Big weekend

One of the things it seems organic farmers do in the winter is go to conferences. This weekend is the NOFA-VT annual winter conference, held at the Vermont Technical College in Randolph. The conference is all day Saturday, it includes three workshop sessions, a keynote, a huge potluck lunch, and an all day (indoor) farmer's market. At the end of the day, there is usually some music and an ice cream social with really yummy ice cream from the Stratford Creamery. It is quite a show, attracting several hundred people from all over the place (which, by the way, makes for one heck of a potluck lunch).

The annual dilemma is which workshops to attend. I will be helping my friend Richard put on his workshop about farm profitability and mentorship in the first session. I am also committed to serve as a facilitator for the Specialty Potatoes workshop in the third session. And for the second session I may go to the Growing Organic Berries workshop. Or maybe the one on seedling production.

The thing about NOFA, however, is that it is really not only for farmers. There are tons of workshops for consumers as well, including a cooking workshop, a how to make lip balm and salves workshop, some energy efficient home building type workshops, there is one session with a film about farming stories, some on non-commercial gardening ideas, some political workshops, this year there seem to be a few new workshops dealing with historical topics, so on and so forth.

Anyway, this will be Waverly's first NOFA conference, and I think she is ready. She almost fits into the Carhart overalls she received from our friend Karen. Plus, she has her workboots from cousins Joey and Ro-Ro.

If you are even slightly inclined to, you should join us and check out the show. Maybe we will see you there!