Another week, another market basket.

Bike shop

Farm Markets and Market baskets

It's been two weeks since I started working at Growing Power and man, what a cool job. Mind you, the majority of the time I am in a little office with the accountant, on my computer entering things into quickbooks, but every so often there is a little surprise change up. For instance, on Wednesday I was told I would be going to the farmer's market at Marquette University because the person who would normal would go had to do something else. So my co-worker and I loaded into a van with our produce and headed down to Marquette. This farmers market has been in the works for years and is the second annual, however bigger and better. This fall there are three farmers markets planned where students will be able to buy fresh, local produce, dairy, baked goods and more. Ands the best part about it is that the sustainability program at Marquette is sponsoring it, so students are able to use their meal plan and MU cash to pay for they food they purchase. The market lasted from 11am-3pm and what do you know, I get my picture in the newspaper!



One of the perks of working on a farm is access to fresh fruits and veggies. Market baskets are available every Friday, so I thought I would give you a little taste of what is in one. The great thing is they change every week, and you'll never know what you're gonna get!

Sailing

School and Such

Well, it's been quite some time since I was last able to post anything of substance on this blog, but I'm glad to see that Jamie has really taken it upon herself to keep the site updated and interesting! My first few weeks in school have been a cloud of honest confusion with fleeting periods of happiness and contentment. To say that I enjoy being back at school would be quite the overstatement, as I find myself more and more drawn to the life outside of the campus boundaries: I yearn to camp with friends, drink beers in bars, explore the state of Wisconsin and read literature as opposed to the ponderous works of historians I don't even know. Yet, having said that, I do thoroughly enjoy the intellectual challenge that history affords me, even if I'm not so keen on the insular politics of academe; the classes that I've been taking this semester have been fascinating and challenging all at once. The student with whom I study with are a great mix of ages and expertise. Many are older than myself, and all of them are passionate about their specific topic of historical inquiry, which always leads to heated and enthralling conversations in the class room. The professors themselves are nurturing and VERY personable; I guess it might be time for me to throw out my old preconceived notion that the large university professor as a man or woman of cold countenance and condescending arrogance.

The social life in Milwaukee is great, and I've been finding it much harder to balance my studies with all the options I have upon the end of work or class. I can go to numerous restaurants, lay on the beach or walk to the art museum. I've enjoyed getting to know many of the students in my Trinity Fellowship, and all of them are wonderful, interesting and open-minded.

Work has also been great, as I've been slowly learning my role within the Adult Learning Center. My relationship with the students has gotten off to a great start, and each day I have more and more visitors. I help them write their resumes, talk about their problems, and even do some basic job searching for them. This job, in all honestly, is a major demotion from what I was doing last year in Erie, but I like the fact that my job now carries less stress and affords me more time to study and read--two activies I'll be doing a lot over the course of these next twenty months.

Due to the fact that I don't work on Friday, I've decided to pick a volunteer teaching job at a local nonprofit known as the "Urban Ecology Center." The center functions almost as a YMCA camp within the city limits and offers classes on biology, ecology, rock climbing, canoeing and botany to inner-city youths and schools. Just yesterday I helped lead a class on bees, which was great fun; I felt like I was back in Ohio working as an Environmental Educator again. The image of children running through a natural prairie, swinging bug nets and chasing Monarch Butterflies amidst the shadows of two skyscrapers was energizing for me. Next week I'll be wading with a group of 5th graders in the Milwaukee River as we look for Macroinvertebrates! Should be fun!

I guess that this all I must update you on. through the semester I hope to write a little bit more about my personal experiences and challenges here at Marquette, as I attempt to learn how to be student again.

Cau!

I work on an urban farm

Never in a million years did I think that I would be working for a farm - an urban one at that. But here I am, two days into my new job at Growing Power, as an a assistant to the accountant. So you see, I'm not really a farmer...well, or an accountant for that matter, but I heard about Growing Power and their mission from a bunch of different people and they had an opening for a position, and here I am.

Growing Power is a 501c3 nonprofit and land trust that was founded in 1993 by a man named Will Allen. Will's parents were farmers, but he is quoted as saying that he never thought that he would be a farmer as well. But it's a good thing he changed his mind because this man has been an influential piece in the good food movement (or revolution as he calls it)

Simply said, the mission of Will Allen, and of Growing Power, is the make healthy food affordable to everyone (everyone meaning every human being on earth). And his thoughts, as well as the U.N.'s Food and Agricultural Organization, is that the only way to make health food affordable is for it to be produced and distributed at a local level. One of ways that Growing Power does this is through it's market basket program and farmers markets. Cool huh? I could go on forever, but I suggest you check our their website instead! (www.growingpower.org)

Kettle Moraine State Forest - Lapham Peak

Parking tickets

All around Milwaukee these little white and blue jeeps can be seen scanning the parked cars. They are the ones making sure that cars are only parked in certain places for no more than two hours and that meters have money in them. And it all is not in order out comes the clipboard and scanning gun to hand out a ticket.

All of the streets that we have seen so far have signs on that stating when and where you can and cannot park. This is normal for any city. However Milwaukee has a little trick up it's sleeve. On "main" roads, such as Wisconsin or Wells there are signs that tell you that there is no over night parking on those roads...what the signs don't tell you is there is no over night parking on any roads within the city (without a permit that is...). How you are supposed to know that is beyond me.

On Wednesday our friend Jake from Pittsburgh stopped for a visit on his way to Tacoma. He got into Milwaukee around 5pm, so we figured he would be okay to park this car on our street until the morning. But we were wrong. At 4:29am Jake was given a ticket because he was parked overnight without a permit. What we learned from this is that you can get a permit to park over night by calling the parking authority and paying a fee, but the question remains, how do you know to call them if you don't know that you need a permit to park overnight?