Update!
I am exhausted. This was a really busy week for work, and it definitely shows in what I was and was not able to complete for my project this week. This entire quarter has just been a rough one for me and this week has probably been the worst yet. Despite all the bad, I feel supported by everyone around me and I am ready for all of the exciting non-research things I have to look forward to in the spring!
Here’s some of what I did:
Farm Worker’s Justice Day
On Wednesday, I attended the Farm Worker’s Justice Day morning panel. The panelists spoke a lot about the tribunal process and what to expect at the one coming up later this month. The tribunal process is the one of the most useful strategies they have to inspire change. The policy makers are not connected to the workers or the people who are at a ground level rallying for workers’ rights. The tribunal is all about inviting policy makers to come listen to the voices of the people who matter and make change through policy action. The date for the tribunal is February 27th from 2-4pm at the Capitol building.
Zotero
I had a meeting this week to speak to Amy Greene about using Zotpress. Last week, I met with Paul to talk about Zotero so it was great to make that connection between Zotero and using the Zotpress feature on WordPress. In order to prepare for the workshop on Tuesday, I needed to amp up my own bibliography for some practice. This always takes longer than I imagine it will, and I haven’t even added annotations yet. Part of preparing for the workshop also included making a demo website for teaching purposes, I’m glad I’m doing this now so that I have a resource for the next time I need to demonstrate these skills to a new group of people.
Pruning raspberries
On Thursday, I attended the Thursday farming workshop with Dave’s SOS. Dave lectured briefly about raspberries plants and how their structure determines how we prune them. I am still very new to pruning, so it was helpful to have the 
chance to work with raspberries after learning about apples and kiwis a few weeks prior.
I learned that raspberries only fruit on one year old wood. Prima canes shoot up from the underground ribosome and can grow about six to nine feet in the first season. Prima canes will only grow fruit at the top quarter of the plant. Second year wood, flora canes grow fruit on secondary growth (laterals) but will not produce fruit anywhere that fruit was produced the year before (top quarter of the prima cane).
The intention of the day was to top any prima canes to control height and to cut out any dead flora canes that would not reproduce.
Spring-Summer calendar
On Friday, I met with Sarah and Martha Rosemeyer to hear what they are envisioning for the Organic farm calendar. To catch everyone up, I am beginning work this quarter on a project that will truly begin at the beginning of Spring quarter. I am planning on taking the Practice of Organic Farming and will be taking on an independent project at the same time. For anyone familiar with Stella Natura’s biodynamic calendars, this project echoes that. The goal is to create a biodynamic calendar/Farmer’s Almanac style-book that combines creative writing, art, recipes, and research produced by students in POF. This would then be sold at the farm stand on Red Square. The first copy (proof of concept) will focus on either the spring or summer season and will be auctioned off at the farm-to-table dinner happening at the end of summer.
So far, I’ve been in communication with Sarah, Martha, and Dave. I’ve also started emailing Joel, an Evergreen graduate that creates biodynamic mandalas whose art we will possibly be using in the issue. Joel is much more familiar with biodynamics than I am and he has offered a few book titles that I will be trying to access at the library soon.
I’m thrilled about this project and I’m hoping that if there is anyone else out there interested in working on it, we can throw ideas around. This is a large project that we are hoping will turn into an annual thing, so now is the perfect time to share any thoughts or feelings you may have!
Creating presentation for interview
This next Tuesday (same day as Zotero workshop, I have great time management, you see) I have to give a presentation for my job. I work in Student Affairs and so I will be talking about supporting student activism on campus. I dug through a lot of my older notes from this quarter while planning it as well as finding a few resources about social organization and change within higher education.
A large portion of my presentation is about community building and the foundations of building community where dialogue about social change can happen. Schroeder and Minor wrote about the Six I’s of Community Development that are present in authentic communities where each individual is involved in the community, invested in its growth, and views the community as greater than their self. I used this model because it is similar to the models I have read regarding activist communities and social organizations and found that it will be most accessible to the people who I am presenting the information to. The main lesson that I am sharing with this presentation is that universities need student transformative leaders who are demanding change through action on and off campus. As a whole, I am offering ideas in my presentation about how to support these students (primarily through reproductive labor) and offering health and counseling services that theses students will need in response to the kinds of activism they are involved with.
The final Powerpoint that I am presenting isn’t quite done, but I will be sure to publish it somewhere on this website when it is complete.