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Welcome to STEPHANIEOCKO.COM
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Exploring Places Where You Can Safely Roam
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GET A SENSE OF THE BEAST!
Click ANIMAL ADVENTURES, above.
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START THE JOURNEY HERE
This site is designed to help you
let your imagination fly. It will introduce you
to some unusual travel books. These books do
not suggest the best hotels or restaurants,
but they do lay out the territory where you
might be able to find one interesting adventure
and link up with some of the finest travel
companies on the planet. So dream a lot,
plan a little. Then go. Enjoy!
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A tractor rakes the soil against the sunset. (Photo © Terrance Emerson).
BACK TO THE LAND
With food prices rising off the charts, wicked weather wiping out crops, and fuel prices pumping up travel costs, the cost-efficient vacation to take this summer is at home, where you stay put and plant every available inch of earth with vegetables. Urban farming succeeds on rooftops and balconies, and community gardens can be very fruitful, if you know what you're doing.
Fortunately, you can join a whole subculture of people who have seen the farming light and are willing to share what they know.
A big consideration is seeds.
"...Ninety percent of our food is grown from 30 hybrid varieties," according to Kevin Orlin Johnson, founder of Dallas-based private initiative Seedtime-tv, a television series and an organization dedicated to saving seeds from extinction (www.seedtime.tv.)
Plump and lipstick-red tomatoes and seedless watermelons may be picture-perfect in the supermarket, but they're clones. "Crops are genetically at a standstill," says Johnson, "while insects, bacteria, fungus keep evolving." When the pests catch up, it's doom for the species, as it was for the single species of potato grown in Ireland that led to the famous famine of the 1800s. And that spells trouble for future generations.
Seedtime has generated groups of seed savers, people who are consciously nurturing seeds that are part off our heritage. See for example, www.seedsavers.org/
Another major player in the future of farming is Seeds of Change. This organization has been around since 1989, growing herbs, vegetables, and flowers from "heirloom" and traditional seeds in open-pollinated organic fields in an effort to replace the seeds lost with the decline of indigenous agriculture. Genetic diversity is the name of the game, and Seeds of Change's research farm has preserved the genetic heritage of 1,000 varieties. You can buy seeds here and continue the tradition. www.seedsofchange.com.
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A field of canola under a bright summer sky. (Photo©Richard Goerg/istockphoto.com)
JOIN A VEGETABLE TEAM
If your green thumb has managed to produce some vegetables, and you feel you know what's working and what's not, become a Citizen Scientist for Cornell University, an intergenerational adventure into "the whimsical world of vegetables."
Home gardeners are encouraged to partner with vegetable researchers to share what they have learned and learn about the latest developments in vegetable variety, designed to ensure biodiversity.
Please see www.vegvariety.cce.cornell.edu/
Lots of vegetable basics at this site.
VOLUNTEER ON AN ORGANIC FARM
WWOOF, World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, is an organization that helps you, as a volunteer, find a sustainable farm looking for an extra hand; or you, as an organic farmer, find an extra hand.
It works out to be a cultural exchange, in any case, in which volunteers can learn a lot about local environmental sustainability. There is a $20 one-time fee for volunteers. Please see www.organicvolunteers.org/
BEAUTIFY YOUR COMMUNITY
If you live in a place that could use some tidying-up outside, and you want to challenge the next community over to do the same, join America in Bloom, an organization that gives awards to the space that looks the best after a certain amount of beautification.
Awards are based on eight criteria: urban forestry, floral displays, landscaping, environmental awareness, turf and groundcover, heritage preservation, community involvement, and, yes, tidiness.
Please see www.americainbloom.org/
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Coffee plantation worker sorts beans in Tanzania, on a Fair Trade farm. (Photo © Bruce Block.)
ALL ABOUT COFFEE
COFFEE is the second largest industry in the world, after oil, with about 100 million workers, most of them employed on small cooperative farms.
Just Coffee, a small coffee company in Madison, Wisconsin, sponsors several "delegations," consisting of anyone from coffeeshop owners to interested coffee drinkers, who travel to coffee plantations scattered around the world. There, delegates meet the producers, see where the beans are grown, how they are harvested, and learn about fair trade.
Lodging is in small local hotels, where you can discuss coffee with the people who actually grow it.
Please contact the Delegation Coordinator, Colleen Coy, at their website, justcoffee.coop/en/delegations.
JOIN A RESEARCHER ON A COFFEE PLANTATION
Ecologist Valerie Peters, from the Institute of Ecology at the University of Georgia, needs help collecting data on some of the subtler aspects of growing coffee: the influence of shade trees, and the trees' influence on pollinating insects and fruit eating birds, both of which influence the coffee plant buds, flowers, and fruit.
Living on a former dairy farm converted into a research station in San Luis, Costa Rica, in the shadow of the Monteverde Cloud Forest, you will do bee or bird surveys, or keep records of coffee plant flowers or beans, depending on when you go. You will also get to know the workers on the sustainable farms that comprise the cooperative, learn a lot about fair trade, the market, and coffee-bean pricing; and eat local produce.
Small teams leave in early December for 15 days, about $2,850.
Please see www.earthwatch.org/expeditions/peters.html#top.
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How a three-toed sloth does lunch. (Photo © Alexander Rybakov)
SLOW FOOD
It's a movement that started in Europe as a reaction against the frenetic speed that governs most meals, bought on the fly, cooked in a microwave, flipped in a frying pan, or eaten in a McMoment. The rationale is: start with the raw food, nurture it in the kitchen to its full potential, then take the time to really taste and enjoy it.
SlowFoodUSA is an educational organization that supports ecologically sound food production and encourages slower, harmonious food enjoyment. It sponsors programs such as RAFT, Restoring America's Food Traditions, designed to restore some of the diverse traditions that have been lost over the past 300 or so years.
ARK OF TASTE seeks to revive rare regional foods, such as Alaskan birch syrup and Buckeye chickens.
To learn more about the movement, and meet the people involved, drop in to their expo, SLOW FOOD NATION, 29 August to 1 September, in San Francisco, and learn how to eat.
For more information, please see: www.slowfoodusa.org.
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The best of Mexican food: freshly made guacamole, cheddar cheese quesadilla, and an heirloom "Dona" tomato. (Photo © Liza McCorkle/istockphoto.com.)
LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE
If you enjoyed Laura Esquival's novel, or the movie, this trip is for you. Join Road Scholar from the Baja to the Guadalupe Valley tracking THE CULINARY TRADITIONS OF MEXICO.
This is where Spain meets Maya. Visit a tortilla factory, a winery, and a brewery; and spend a whole day dedicated to chocolate, the sacred food of ancient Mayan kings and the favorite food of most everyone else.
Plus, you will visit private ranches and homes, where you will be given authentic cooking lessons. Once your appetite is piqued, you will taste fish tacos, another cult food for the divine. And if this is not enough, a psychologist will explain the connection between food and humans as you travel between stops.
Eight nights, starts and ends in San Diego, two trips scheduled for the rest of the year: October 25 to 31, and November 11 to 15. About $1,500.
Please see www.roadscholar.org/prog/adv-main.asp
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Lobster-boat fuel stop, Newport, Rhode Island. (Photo © Stephanie Ocko).
LOBSTERS, WINERIES, AND FOODS OF NEW ENGLAND
Travel from Rhode Island to Vermont and experience the activities involved with gathering the fruits of the sea and land on this trip sponsored by Elderhostel.
Spend a day with a "lobstaman" as he pulls lobster crates out of the sea off the Maine coast, and talk to local fishermen about the problems of fish stocks.
Move inland to visit a winemaker, an organic cheese farm in Vermont, and a sugar house, where the sap that comes out of maple trees is cooked into syrup.
This 7-day trip begins and ends in Newport, R.I.; trips leave in September and October; about $2,000.
Please see www.elderhostel.org/programs/programdetail.asp.
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