I've returned to my home two days early from the four-day long Eco Farm Conference 2007, which I was supposed to attend for all four days. It's a wonderful opportunity to learn, to meet farmers and other people in the organic food industry and sustainable agriculture movement, and to enjoy life by the beach for a few days. However, I was felled by a severe cold-ish flu thing that is spreading like wildfire through my company. Last Sunday, there were four warehouser workers out of seven scheduled absent, and through the early part of the week there were many people out sick, in addition to many bringing their sick, coughing, sneezing selves to the office despite being sick. It's no wonder I caught it, too.
Before I succumbed to chills and fever and decided to come home, I went on an all day tour of several farms, a native plant nursery, and an ultra- humane, unltra-clean, organic micro livestock ranch. I also attended an amazingly interesting lecture on up-and-coming alternative fuels - alternatives to petroleum. I heard about and took copious notes on ethanol, celluslosic ethanol, bio methane, and biodiesel. Apparently, there are enough farts from the dairy cows in California to fuel all the vehicles in the United States. Isn't that amazing? I will blog about all these interesting things in greater detail in future posts.
In the bright wintery cold, listening to a lecture containing scientific principles a bit beyond my grasp, in a chilly wooden seaside chapel, a big mug of hot coffee from Cafe Mam was comforting and delicious. The Ecological Farming Conference, though supported by many sponsors, one of which is the company I work for, still feels remarkably homespun, pleasantly hippie, and un-corporate. Cafe Mam is fair traded, organic coffee from a cooperative of native Mayan coffee farmers in Chiapas.
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