA in training. I took that and I started working with my brother and my father and decided that I didn’t want to leave the farm; I wanted to figure out how to take agriculture in our state and just bring it back to life. That’s been my mission from… since 1999.
Dr. Lisa: Tell us about your nonprofit.
Penny: The nonprofit never happened. It was, it had a name called Let Us Grow, and I did the whole program, design and everything as my graduate thesis and it really was a very good project but it never came to fruition because I became immersed in building the farm business, because I think many of you know that during the 70s and 80s agriculture in Maine took a nose dive as a result of the California market being able to move product to Boston a lot quicker. So you had to take and re-engineer your business and that’s where my MBA from Unum came into play. How you re-engineer your business and capture a market and create a brand and create visibility for your business. I think as we created visibility that just helped the business flourish.
With my graduate degree, I became, I would say, involved in a lot of different activities in agriculture because policy is also extremely important to me. Another thing that happened right at the same time that I came back at the farm was that we … my father wanted his farm to be a farm together and so we worked to sell development rights and we were the first farm in the southern Maine area to sell development rights which means we retain the ownership of the property, we sell the right to develop that property from a housing perspective. You can imagine in Cape Elizabeth that that was a huge, huge step because when people see land and they see houses, we see land we see food.
We transferred the business from my father generation to my sisters, my brother and myself. I think with that experience and that visibility and my understanding of nonprofit organizations it helped me gain a position and a consulting position with Land for Good out of Keane, New Hampshire which has three important programs. But I think the one that I really want to stress here today because it is earth day, is everybody who owns property really has an opportunity to share that property and produce food. At Land for Good we call them non-farming land owners. I would just ask that people step back and look at the asset that they have, look out at their beautiful property and say what is it that we can do with this besides have a beautiful green lawn, because we all need to be thinking more about producing food.
Genevieve: That’s an interesting point that you bring up that in the past people have looked at open land and seen houses but you look at them and see food. One thing that you’ve talked to me quite a bit is that any soil can grow food given the proper enrichment, so even if you’re in the suburbs you can have bees and you can have fruit trees and you can … How does someone go about learning how to enrich their soil to grow the food?
Penny: Well, I always go to my wonderful University of Maine cooperative extension and look at those resources that are right here in our neighborhood. You can also go to NRCS, at the USDA whether be in southern Maine it’s in Scarborough those are our resources.
Dr. Lisa: And NRCS is?
Penny: Natural Resources Conservation Services. You can talk with them about what you can do with your land. You can have your soils tested, and you send off to the University of Maine. There is a lot resources right here on the state and ever if you have a question, if you’ve got a farmer in your neighborhood you just go down the street and stop wave them down and say I’ve got a question. I don’t think you’ll meet many farmers who wouldn’t stop and talk to you about how you can go about having a garden or what you can do with your property.
A farm friendly is an important step for all towns to be taking. That’s phrase is out of UNH, they created that whole list of what makes … check list of how you make your town farm friendly.
Dr. Lisa: That’s how you make your town farm friendly and you’ve talked a little bit about how you make your I don’t know …
Penny: You can create your own little backyard farm.
Dr. Lisa: What are things that people can do to bring their farms into their… or foods from their local farms into their households. Where can people access this food?
Penny: I would say that the best thing that you can do when you think about how can I accomplish two things; one is having healthy food in my home, two is ensuring you have vibrant farms. If you have the time and the inclination which there is only a percentage of the population that will do this and I recognize that because everybody is busy. First choice is to purchase directly from the farm.
Genevieve: We have things in Maine called CSA.
Penny: Community Supported Agriculture. You’ll see that many farms offer this. It’s a key part of the strategy right now for creating a strong business because you get upfront startup dollars and you’re really buying into farm season. I know MOFGA has on their website a list of all the CSAs and it’s not just for organic farms, it’s for all CSAs.
Genevieve: Let’s just explain that you buy in and then every week you got a box of produce, or meat or dairy or whatever it is you’ve signed up.
Penny: There’s several different models, the model that I know that had been and I don’t know if Stacy and John have changed, but I know in the past at Broad Town farm they did the box model and then they migrated to a little self select. I know that Laughing Stock farm up in Freeport they do a box accompanied by add ins and a little select. Ours is a full self-select model so you come and shop at the farm stand and select whatever you want. You’ve really bought in and paid money upfront and you can either buy from our farm stand or we have travelling farm stand that goes to business sites which is a renovated school bus; the Partridge family bus.
Dr. Lisa: Hey, that’s very creative. You also go to the farmers markets?
Penny: We do not go to farmers market, we have an onsite farm stand, we have a travelling farm stand and we have online which is called Cape Farms Market. We have three different ways which you can purchase retail which is purchase directly from the farmers. With our online system Cape Farms market, we probably carry products that, the whole premise around that was to have a 12 month proposition from a business perspective to sell our products 12 months out of the year and to create visibility in Southern Maine for the breadth and depth of the products that are available 12 months out of a year for Maine farms and Maine fishermen.
We have probably 30 farms that are online market so you can order from vegetables to meats to grains to dairy, to whether… we started offering goat this last time around and so basically it’s if I achieve my goal, everybody will know … Everybody who shops on our online market will be able to serve 100% Maine produced food 12 month out of the year. That’s my goal.
Genevieve: You have a lot of things on the horizon, and you are one of the best spokespeople for farming in Maine so I know there is something exciting happening very soon.
Penny: Yeah. This is very exciting. The New England Farmers Union which I’m a member of is having a farmer fly in, they do farmer fly ins twice a year to Washington D.C. We’re leaving on 16th of April, and there were five farmers selected from New England and I got to be one of them which I said “I don’t know why, but I know I have a lot of opinions.” We’re going to fly in and we are going to meet with the committee, With Shelly and Company, and we’ll be meeting with the appropriations.
Basically the whole idea is that we bring farmers into Washington D.C to talk about the importance of the farm bill and that we do need to pass the farm bill. A key part of that farm bill Shelly Pingree has crafted really has to do with greater access to local foods. You’ll find that some farmers are talking about that yard, talks about the food in the, I would say more of the market part of it, but we also need to address production. My premise is that if you create the demand and you create the pull and you move the product in, the infrastructure is going to have to be created to support it. I think this farm bill is exciting because it’s going to force a truing up of our infrastructure in Maine.
Genevieve: The tail will wag the dog.
Penny: You got it, you got it. The only way we are going to build our infrastructure is from the ground up and we are going to build it up ourselves and so what I say is if you get money into the hands of the farmers they are true entrepreneurs and they are going to create the infrastructure to support their products and then in five years you will see Maine foods as the premier foods in the Boston market again. We are going to take it back from California.
Dr. Lisa: We have a lot of exciting things going on and I want to be able to direct people to your website so that they can find out more about the online ordering and the other things that you’re doing, so tell us where they can reach you.
Penny: They can find us at jordansfarm.com its Jordans with an S’ and Farm without an S, so jordansfarm.com , and there should be information about our CSA, about online market. We try to keep our front page pretty current, so that people can have quick access to what’s going on and of course Jordan’s Farm on Facebook, Jordan’s farm on Twitter.
Pretty soon Jordan’s farm is going to have a QR code so you’ll be able to scan us when you‘re in a restaurant. We keep trying to stay progressive. You can always drive out to Wells Road in Cape Elizabeth and take a look at the most beautiful view in Cape Elizabeth which will be there forever.
Dr. Lisa: It is beautiful, I have been out there. I’ve bought stuff from your farm stands so I can attest to that. People can also read about you in the Maine Magazine issue which was … I can’t remember when that was.
Penny: I think it was last August or September or something like that.
Dr. Lisa: We will link to it online through the Dr. Lisa website.
Penny: That was a good article, she did a good job on that.
Dr. Lisa: Yeah, I agree, absolutely. Thanks so much for coming in today Penny.
Penny: Thank you.
Genevieve: Thank you very much for knowing that growing food is important for our state. Thanks.
Operator: This segment of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is brought to you by the following generous sponsors: Mike LePage and Beth Franklin of RE/MAX Heritage in Yarmin, Maine. Honesty and integrity can take you home, with RE/MAX Heritage, it’s your move. Learn more at ourheritage.com and by Tom Shepard of Sheppard Financial. With offices in Maine, the Sheppard Financial team is there to help you evolve with your money. For more information on Shepard Financial refreshing perspective on investing, please email [email protected].
Dr. Lisa: Today on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast we have with us two representatives from the Tidewater Conservation Foundation. This is David Banks and Bill Lunt and they represent very different aspects of how we create open space, how we bring farming into our community, how we do with what we’ve had in the past and bring it into the future. Thank you for joining us today.
David: Thank you.
Dr. Lisa: I have Genevieve Morgan seating next to me.
Genevieve: It’s a pleasure to meet you.
Dr. Lisa: You were telling me a little bit before we came on the air Bill, about how you came to be involved in the Tidewater Conservation Foundation. But let me back up and first ask, what is the Tidewater Conservation Foundation?
Bill: The foundation was a piece of a development project which the town made a master plan for. The Conservation Foundation is the overseer of the conservation land. It’s a non-profit 501(c)(3) and our charge is to oversee how that conservation land is used and we have some perimeters that we have to work around and that is if there has to be anything that happens there has to be related to education, agriculture or the arts or a combination of all three. That’s how the foundation is operating down there.
Dr. Lisa: This is located in what town?
Bill: Falmouth. It’s between 295, route one Lunt road and Presumpscot river.
Dr. Lisa: Land road could that be named for your family by any chance?
Bill: It’s a possibility, yeah.
Dr. Lisa: David, you also live in Falmouth. Your primary job is as a realtor, correct?
David: That’s correct. I cover the greater Portland area, Falmouth is the town I brought my family up in and I live currently in the town of Falmouth.
Dr. Lisa: How do each of you relate to this project, to the Tidewater Conservation project?
Bill: I’m on the side of it that’s keeping the open space active and using it under the parameters that the town says it has to be used under. Dave is the fellow who brings in the proper people to make it financially happen.
Dr. Lisa: Those are both fairly important pieces in this day and age.
Bill: Absolutely.
Dr. Lisa: David what kind of challenges have you found, being really involved in a business and the financial aspects of all of this?
David: One of the most important part of this Lisa was to find people that want to buy homes surrounded by this community. It really turned to, back in 2005 when the development got approved, it become a real positive part of our marketing. The people wanted to be surrounded by this open space and the diversity of things that would be happening in this space. We were, at the very early part of this, concerned about how would people view this and it’s turned? The neighborhood is about 95% sold out and we’ve a total of 50 homes surrounding this property. It has been extremely positive.
Genevieve: Is that because people don’t want to live around farming? What was the hurdle?
David: I think one of the questions was that would you see a lot of different activities on the land instead of just seeing it not used at all? Worried about or concerned about the farming would attract more people on the summertime. It really hasn’t. It’s actually turned out very positive. It’s also opened up the wildlife in the community, in the open space and people enjoy seeing the different activity in the neighborhood.
Bill: To follow up on that a little bit, we started a very early partnership with the University of Maine Orono and the Cumberland County cooperative extension They are now, they have bought one of the units in the commercial part of the development. Their offices are now on Clear Water Drive in Falmouth. They have demonstration guidance going on out there and it’s all about the education. We are in the process right now, the foundation is in the process right now, of signing some longer-term leases with the cooperative extension through the University of Maine.
Also we’ve got a collaboration with the Center for African Heritage and Cultivating Communities in Portland. We’ve got three other entities that are involved in the education and farming side of it. I think that’s another reason that the people and the residents are more excited because they see that this is a really beneficial issue of keeping open space but not just leaving it laying there.
David: Yeah. It’s very unique for the greater Portland area to have this opportunity.
Dr. Lisa: Why the African education piece? That seems, not that it’s not going to … tell me, how is it connected?
Bill: One of the real strong issues that the University of Maine, the cooperative extension is involved in is education for teaching business people, small businesses to teach people how to farm, how to actually run a farm. This is why the Center for African Heritage and Cultivating Communities came out is because they can now bring out people and they can have people from the university that work with them and they can learn how to do the farming, how to do a business plan for a farm. The idea is to use it as an incubation so that we can go from here and move out to another place somewhere else in Cumberland County or even farther away and start another farm.
Genevieve: It’s interesting in what, two generations we’ve become so separated from how to farm so it seems elemental to the human experience.
Bill: You bet. I personally have been involved in farming all my life. My dad had a greenhouse which was abutting this property as well beside my house so I grew up raising plants and working with the ground. This is another reason that I got so involved in it. I’ve been teaching people how to compost the old fashioned way before it became chic. Composting doesn’t necessarily have to be done in a barrel it can be done just by piling it up …
Dr. Lisa: I’m so glad to hear you say that because people have been making fun of me for years because I’ve had a compost pile with nothing around it and I have been fine with it. But that you can actually do it, that’s legitimate.
Bill: Absolutely, and I personally, on my own property I have two compost piles. I have one that I’m building and one that I just let there sit and cook. Then I have a third pile that’s been depleted because I’m taking out of it. I probably generate somewhere in the vicinity of 3 ½ to four yards of material every year on just my own residence. My dad created somewhere in the vicinity of 15 to 18 yards through the greenhouse. It can be done. It’s a little slower than the fancy way but it’s really easy, doesn’t take up a lot of room and it’s very, very pleasing when you think at the end of the day you’ve got some soil that is really good stuff.
David: I personally brought up three children and I have two acres of land, total. I raised my family on all the garden needs were done by us. My wife and I did all the preserving, canning and stuff in the fall and we used to set aside about 700 quarts every year. My family lived out of the garden.
My two boys still live in town and my two boys and their families have now decided they want to use my property to raise stuff. I’ve now quadruple the size of my garden so that my two families can go along with it. We are working together now so you can do it on a relatively small piece of land.
Bill: Chickens, definitely a big everybody wants chickens now and the towns have really provided opportunities for the families to have their own chickens and stuff. That’s definitely a new requirement by a number of families still within the Falmouth, Cumberland, Yarmouth, Greater Portland area.
Dr. Lisa: When people are looking to buy a house and you are looking to sell them a house, they are actually asking, ‘can I have chickens here?’
Bill: By all means.
Genevieve: Soon it will be a cow.
Dr. Lisa: We are just going to work our way up on that.
Bill: I know it’s great.
Dr. Lisa: There are going to be people listening who are going to want more information about the work that you are doing. What’s the best way to find out about the Tidewater Conservation Foundation and your project?
David: We are in the process right now of building a website so that we can be out there where people can get to us but right now the easiest way to get to the conservation foundation would be to go through the Cumberland County cooperative extension on Clearwater Drive in Falmouth. It’s a piece of the University of Maine.
Dr. Lisa: Well, we should give them credit, the University of Maine and the Cooperative extension has come out as a name many, many times. This seems to have been an old fashioned farm thing but now it’s like becoming chic again I guess.
Bill: We had a tremendous amount of help from a very dear friend of mine who passed away a year ago, Stanley Bennett, who was president of and Oakhurst Dairy. Stan got, he is the one that really started pushing me harder than, I was in there to keep the land open but Stanley came along and said, “You’ve got to keep it open, let’s make it work.” Stanley Bennett and the Bennett family from the Oakhurst have been extremely helpful as well.
Genevieve: David you said the neighborhood is 95% full, how do people reach you if they are interested in the last 5%?
David: Thank you very much. Contact me at RE/MAX by the bay in Portland and again it’s David Banks. If you look at the trend and what’s happened in the last six years even though the market was a little slow this has been the number one neighborhood selling in greater Portland and it’s because of the community it surrounds.
Dr. Lisa: We know that on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast we are all about creating sustainable efforts for our health and wellness. It sounds like with the business and the land, it sounds like that’s exactly what you are doing so we give you a lot of kudos for that and thank you for being in here today.
David: Thank you for the opportunity.
Bill: Thank you very much.
Dr Lisa: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. You’ve been listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast show number 32, Earth day airing itself on Earth day April 22nd 2012. This week’s guests included: Ted Carter, Landscape Architect and author of the book Reunion: How We Heal Our Broken Connection to the Earth, Penny Jordan of Jordan farms and David Banks and Bill Lunt of Tight Water Conservation in Falmouth.
Of course we at the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast believe that you as a listener most likely celebrate everyday as earth day. We know that as part of our community you understand the importance of health and wellness and the connection between yourself and the place in which we all spend time, the earth.
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This is Dr. Lisa Belisle, thank you for being a part of our world, may you have a bountiful life.
Speaker: Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is made possible with the support of the following generous sponsors: Maine Magazine, Mike LePage and Beth Franklin of RE/MAX Heritage, Robin Hodgskin, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, Dr. John of Orthopedics Specialists in Falmouth Maine, Tom Sheppard of Sheppard Financial, Booth, UNE the University of New England and Akari.
The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is recorded in downtown Portland at the offices of Maine Magazine on 75 Market Street. It is produced by Kevin Thomas and Dr. Lisa Belisle. Editorial content produced by Chris Cast and Genevieve Morgan, audio production and original music by John C. McCain. Our assistant producer is Jane Pate.
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