September ’24 Love Notes

It is a blessing to be the color of earth, do you know how often flowers confuse me for home?

Rupi Kaur

Sweet Blessings Beloved Community

We hope that Autumn has ushered you in with tenderness. The slow unfolding of this crimson season inspires us to reflect on the connection between rest and resilience. We’re inspired to echo the hardwood trees native to tropical Africa, like the Iroko and African Teak, whose seeds have mechanisms for dormancy that allow them to wait in the soil until conditions are ideal for growth. The hardshell seeds sometimes wait for years, nestled in dense soil, before pushing up towards sunlight. 

So as we soften into this season of rest and reflection, we wonder how our resilience might be strengthened and our seeds nourished to grow during this time.

Though we are nearing our slow season, there are still so many powerful and heart opening opportunities to be in community ahead, including a mushroom skillshare and carpentry workshop in person on the farm. We hope you’ll join us! 

It’s also that time of year again! Soul Fire Farm has laying hens available. Hens are “red sex link,” 1 year old, healthy, and laying well. They will continue to lay delicious brown eggs for the next few years. If interested, complete the Laying Hen Order Form here by October 21st.

May your breath be your anchor.

With love and solidarity,

Briana, Brooke, Cheryl, Christina, Clara, Crysta, Danielle, Hana’, Hillary, Jonah, Leah, Maya, Naima, O’den, Ria, Shay, and Susuyu

An elder in our community, Mama Ira Wallace of Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, taught us that every farmer needs to be a seedkeeper and that every seedkeeper is in turn, a curator of the genetic and cultural pathways of our food. After many years when the only seed we saved was garlic, Ma Ira and our friends Chris and Owen at Truelove Seeds trained, inspired, and equipped us to expand our sense of selves as seedkeepers. This year we are growing and saving seeds of Moyamensing tomato, Plate de Haiti tomato, skunk bean, pretzel bean, bee balm, garlic, and red leaf callaloo. We are especially enthralled with Bee Balm this year, known as #6 by the citizens of the Mohican Nation – a mint-family wildflower native to our region and an important food for hummingbirds, moths, butterflies, and bees. Bee balm, also known as Wild Bergamot, is steeped as tea for colds, flu, and pain relief.

Autumn is also the season where we turn our attention to storage of all these seeds, crops, and harvest items pouring in from the field. Our site team has designed and built thoughtful nooks all around campus for just that purpose. The equipment shed has strong wire runs from which to hang bean plants and garlic to dry. The greenhouse doubles as an herb and flower drying station. The coolbot walk in cooler can hold apples, cabbage, and roots for the warm months until the root cellar can passively cool. And the wide overhanging porches and barns have plenty of space to hang herbs and stack crates of seeds and squash. We give thanks for the abundance of the land and the opportunity to nourish our community. 

with Clara AgborTabi & Naima Penniman
Friday, October 4, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
In person at Soul Fire Farm

Mushrooms are magical organisms and teachers that have preceded our existence here on this earth. They offer medicine, feed us, and protect and maintain our ecosystem. Together with Black mycologists, Clara Agbortabi and Naima Penniman, we will grow our fascination and reverence for mushrooms; learn how to cultivate mushrooms on logs, straw, and wood chips; and understand mushroom’s wide reaching role in food and medicine in BIPOC communities for millenia. This is a hands-on workshop!

The last Hands on Introduction to Carpentry Workshop for the season is scheduled for Friday, October 11th. This daylong deep dive will be an opportunity to learn safe hand and power tool use, layout, measuring, fastening, and some of the basics of working with wood through a beginner building project. Learn more and register here!

We all have a significant and intrinsic role to play in uprooting racism in the food system, and the good news is that there are many right answers to the questions, “What can I do to help?” We’ve been deep diving into this question and sharing solidarity strategies far and wide.

We’re facilitating powerful Uprooting Racism workshops this Fall/Winter. Individual and Group tickets are on sale. Click on the links below for more information and to register. 

October 15 – 1:30pm – 4:30pm EST
October 22 – 10:30am – 2:00pm EST
November 13 1:30pm – 4:30pm EST
November 21 2:30pm – 5:30pm EST

You can also check out our Actions Steps to uproot racism in the food system here.

Join us for our last farm tour of the 2024 season on Friday, October 11. You’ll have the opportunity to experience the growing fields and agroforestry gardens, take you up close to the building projects, and learn about the farm’s history. Learn more and register here.

In September we brought our hands and hearts together to harvest for the CSA, garble herbs, trim and sort garlic, shell beans and so much more. There are four more opportunities to engage with the land before the end of the season. 

Join us for a day-long on-farm opportunity to learn more about our growing practices and contribute to our purpose! We’re offering a weekend Work & Learn at the end of the month. Check out our website for more information. Click on the dates below to register. 

October 16

October 29* 
*Note that the October 29 W&L features a community gleaning afternoon from 1:30-3:00. All are welcome to bring their bags and fill them with the final harvest of the year at no cost. 

With Yoko Takemura
Wednesday, October 30, 3 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Virtual

Soil health is key to growing healthy vegetables, which means higher nutrient density, better storage, disease/pest resistance and more. A healthy soil is teeming with microbes, which helps plants get the nutrients they need and also builds a more resilient ecosystem – one that can help tolerate some of the extremes of climate change. In this workshop, we’ll learn what healthy soils look like and 3 specific farming practices that contribute to soil health in a market garden (1-3 acres) context – no-till, cover cropping and composting.

Learn more and register here!

Ayo is the founder of Brickyard Gardens. While there, they were able to help harvest Carolina Gold rice at Mr. Daniel Fleming’s family farm, a neighboring Black farmer. This gold rice project is part of an effort with Chef BJ Dennis to revive this rice on their farm, this being the first time in 74 years that he’s seen this rice growing on the land. It was such a gift to witness and share in! Pictured is Ayo, her son, Kamau, and other harvesters. 

How do we discern the most effective and aligned social justice strategies? Is it more important to engage in civil disobedience or to work on legislation? Is it more effective to organize with our neighbors or to provide a healing space for overworked activists? There are no easy answers to these questions, but the butterfly of transformative social change can guide us. Each of the four wings of the butterfly represents a set of tactics – resist, reform, build, and heal. To resist means to directly confront systems of oppression through noncooperation – protest, strike, sit in, boycott, etc. To reform means to work within existing systems toward incremental change – education, electoral politics, petitions, etc. To build means to create new institutions that reflect the world we envision – cooperatives, freedom schools, community farms, etc. And, to heal means to address trauma and center joy so we can embody a healed work – spirituality, art, therapy, etc. Just as a butterfly cannot fly without all of its wings, a movement cannot succeed without all of these strategies. Ask yourself what is the intersection between your skills, passions, and the strategies available to you? That intersection is the body of the butterfly and where you can focus your energy. 

The Praxis series reflects on how our community can best put our values into action, sharing resources, ideas, and practice toward collective liberation. These will be shared each month in Love Notes and also on social media. 

Hello lovely SFF family! My name is Izzy Nuñez (pronouns they/she). I am an ecolesbian, musician, and food justice advocate in Colorado Springs, Colorado. After spending a beautiful week at Soul Fire in the FIRE immersion last year, I became the Director of Education & Advocacy at Food to Power.

Food to Power is a food justice organization working to cultivate a more just and equitable food ecosystem in Colorado Springs with a neighborhood food hub, food access point, urban farm, composting services, and educational programs. This summer, I got to lead the FoodSystems Leadership for Youth (FLY) program with 12 majority-BIPOC youth interns at our farm & food hub, and since I came into this work as a high schooler myself it was so special to get to work with the next generation.

Beyond Food to Power, I am also the co-author of an ecolesbian zine/artwork/article called The Anthropussy which was recently published in the Journal for Lesbian Studies. Some of the collaged photos in the zine are from last summer at SFF so check it out!

Get in touch with me at izzy@foodtopowerco.org

Soul Fire Farm grown garlic, trimmed, cured and lovingly packed to add flavor to your meals.

The variety is German Red Hardneck. This garlic is certified naturally grown using Afro-indigenous heritage practices.

And, you can plant it in your garden if you choose!
Proceeds from sales go toward our food sovereignty programs. Thanks for your support. 

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This act establishes the climate change adaptation cost recovery program that holds accountable the companies that have contributed significantly to the buildup of climate-warming greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. By holding corporate polluters accountable for putting their profits first, the bill would create a fund to help communities recover from climate impacts. Nadia Bennett spoke on behalf of Soul Fire Farm to advocate for these policies that can create a better world. 

Opposition to Weakening, Overturning, or Exemptions to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Rule 1071: Drafted, circulated, and delivered by HEAL Food Alliance, this letter opposes initiatives to weaken, overturn, or provide exemptions to Rule 1071. Rule 1071 requires financial institutions, including lenders in the Farm Credit System, to track and report business and commercial loan applicant demographics–including race and gender–making it possible to understand on-the-ground impacts of lending. This data helps inform policy that is beneficial to farmers, consumers, and our food system. 

Organic Farmers Speak out on Immigration: Drafted and circulated by NOFA Interstate Council, this letter requests “comprehensive immigration reform established by legislative action that creates fair and humane immigration policies, with a path to citizenship for the undocumented, and recognizes the humanity and dignity of all immigrants. We welcome the many farmers among the tide of immigrants, and want them to receive land, and resources for farming it.” 

Letter to Congressional Leaders in Support of a Resilient, Equitable, and Sustainable 2024 Farm Bill: Drafted and circulated by National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition and several other organizations, The letter urges the 118th Congress to deliver a 2024 farm bill that builds toward a more resilient, equitable, and sustainable food and farm system – and to reinforce that expediency to finish a bill this year must not come at the expense of policies that address hunger, public health, farmers, workers, and the environment.

Black Farmer Fund Virtual Skillshare – Climate Resilience for Black Farmers | October 1, 2024  5:00 pm – 6:30 pm  Hello! Please join us on Tuesday October 1st from 5:00-6:30pm ET for a virtual session focused on climate resilience for Black farmers. The session will include a presentation by Leah Penniman from Soul Fire Farm, highlighting the unique challenges and opportunities that Black farmers face in the context of climate change. REGISTER HERE

Mushroom 3D (in person) October 4, 2024  10:00 am – 4:00 pm | Mushrooms are magical organisms and teachers that have preceded our existence here on this earth. They offer medicine, feed us, and protect and maintain our ecosystem. Mushrooms are a wonderful crop to grow both in the city and on rural farms, and can be incorporated into many existing growing systems to offer healthy, nutritious, and medicinal food to people and community.  Registration required! Register here

Farming While Black Instagram Live  Welcome Regina Ginyard and Karen Washington of Black Urban Growers, on Thursday, October 10, 4 PM Eastern Tune in via Instagram @soulfirefarm Every month, experienced Black farmers and food systems experts share their knowledge about agriculture, land tenure, markets, food policy, coops, cultural foods, and more.

Hands On Introduction to Carpentry October 11, 2024  10:00 am – 5:00 pm @ Soul Fire Farm, 1972 NY-2, Petersburg, NY 12138, USA | Join us for a daylong deep dive into learning safe hand and power tool use, layout, measuring, fastening, and some of the basics of working with wood through a beginner building project. Registration is required through Eventbrite.

Farm Tour October 11, 2024  3:30 pm – 5:00 pm @ Soul Fire Farm, 1972 NY-2, Petersburgh, NY 12138, USA | Visit Soul Fire Farm for our monthly seasonal farm tour! You’ll get to experience some of the plants, animals and humans that grow here. We will guide you through the growing fields and agroforestry gardens, take you up close to the building projects, share whole-hearted stories, and answer your questions. Registration link

Young Farmers Farm Bill panel at Churchtown Dairy, Hudson NY (Leah) October 13, 2024  5:00 pm – 8:00 pm 357 Co Rd 12, Hudson, NY 12534 In honor of National Farmer’s Day, the National Young Farmers Coalition & HRN are partnering to screen the film Common Ground on Sunday, October 13th from 4-8 pm at Churchtown Dairy in Hudson, New York, and we’d love it if you could join us! Register for the Common Ground film screening here! We hope to see you there.

Uprooting Racism in the Food System October 15, 2024  1:30 pm – 4:30 pm | October 22, 2024  10:30 am – 2:00 pm  The Uprooting Racism training is a theory and action workshop for environmental and food justice leaders to uproot systemic racism in our organizations and society.  Registration Link

Farming While Black Screening at Sanctuary for Independent Media | October 25, 2024  7:00 pm – 9:30 pm 3361 6th Ave, Troy, NY 12180 | Join us for a screening of the feature-length documentary film Farming While Black followed by a panel discussion which will include local Black farmers and gardeners, moderated by Leah Penniman of Soul Fire Farm. Register

Community Work & Learn and Gleaning Day | October 29, 2024  10:00 am – 3:30 pm Soul Fire Farm, 1972 NY-2, Petersburgh, NY 12138, USA All are welcome for our community gleaning afternoon. Bring your bags and fill them with the final harvest of the year. Registration

Soil Health 3D (Virtual) October 30, 2024  3:00 pm – 4:30 pm | The 3D series is a multidimensional workshop series designed for B.I.P.O.C. (Black, Indigenous, & People of Color) to deepen skills in specific farming and land stewardship practices in a culturally relevant, supportive, and joyful environment. Soil Health Virtual 3D Workshop With Yoko Takemura of Assawaga Farm. Registration Required! Register here.

Farming While Black Instagram Live with Farmer D of Root Life LLC | October 31, 2024  4:00 pm – 4:45 pm | Are you ready to uproot racism and seed sovereignty in the food system? Every month, experienced Black farmers and food systems experts share their knowledge about agriculture, land tenure, markets, food policy, coops, cultural foods, and more. At the end of the show we have a GIVEAWAY to the person who wins our quiz. To free ourselves we must feed ourselves! Farming While Black Instagram Live with Farmer D of Root Life LLC A monthly program by @soulfirefarm

• The Legacy of Seeds: An Interview with Leah Penniman Terrain Magazine
• Living Soil with Briana Alfaro and Danielle Peláez of Soul Fire Farm Nature Evolutionaries

The food system was built on the stolen land and stolen labor of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian and people of color. Our ecosystem partners, Northeast Farmers of Color Network and National Black Food and Justice Alliance are claiming our sovereignty and calling for reparations of land and resources so that we can grow nourishing food and distribute it in our communities. The specific projects and resource needs of BIPOC land-based projects are listed on Northeast Farmers of Color Network and National Black Food and Justice Alliance’s respective maps linked above. We are so excited about these powerful opportunities for people to people solidarity.

One hand on heart.
One hand on belly.
Breathe in for a slow count of five.
Breathe out for a slow count of seven.

Repeat until you feel at ease.