One of the unique things about traveling is the people that you meet along the way. Today we had two inspiring encounters with like-minded folks. We left New Brighton State Beach and stopped for breakfast at the homestead of Freddy and Ellen in Aptos. The family lives on a highly productive mini farm and orchard. Our rider David was impressed by how they were “quietly and methodically” putting into practice the principals of permaculture that we teach on Catalina. We got to sample from a wide variety of heirloom fruit organically grown on the farm. David’s favorite was a pink fleshed apple that he described as the crispest and most delicious apple he’d ever had, “it sparkled in my mouth”. Another highlight was Ginger the most well cared for cow any of us had ever seen . “Her eye lashes were miles long” said Jenna. Riders still comment on what a pretty cow she is. It was equally impressive that her owners grew and gathered majority of the biomass or food that Ginger needs to eat. Here’s a list of what it takes to feed Ginger daily:
- 7-10 pumpkins
- 50 apples
- 6 mangle fodder beets
- 30 lbs organic hay
- 12 lbs of organic alfalfa – but she only eats the leafy bits, not the stems.
The next bit of biking exposed another of farming. We rode past acres and acres of conventional strawberry farms. Growing strawberries in southern California isn’t a simple task. We got to see plasti-culture, a common form of agriculture to grow strawberries in several stages along the route. Fields are covered in a sheet of plastic and holes are burned into it for the plants to grow. The plastic helps with water retention, weed suppression, heat acceleration and fumigation - to kill any potential threat to the strawberry plants. As we cycled past some fields were just being covered in sheets of clear plastic, while others had piles of it on the side of the road where it had just been pulled off. As we passed by workers in various stage of protective clothing, it made a striking juxtaposition to the scene on the mini-farm earlier in the day.
The bike path through to Monterrey is long and scenic. Along the way we got the chance to meet Mike and Max who are biking self-contained (meaning no SAG vehicle to carry their gear like us) from Alaska to Argentina for the next two years. Our rider Jacob met Mike while we were riding through Golden Gate Park during Car Free Sundays. Alexis and I found him on the side of the road looking for Max. In lieu of using their maps that they left in San Francisco, they made a plan to just head south. Mike asked if he could follow us to highway 1. So we rode along with him (and Max once we found him) until we found the bus to grab a snack. We were inspired by their trip, and more than a few of us were temped to join along. They have already been riding for four months, with no complaints and a pretty easy going attitude, Like their countryman Courtney said, “I’d wish them good luck-but I don’t think the need it.”
Next stop, Big Sur
We’d like to take a moment to give a huge thanks to the folks from Grove Market Food for their generous food donation. We were able to walk away with:
- box of bananas
- bread, pasta, sauce – which we devoured tonight.
- So many greens
- and 10% discount on anything else we wanted to get
No comments:
Post a Comment