Really? This is my job?

Tomorrow I take off on my first trip as a Camp Chef with Backroads, the #1 Active Travel Company in the World (yep, already plugging away!)

I'll be cooking for 30 people as we visit Bryce Canyon, the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, and Zion National Park over the next week. No doubt my first trip is going to be hectic trying to get all the meals out on time, but hopefully I will have a bit of time to explore and relax in the parks, and play with my new camera...

More when I return next weekend!

The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

A friend of mine brought this poem by Wendell Berry to my attention, and I liked it so much I thought I would pass it along (italics are mine)...

The Mad Farmer Liberation Front


Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

In the Canyons

A View of My Kitchen

Amigos reunidos

While home in NC in May, I had a great visit from my good Peace Corp
friend Andrew Wulf, who now is my good fishing buddy. He keenly took the flyrod and in no time at all was casting well and catching beautiful brookies like this one below, appropriately on a Royal Wulff.



Another good PC friend Brian joined us for a few days as well--we did a gorgeous 3-day hike on the Art Loeb trail which wanders through the Shining Rock Wilderness Area (home of Cold Mountain) in the Pisgah National Forest.




[Photos courtesy of Andrew's brand spanking new Canon]

Home on the Farm