irresistible inspiration

View from the Davis Center on the campus of the

University of Vermont, 5:15PM on Saturday.

This weekend Gretta and I attended the 

31st Annual Winter Conference of the 

Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont.

This year's theme was Generations of Innovation.

Just a person with a dream in her heart, I was swept into the rich and diverse community of commercial growers, gardeners, homesteaders and organic consumers that is NOFA-VT. A finer crowd you could not find. I've come away with such inspiration and hope and renewal. Some of the best highlights of the weekend...

-Following tradition at NOFA-VT conferences, the morning session included a song. Nearly nine hundred people singing  Lean on Me, together, with no accompaniment...can you say goosebumps?

-Organic farming guru Eliot Coleman introduced his daughter Clara Coleman, the keynote speaker on Saturday morning. Now there's a few generations of innovation!

-Discovering the work of Ben Falk and the work he does to create homestead resiliency. 

-Spoken word poet Laura Brown-Lavoie at the TEDtalk format presentations on Sunday morning. Listen to a sample of her work here, The City Soil Speaks.

-A workshop on growing and processing oats (processing them is a big pain in the butt) and one on apitherapy (therapeutic bee products).

-Sen Patrick Leahy, Governor Peter Shumlin, and VT Secretary of Agriculture Peter Ross, speaking at Saturday's lunch, singing the praises of Vermont's organic farmers.

-Attending a workshop with Gretta on starting a commercial goat dairy. (We haven't told Batman yet).

-Watching a community art project come together over the two days, with the encouragement of Bonnie Acker.

this is one of the panels...a bit out of focus, but can you 

see the black faced sheep, the bee hives and all the beans?

Oh, and the woman sitting in front of me in one of the workshops had a tiny knife and fork tattooed behind her ear.