Earth Day #32

Ted Carter:

We live so much in Western culture in our heads and we need to get down more into our hearts more full time and use our hand to heart connection in working with the land.

Penny Jordan:

The only way we're going to build our infrastructure is from the ground up and we're going to have to build it 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're going to take it back from California.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And with me in the studio today I have Genevieve Morgan who is my co host and wellness editor for Maine Magazine. Hi Genevieve.

Genevieve Morgan:

Hi Lisa. Happy Earth Day.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Thank you. I think every day is Earth Day, right? Since we live on this lovely planet.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, I think it should be and

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I think that's been sort of the goal of the Earth Day movement from what I can tell. And today we have joining us landscaped architect and author Ted Carter, who wrote the book 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 Morgan:

I think it's such an appropriate show based on what I've been reading in the newspapers about how this past year was the warmest year, April to April, since I've been keeping track of temperatures which whether you believe in global warming or not shows that something's shifting.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, there's always a lot of shifting that seems to be going back and forth. One of my favorite, I guess, theories which came about when I was studying biology and chemistry at Bowdoin is the whole Gaia hypothesis, 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. And as such, there is going to be a lot of shifting and moving back and forth.

Genevieve Morgan:

I always think of Horton Hears a who, that Dr. Seuss book, where there's the whole community on the thistle.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Right. And I think that's actually a very sort of medical and wellness sort of thing, where this whole. I think it was Leeuwenhoek and the microscope, and there's always a little something within a something within a something. And it is the macrocosm within the microcosm within the macrocosm. So 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 Morgan:

And earth plays a big role in the five elements of Chinese medicine, right?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Absolutely. The Earth is associated. The element of the Earth is associated with the spleen and the stomach. It is sort of the central thing from which things are nurtured and grow. And it's the. If you think about the late summer, there are five elements. They're all associated with the season. And of course, we have. We think that we have only four seasons in Maine. We probably only have mud season and snow season.

Genevieve Morgan:

Mud season and house guests.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah. So there you go. Right. But most people have winter, spring, summer and fall. And in Chinese medicine, we have five seasons, and there's that late summer season. So that is the season of the Earth.

Genevieve Morgan:

And what do people who have the earth element predominant in their biochemistry or their temperament, how do they manifest the earth?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, the Earth is a very sort of mothering, nurturing. You think about people who are sort of 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 really not what it's like in Chinese medicine. People who have this sort of spleen element, they do tend to be very nurturing, caring and giving. And what I notice a lot, actually, in women is over time, their spleen gets a little disrupted because they're so nurturing and they're so caring and giving that they actually kind of retain, in a strange way, they'll retain fluid and they'll become almost squishy.

Genevieve Morgan:

And the spleen is crucial to the immune system.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

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 texts, the neijing, it's probably not so much the spleen as we think of it in Western medicine. So the pancreas is all about enzymes and the ability to digest. So the spleen in Western medicine is really the immune system and blood cells. But there's always a little bit of fuzziness there. So 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. And I know that you, in your own life, have spent some time with seedlings lately. Is that true?

Genevieve Morgan:

I have. I've been nursing my little windowsill garden, and it's been so exciting. Now I have maybe 3, 4 inch tall plants, and 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're not supposed to eat food that's grown in the soil in the West End. So 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. And it's just been grounding for me and a terrific experience. So I encourage anybody who has any light, water and a pot to go out and grow something. Start now, and 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 Farmer's Almanac, you shouldn't be putting your seedlings in the ground until after the full moon. First full moon in May, then you're safe.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Okay.

Genevieve Morgan:

That's my Earth wisdom today.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Very good. It's good to have some Earth wisdom, and I hope that our guests coming up are going to have additional Earth wisdom for us. We can't wait to talk to Ted Carter, Penny Jordan, David Banks and Bill Lunt. And we're glad that they're here to celebrate Earth Day with us today. 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 and this week's Wellness Innovation is from the March 1, 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 bases of the Gilboa trees as spectacular bowl shaped depressions up to nearly 2 meters in diameter surrounded by thousands of roots. These are known to be the bases of trees up to about 10 meters or 32ft in height that looked 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 is changed the Earth. For more information about this Wellness Innovation, visit drlisabelisle.com for more information about the very innovative University of New England, visit une.edu

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

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 the April 2011 issue of Maine Home Design. We're happy to have here Ted Carter, who is a landscape architect and also author of the book How We Heal Our Broken Connection to the Earth, which was co authored by Ellen Gunter and for which a forward was written by a very well known individual known as whose name is Carolyn Mace. Said Ted, the studio is just resonating with all the positive energy you brought in.

Ted Carter:

Thank you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It's really great to have you here.

Ted Carter:

Wonderful to be here and I have

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Genevieve Morgan sitting next to me.

Genevieve Morgan:

Hi Ted. Happy Earth Day.

Ted Carter:

Thank you very much.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We thought it was appropriate to have you come in and speak about Earth Day because your book, which I must admit I haven't read the entire thing I started reading and I realized that this is pretty much the this is the core of what Earth Day is trying to do is to bring us back to the Earth and understand our connection to the earth. And that's what you do?

Ted Carter:

That's correct.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Tell me about what you professionally do and then we'll talk about some of the interesting sort of offshoots, so to speak.

Ted Carter:

Well, what I try to do, you know, in life we have job, career calling. We start out in life with a job so we can pay the rent and, and take care of the fundamentals of living. And then we move into the career aspect of our lives and then we move into the calling aspect. And I'm in my calling years. I'm 55 years old. I've been in this business since I was a teenager. And it started out very much as a job and making money, and it was all about making money. And then it went into the artistic endeavor, which was more the 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. And what I try to do is I try to incorporate the spirit of people's 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 and we're not separate. And we see ourselves as separate. And the head energy, sixth chakra 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 full time and use our hand to heart connection in working with the land.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What was your background? How did you get to a place? Well, even when you start with that, gotta make a living. How did you get to the place where you were tilling the soil and working with the land?

Ted Carter:

Well, my mother had an organic garden in the early 70s, very early 70s, and before it was really fashionable, it was kind of a hippie thing to do. And she grew sprouts in the basement and under lights. So I grew up with that kind of understanding. She grew up in the Midwest, in farm country, in Carl Sandburg area. I just. I don't know, it was a natural calling. I knew from the time I was 8 years old what I wanted to do. My dad used to. Well, he brought two big huge loads of sand in the backyard, a pile of bricks, and he said, go play. And we spent four summers from 8 to 12 while we lived in that house, building these amazing villages out of brick and sand and I used to take twigs off the tree and set them in the sand and create walkways and driveways and things. So it was fun.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So that was what you did when you were younger, and you then went on and got a more formal education in the type of work that you do.

Ted Carter:

Well, interestingly, I'm a guy that's been to the school of hard knocks. I started Soil and Plant Technology and I quit and I said, I can do this well. I took a lot of falls along the way. I've learned through experience of doing 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. And so it was a 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 lifetime. I can't explain it, but it was one of those things that you just can't explain.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So 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 sort of steward the earth.

Ted Carter:

Yes, I did. I was very fortunate. And as I've matured through the business, I've worked with an Indian shaman out west for four years and work with Carolyn Mace, as you have seen, and other people who have informed me about seeing a deeper connection with our planet.

Genevieve Morgan:

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 Carter:

Oh, very much so. Sometimes they think it's just a matter of, you know, I'm going to put in some plants and make my home prettier. But it's very. They. I take them on a journey and we. And 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. To reflect and meditate. And they can be very simple installations, but they're very powerful.

Genevieve Morgan:

That's an interesting part of shamanism, actually, isn't it, that you can not only can you nature bring something to you, but you can go and leave something of yourself in a sacred place.

Ted Carter:

That's precisely the point. And when I used to go out on my journey quest with Lensch, we used to go into 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 roadrunner, or we'd pass a hawk. And I'd say, oh, look, lynch a hawk. And he'd say, ted, we just passed five. Or he'd say, I'd say, I'd be standing very still. One of the things we had to do, disciplines we had to do, was stand absolutely still and just watch all the wildlife come around us. And what would appear was a roadrunner. And I said, after it was all over, I said, well, the roadrunner was there. He said, ted, there were three more behind you, behind the other side. You just weren't watching. So nature appears to us and speaks to us and talks to us in ways that are most extraordinary. I was in Freeport, Maine, and I was giving a dedication. We landscaped this house. I brought the sage, and I brought the feathers, and I saged the area, and there was a Buddha in the garden. And I said, and I'd like to. So 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. And it was October, and in a moment's notice, in that instant, a thousand birds descended into the trees. And it was deafening. It was total silence. And then it was just deafening. So they joined us. And my ceremony was only like five minutes long. And when I was done, I said, and I'd like to thank you blackbirds 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. And they looked at me like, well, who are you? And I said, look, guys, this wasn't me. I said, I don't have. There is no gift here. This is reaching out to nature so nature can talk to us and communicate with us. And this has happened to me time and time again. And I don't talk about it a lot because some people think you're crazy, but it really is there.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

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. And I'm reading this paragraph about seeds. This is what you have written about, actually. It talks about World War II 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.

Ted Carter:

Yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So seed is a big deal. Its 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. 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. Let me read this sentence again. When 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. So there is this importance to maintaining that essence even when things are being threatened. So do you believe that we're in a state of threat right now?

Ted Carter:

Oh, there's 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. And 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. And 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. And sustainability issues are huge right now. They're going to get even bigger for our children. And you know, 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. Just my short time, born from 1956, by the way. I was born on Earth Day and my book arrived on my doorstep when it was published. It took three years to publish the book. It arrived on my doorstep on my birthday, the night before my birthday. So, you know, there's. And it's sort of Irrelevant. But it's just sort of interesting how the universe continually speaks to us and affirms that, you know, hey, you know, you're on the right track. These are not just synchronicities or just. They are synchronicities, but they're not happen chats, luck things. They're communication.

Genevieve Morgan:

It brings to mind when the tsunami in southern 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 of the people who the tourists and the people who were coming to recreate.

Ted Carter:

Excellent point.

Genevieve Morgan:

Did not see this incredible change. And all of the villagers went, or not all, but most of them went to the highlands. But the rest of the tourist community was left on the beaches because they weren't paying attention. And that's a terrible tragedy. But an example of how we can get really cut off from what's all around us.

Ted Carter:

That is such a good. I love that story and it is true, of course, and thank you for sharing that.

Genevieve Morgan:

So as someone who's very connected to the earth, are you seeing bellwethers in nature that show us that we're under this threat?

Ted Carter:

Yes. There's three points that I'd like to make about that. One is the coronal mass ejection from the sun. The other is the El Nino effect. And the other is carbon put in the air by man. I mean this massive carbon inputs. I mean coal plants, coal fired power plants go on online in China about every two or three weeks. So I mean, we've got a huge amount of carbon being released from China and other developing nations.

Genevieve Morgan:

And what's the El Nino effect?

Ted Carter:

They're natural weather occurrences that it's the change. It's sort of the. I'm going to give you a very unscientific term, but it's the ebb and flow of natural forces in the weather patterns. And 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 this El Nino, I think at the same time.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So these are the signs that we haven't been doing well. At least the man's part of it is a sign that we haven't been doing as good 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're being a little bit more mindful of all of this than we used to be.

Ted Carter:

Oh, absolutely. And 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 was people would say, oh, Ted, I'm just one person. What am I supposed to do? Well, the power of one is huge. Gandhi was one, Christ was one, Martin Luther King was one. You know, we all have a responsibility in this role and we feel the human condition is greatly improved when we actually take part in 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 Belisle:

Well, this is the whole Viktor Frankl man's search for meaning. You live in a concentration camp and you come out the other side and you realize, okay, conflict can create life and hope. Do you have some suggestions for people who are trying to be the one person?

Ted Carter:

Oh, yes, I have lots of suggestions, but I'll try to be brief. I have. I mean, water management is very important. One of the things you have to keep in mind with fertilization is phosphorus is very hard on fresh water sources and nitrogen is very bad for the oceans. So we need to really, really be discerning about how and when we fertilize. And if we can use organic fertilizers, great. But organic fertilizers doesn't mean it doesn't pollute. It still has nitrogen and phosphorus. So the runoff that goes into the natural watersheds, that's what we're struggling with in Maine. That's what we're having problems in our.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is some of these algae blooms that maybe we see.

Ted Carter:

Yes, absolutely. And it's the phosphorus coming off the roadways and 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. And we're having to create new ways of engaging. I create beautiful landscapes. People love them. People, they just love them. But they're. They're landscapes that, you know, it doesn't mean you can't have form and beauty and everything like that. But you also need to work. It's an and in both world. It's not an either or world.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Has that ever been a source of conflict for you? The work that you've done with Carolyn Mace and some of the spiritual work that you've, the paths that you've followed in the past.

Ted Carter:

Well, I think you have to meet everybody at their own level. And not that I'm, it's not a, 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 halfway there. And what I try to do is just push them a little further along the path just to sort of say, get out of your head, move into your heart. You know, when I start a lecture, I always have people close their eyes and move from your head and just feel your energy sink down to your heart. And through the heart, that's where the intuitive comes. It's the female energy. Male is the head, female is the heart, and the bridge is the neck. And that's why we have so many neck problems in this country.

Genevieve Morgan:

Ted, how do people get in touch with you professionally?

Ted Carter:

Well, I mean, it's hard to remember all these websites, but if you just put. Ted Carter Landscaping, Maine. I'll come up. I've got, I'm right up at the top. So there's a.

Genevieve Morgan:

And do you work with acreage of all sizes?

Ted Carter:

Oh, yes. I work with all types of land forms and sizes.

Genevieve Morgan:

So if you have a small little postage stamp plot still. Okay.

Ted Carter:

Those are my favorite, actually.

David Banks:

So.

Ted Carter:

Yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

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 and our larger lives and starting with ourselves. And I know that this is something that you've espoused in your own life. So, so thank you for coming in and talking to us about this today.

Ted Carter:

Ted, thank you so much.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Today on our Earth Day edition of the Dr. Lisa Radio hour and podcast, we have the great good pleasure to be speaking with Penny Jordan, who is a fourth generation farmer here in Maine who grew up on the farm she currently operates alongside her brother and sisters. And this is Jordan's farm in Cape Elizabeth.

Penny Jordan:

In Cape Elizabeth, yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And 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 years experience in project management and business planning. You have a master's degree in social work focusing on community organizing and program design. I mean, just so many different directions that you've gone in and yet you're kind of back to your roots.

Penny Jordan:

Right, right, right. I came back to the farm in Cape Elizabeth in the year 1999 when Unum and Provident merged. And so I was able to go on to graduate school for my master's in social work with the intention of bringing youth to the farm. And I had always wanted to do a non profit and really make it based on agriculture because I think you learned so much from a work ethic and just connection with your roots, no pun intended, as you work on the farm. And as I did that and completed that, everything came together. And I always say that my time at UNUM was probably my best education. I call it my MBA in training. And so 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 fix out how to take agriculture in our state and just bring it back to life. And so that's kind of been my mission since 1999.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So tell us about your nonprofit.

Penny Jordan:

Well, the nonprofit never happened. It was, and 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 kind of took a nosedive as a result of the California market being able to move product to Boston a lot quicker. So you have to take and re engineer your business. And that's really where my MBA from Unum came into play. How do you re engineer your business and capture a market and create a brand and create visibility for your business? And I think as we created visibility that just helped the business flourish. And 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. And another thing that happened right at the same time that I came back to the farm was that my father wanted his farm to be a farm forever. And so we worked to sell development rights. And we were the first farmers farm in the southern Maine area to sell development rights, which means we retain ownership of the property. We sell the right to develop that property from a housing perspective. And you can Imagine in Cape Elizabeth that that was kind of a huge, huge step because people see land and they see houses, we see land, we see food. And so we transferred the, the business from my father generation to my sisters and my brother and myself. And 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 Keene, New Hampshire, which is I 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. And at Land for Good, we call them non farming land owners. And 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 I think we all need to be thinking more about producing food.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, 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 open land and see food. One thing that you've talked to me quite a bit about 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. So how does someone go about learning how to enrich their soil to grow food?

Penny Jordan:

Well, I always go to my wonderful university, Maine Cooperative Extension, and look at those resources that are right here in our neighborhood. And you can also go to NRCS at usda, whether it be in. In Southern Maine, it's in Scarborough. Those are our resources. And NRCS is Natural Resources Conservation Services. And you can talk with them about what you can do with your land, you can have your soils tested and that you send off to the University of Maine. And so there's a lot of resources right here in our state. And if you, 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 got a question. And I don't think you'll meet many farmers who won'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. And that's a phrase out of unh. They created that whole list of what makes checklist of how you make your town farm friendly.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

so 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, you can create your own little backyard farming. What are things that people can do to bring the farms into their food, from local farms into their households? Where can people access this food?

Penny Jordan:

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's only a percentage of the population that will do this. And I recognize that because everybody's busy. First choice should be to purchase directly from the farm.

Genevieve Morgan:

And we have things in Maine called csa.

Penny Jordan:

Do you want to Community supported agriculture. And you'll see that many farms offer this. And it's a key part of the strategy right now for strong, you know, creating a strong business because you get upfront startup dollars and you're really buying into the farm season. And I know MOFCA has on their website a list of all of the CSAs and it's not just for organic farms, it's all CSAs.

Genevieve Morgan:

Let's just explain that you buy in and then every week you get or every two weeks you get a box of produce or meat or dairy or

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

whatever it is you've signed up.

Penny Jordan:

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 that in the past at Broad Turn Farm they did kind of 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. So you've really bought in and you've paid money up front and you can either buy at our farm stand or we have a traveling farm stand that goes to business sites, which is a renovated school bus, the Partridge family bus.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

That's very creative. And you also go to the Farmers markets.

Penny Jordan:

We do not go to farmers markets. We have an on site farm stand, we have our traveling farm stand and we have online which is called Cape Farms Market. So we have three different ways that you can purchase retail which is purchased directly from the farmers. With our online system, Cape Farms Market, we probably carry products. 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 products that are available 12 months out of the year from Maine farms and Maine fishermen. And we have probably 30 farms that are on our online market. And so you can order from vegetables to meats to grains to dairy to whether it be. 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 months out of the year. That's my goal.

Genevieve Morgan:

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's something exciting happening very soon.

Penny Jordan:

This is really exciting. The New England Farmers Union, which I'm a member of, it's having a farmer fly in, they do farmer fly ins twice a year to Washington D.C. and we're leaving on the 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. And so we're going to fly in and we're going to meet with the Ag Committee with Shelley and company and we'll be meeting with appropriations. And 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 a farm bill. And a key part of that farm, Farm Bill, Shelley Pingree has crafted and it really has to do with greater access to local foods. You'll find that some farmers are talking about that. Yeah, that talks about the food in the. I would say more of the market part of it. But we also need to address production. And 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. And so I think this farm bill is exciting because it's going to force a truing up of our infrastructure in Maine.

Genevieve Morgan:

The tail will wag the dog.

Penny Jordan:

You got it. You got it.

Genevieve Morgan:

We're good at that in Maine.

Penny Jordan:

It's the only, the only way we're going to build our infrastructure is from the ground up, and we're going to have to build it 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're going to take it back from California.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We have a lot of exciting things going on, and I want to be able to direct people to your website so they can find, find out more about the online ordering and some of the other things you're doing. So tell us where they can reach you.

Penny Jordan:

They can find us@jordansfarm.com It's Jordans with an S and Farm without AN S. So jordansfarm.com and there should be information there about our CSA, about our online market. And 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. And 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. And so we just kind of keep trying to stay progressive. And you can always just drive out to Wells Road in Cape Elizabeth and take a look at the most beautiful view in Cape Elizabeth and which will be there forever.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And it is beautiful. I've been out there. I've bought stuff from your farm stands. I can attest to that. And people can also read about you in the Maine Magazine issue, which I

Penny Jordan:

can't remember when that was last. I think it was last August or September or something like that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We will link to it online through the Dr. Lisa website.

Penny Jordan:

That was a good article. She did a good job on that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah, I agree. Absolutely. All right, well, thanks so much for coming in today.

Penny Jordan:

Thank you. And thank you very much for knowing that growing food is important to our state. So thanks.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Today on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, we have with us two representatives from the Tidewater Conservation foundation. And this is David Banks and Bill Lunt. They represent very different aspects of how we create open space, how we bring farming into a community, how we do with what we've had in the past and bring it into the future. So thank you for joining us today.

Bill Lunt:

You're welcome.

David Banks:

Thank you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And I have Genevieve Morgan sitting next to me.

Genevieve Morgan:

It's a pleasure to meet you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You were telling me a little bit before we went, 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 Lunt:

The foundation was a piece of a development project which the town made a master plan for. And the conservation foundation is the overseer of the conservation land. And It's a non profit 501c3. And our charge is to oversee how that conservation land is used. And we have some parameters we have to work around. And that is there has to be anything that happens. There has to be related to education, agriculture or the arts or a combination of all three. And so that's how the foundation is operating down there.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And this is located in what town?

Bill Lunt:

Falmouth. Yeah, it's between 295 Route 1 and the Lundt Road and Prasumsca river and Lunt Road.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Could that be named for your family by any chance? Is it possible? Right. And David, you also live in Falmouth. Your primary job is as a realtor, correct?

David Banks:

That's correct. I cover the greater Portland area. Falmouth is a town I brought my family up in and I live currently in the town of Falmouth.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So how do each of you relate to this project, to the Tidewater Conservation project?

Bill Lunt:

I am 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. David's the fellow who brings in the proper people to make it financially happen.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And those are both fairly important pieces in this day and age.

Bill Lunt:

Absolutely.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

David, what kinds of challenges have you found being sort of really involved in the business and the financial aspects of all of this?

David Banks:

You know, one of the most important part of this was to find people that wanted to buy homes surrounded by this community. And it really turned back in 2005 when the development got approved. It became a real positive part of our marketing that people wanted to be surrounded by this open space and the diversity of things that would be happening in the 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 have a total of 50 homes surrounding this property. And it's been extremely positive.

Genevieve Morgan:

Is that because people don't want to live around farming? What was the hurdle?

David Banks:

I think one of the questions was that, you know, would you see a lot of different activity on the land instead of just seeing it not used at all, worried about or concerned about the farming, Would it attract more people in the summertime? It really hasn't. It's actually turned 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 Lunt:

And to follow up on that a little bit, we started a very early partnership with the University of Maine Orono and the Cumulative County Cooperative Extension. And they are now. They have bought one of the units in the commercial part of the development. So their offices are now on Clearwater Drive in Falmouth, and they have demonstration gardens going on out there. And it's all about the education. And we're 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. And also we've got a collaboration with the center for African Heritage and the Cultivating Communities in Portland. So we've got three other entities that are involved in the education and farming side of it. So 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 Banks:

Yeah, it's very unique for our community, the greater Portland area, to have this opportunity.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Why the African education piece that seems. Not that it's not connected. Well, tell me, how is it connected?

Bill Lunt:

All right. 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. So 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. And the idea is to use it as an incubation so that we can go from. From here and move out to another place somewhere else in Cumberland county or even further away and start another farm.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, it's interesting, in what, two generations we've become so separated from how to farm. It sort of seems elemental to the human experience.

Bill Lunt:

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. So this is another reason that I got so involved in it. And 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 if you do it properly.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

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've been fine with it. But you can actually do that. That's legitimate?

Bill Lunt:

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. And then I have a third pile that's been depleted because I'm taking out of it. So I probably generate somewhere in the vicinity of three and a half 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. So 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 got some soil, that is really good stuff. I personally brought up three children and I have two acres of land total. And I raised my family on all of the garden needs were done by us. And 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. So 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. So I've now quadrupled the size of my garden so that my two families can go along with it. So we're working together now so you can do it on a relatively small piece of land.

David Banks:

Chickens definitely are big. Everyone wants chickens now. And the towns have really provided opportunities for families to have their own chickens and stuff. But that is definitely a new requirement by a number of families still within the Falmouth, Cumberland, North Yarmouth, greater Portland area.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So when people are looking to buy a house and you're looking to sell them a house, they actually are asking, can I have chickens here?

David Banks:

By all means.

Genevieve Morgan:

Soon it will be a cow.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah, we're just going to work our way up on that.

David Banks:

But now it's great.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I believe that there are going to be people listening who are going to want more information about the work that you're doing. So what's the best way to find out about the Tidewater Conservation foundation and your project?

Bill Lunt:

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 Belisle:

Well, and we should give them credit. The University of Maine and the Cooperative Extension has come out as a name many, many times. And this seems to have been an old fashioned sort of farm thing. But now it's like becoming chic again, I guess.

Bill Lunt:

We had a tremendous amount of help from a very dear friend of mine who passed away a year ago. Stanley Bennett was president of Oakhurst Dairy. And Stan got, he's the one that really started pushing me harder than, you know, I was in there to keep the land open. Stan came along and said, now you got it open, let's make it work. So Stan Bennett and the Bennett family from Oakhurst have been extremely helpful as well.

Genevieve Morgan:

David, you said the neighborhood is 95% full. How do people reach you if they're interested in the last 5%?

David Banks:

Thank you very much. Contact me at ReMax by the Bay in Portland. And again, it's David Banks. And if you look at the trend of 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 Belisle:

Well, and we know that on the Dr. Lisa Radio podcast, we're all about creating sustainable efforts for health and wellness. So it sounds like with the business and the land, it sounds like that's exactly what you're doing. So we give you lots of kudos for that. And thank you for being in here today.

Bill Lunt:

Thank you for the opportunity.

David Banks:

Thank you very much.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. You have been listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast show number 32, Earth Day, airing itself on Earth Day, April 22, 2012. This week's guests included Ted Carter, landscape architect and author of the book How We Heal Our Broken Connection to the Earth, Penny Jordan of Jordan Farms and David Banks and Bill Lunt of Tidewater Conservation in Falmouth. Of course, we at the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast believe that you as a listener most likely celebrate every day 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. We hope that you will continue to be a part of our world. Download our podcast subscribe to our itunes Podcast on a weekly basis like us on the Dr. Lisa Facebook page and let us know how you think we're doing. We truly believe that what we're doing is creating a community of like minded individuals, or even not like minded individuals, but people who might be inspired by the types of fascinating people that we interview on a weekly basis. We hope that you'll let us know how we're doing and also maybe send us some ideas. Thank you for joining us on this planet, the Planet Earth. Have a great Earth day. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. Thank you for being a part of our world. May you have a bountiful life.