July 3, 2009
	Pedigree Papers, Part II
	Here’s a brief autobiographical sketch I penned for the UK-based Observer newspaper's Organic Allotment Blog in 2007. Andrew Still of the Seed Ambassadors Project and I at the 6th annual winter cropping workshop, June 20, 2009. In recent years I co-founded the Food Not Lawns avant-gardening collective, which found its original genesis in Eugene in the late 90's; set up and managed the nursery for the School Garden Project of Lane County, the foremost local non-profit organization gardening with children; helped start the Seed Ambassadors' Project, a grassroots effort linking independent plant stewards internationally, and which continues to play a formative role in the stewardship of public domain food crops in and around the S. Willamette Valley; and initiated The Avalon Project, a for-the-community-by-the-community fruit tree nursery which distributes free trees to individuals and non-profits in the Eugene-Springfield area. I continue to play a primary role in the evolution of the annual Spring Propagation Fair, which freely distributes hundreds of varieties of fruit and vegetable crops to local gardeners. Winter cropping workshop at the FFLC youth farm, 2009. Springfield, OR (sister city to Eugene) where I am a settler, has one of the highest autism rates in the country. Almost one in five students within the Springfield school district qualifies as ‘special needs.’ In the spring of 2009, I helped found the nursery for the Community Transitions Garden, a project of the Community Transitions Program, which provides Springfield special-needs students between the ages of 16 and 21 with assistance transitioning into the adult world. The nursery, which I volunteer-manage alongside Kevin Hillman, a community transitions specialist, provides a welcoming embrace for students who help raise organic vegetable transplants for the Springfield farmers’ market and a broad array of local non-profits engaged in food-raising education. The nursery is located at the Food For Lane County Youth Farm, the farm of our local food-bank, where I am caretaker, live and garden. (The entrance to my garden-home is through the rose bower in the picture above.) All ages picking up seed to conclude the workshop. In collaboration with public-domain plant-stewards locally and worldwide, the Community Transitions Garden nursery endeavors to distribute the most ecologically-resilient food crops in our bioregion, in depth, organically, and in a timely manner. Many of these varieties are rare or not available commercially. We also focus on supporting year-round harvest. All material we distribute is open-pollinated. Chilling with the tribe. At left, Lauren Bilbao of the University of Oregon Urban Farm; to the right, Tobias Policha of the Institute of Contemporary Ethnobotany; and up front and center, fellow Roxy Music afficionado, Brendan Lynch of the Lane Community College Learning Garden. Spring ’09. July 28, 2009 addition: Influenza pathophysiology and natural therapeutics.
		July 3, 2009
	ascend