Blog 4 - House Advisory Prep 1

This a shot I captured of myself in my usual garb at the Arroyo Food Co-op; where this apron, I am an ambassador of the public in charge of fulfilling their needs in regards to what urban farming is able to provide

Growing up, I have always been fascinated with learning about the inner workings of nature constantly at play around me, whether it has been through collecting pill bugs in seeing what food they like (and which led to quicker deaths) or looking aimlessly into the distance as oceanic waves washed ashore a pebbled beach.  Making these observations have most always been tethered by a reasoning, an explanation that sought to answer the ‘why’ in the things I saw and tried to apply to the personal growth of my personality.  Today, the same curiosity follows me into my senior project centered around raising the curtain of secrecy around urban farming - an abstract idea whose various methods and consequences (both positive and negative) are complex and thus very hard in being attributed to a fast-paced revolution.  Working at the Arroyo Food Co-op as an ambassador for locally produced products in urban landscapes and seeking out a farm at which to apply what little muscle strength I have in tilling soil, I have met this revolution first-hand, and have gotten the chance to question its mystery and capabilities more than once.  Being the scientist I grew up to embody, I shook a hand with an idea I had known nothing about because it related to something I like - ecology and conservation of environmental rhythms -, eventually becoming even more lost with its many faces and facets.  My interest in nature and my project’s complexity in being more than a grassroots, green-toting trend is why I am hoping to understand more about urban farming, so that I may know more about this solution to the rising issues of farmer empowerment, food sustainability, and preservation of ecosystems, the solution that tethers this new form of brain-candy for me.  Then, it was pillbugs, now it is applying my career interests in environmental analysis to a habit of exploring that has always eluded me.  Accomplishing a taste of that something I want to study later in life has better enabled me to succeed in that something, giving me qualities I need to survive it and a background story I need in order to understand it.

Like these bottles of Cadia sparking water imported from Italy, I am entering another dimension of community sustainability, in regards to economy and the environment, by dipping my mind into urban farming; how I will fit into this topic equipped with the related interest I have grown up knowing will be the funnest mystery to solve during my senior project

This past time during my mentorship at the Arroyo Food Co-op, I helped my mentor Joy pour soap from one of these barrels into a sample jug; while pumping the fluid out, I dripped some of it onto the floor and so cleaned the surrounding floor space with Joy's and towel's help (this has been one of the most personable interactions I have had with Joy and was a moment in which I truly felt like the apprentice to a trade)