A few weeks ago I photographed promo manager Nick Vaden of Higher Ground as a part of my BTV 50 portrait series. BTV 50 is an ongoing portrait project of entrepreneurs, artists, musicians and more who are making Burlington a great place to live. Nick, an Alabama native, helps bring all sorts of music to Vermont and has introduced me to bands and musicians I would never have known about otherwise. There are some killer shows on Higher Ground’s calendar this summer – check it out!
Before I became a photographer, I was a writer, and I dreamed of writing for a living. Sci-fi and fantasy novels were a staple of my childhood, and I devoured books, often burning through two or three in a week. Fahrenheit 451 was assigned reading in school. Intrigued, I sought out more Bradbury stories. I discovered the Martian Chronicles and the Illustrated Man, then delved into the dark twists of Something Wicked this Way Comes. Before long I had read the whole library selection. Like many of my childhood favorites, I revisited his novels every few years and came away with a deeper understanding of his works.
There is a beautiful and timely essay by Ray Bradbury in this week’s issue of the New Yorker. I hope you’ll take the time to read it. Here is one of my favorite excerpts from the Martian Chronicles:
“One minute it was Ohio winter, with doors closed, windows locked, the panes blind with frost, icicles fringing every roof, children skiing on slopes, housewives lumbering like great black bears in their furs along the icy streets.
And then a long wave of warmth crossed the small town. A flooding sea of hot air; it seemed as if someone had left a bakery door open. The heat pulsed among the cottages and bushes and children. The icicles dropped, shattering, to melt. The doors flew open. The windows flew up. The children worked off their wool clothes. The housewives shed their bear disguises. The snow dissolved and showed last summer’s ancient green lawns.
Rocket summer. The words passed among the people in the open, airing houses. Rocket summer. The warm desert air changing the frost patterns on the windows, erasing the art work. The skis and sleds suddenly useless. The snow, falling from the cold sky upon the town, turned to a hot rain before it touched the ground.
Rocket summer. People leaned from their dripping porches and watched the reddening sky.
The rocket lay on the launching field, blowing out pink clouds of fire and oven heat. The rocket stood in the cold winter morning, making summer with every breath of its mighty exhausts. The rocket made climates, and summer lay for a brief moment upon the land….”
― Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles
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Seedlings are moved to larger containers at High Mowing Organic Seeds in Wolcott, Vermont. These and thousands of others are destined for High Mowing's local fields, where they will be grown for seed production in coming summer months.
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Happy Monday. Here is a cute picture of a sloth.
A sloth climbs a tree in Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica.
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Last week, to top off two weeks of nonstop shooting, I headed to Craftsbury Commons, my home base while I picked up my project on local food and farming in Vermont, which I’ve realized I want to expand a little bit by exploring other areas of the state. Stuart Sobeleski, all-around awesome farmer, hosted me at Sterling College.
I found myself learning quite a few new things as I wandered around the massive greenhouses at Pete’s Greens, observed biodynamic farming at Heartbeet Lifesharing, and helped Sterling students slaughter and prepare their own chickens for this weekend’s commencement dinner. I think this, in particular, is important to show because there is a cycle of life and death involved in food production that most consumers would rather avoid talking about altogether.
Even in Vermont’s rural areas, this disconnect is apparent: In Nicola Smith and Geoff Hansen’s book Harvest: A Year in the Life of an Organic Farm, Smith shares how a local paper published a story about a traveling Vermont butcher, accompanied by photos of the butcher slaughtering animals. This caused a flurry of angry emails and protests from readers, who deemed the butcher barbaric and cruel, the newspaper sensationalist and tasteless for publishing the story. The butcher was considered one of the best in the state, but it didn’t really matter; most of us would prefer to not think about where our next hamburger is coming from. I appreciate the conveniences of modern life, but I sometimes wonder if food shouldn’t play a bigger part in our lives.
I plan to shoot more on related topics and look forward to a plentiful and beautiful summer of farming in Vermont!
Chickens before slaughter at Sterling College in Craftsbury Common, Vermont. Students and staff raised 50 chickens, with the intent of serving them up at the college's 2012 commencement dinner.
A Sterling College professor shows students how to place chickens into metal slaughtering cones.
A student cuts the throat of a chicken using a metal slaughtering cone system. One must be careful not to cut the windpipe, or the blood sucks into the organs and tinges the meat.
Metal cones make it easier and more efficient to slaughter and drain chickens.
A chicken, after being slaughtered and bled, but before going into the motorized tub plucker that will remove most of its feathers. The chickens are also dipped in hot water (150˚F) to loosen feathers first.
Students help pluck and eviscerate chickens for the weekend's commencement dinner. Several of the students, despite being vegetarian, participated in the class anyway.
Students prepare freshly slaughtered chickens in the backyard of Sterling College.
A student shows the inside of a chicken gizzard, which can be cleaned out, cooked and eaten.
Often, chicken feet are saved as a treat for dogs.
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