Against the Grain

Rick Ford, left, and Adyl Cunamio pull weeds from a Swiss chard in a hop house at Longview Center for Agriculture in Collegeville.

This week is Future Farmers of America Week. When I was told this my first thought was; what kid dreams becoming a farmer? My mind wandered to overalls, pitchforks, and tractors. Going to Longview Center for Agriculture changed my perspective on what it really means to grow your own food, as well as all the different career paths one can take in horticulture. 

"There's a new generation of farmers that is much more vigorous racially and smaller in scale, and we're finding it's possible to make a living off of less traditional farming than the Iowa corn farmer," said Fonda, production manager of Longview.

"I think people are getting very creative about tweaking the system to their advantage."

Ice Sculpting Competition

 

Last Thursday I opened up our Divisions section like I normally do looking for something to catch my eye either to shoot for work, for myself, or just to go and enjoy. This time I got lucky and stumbled upon an ice sculpting competition. 

Located off of Manayunk's Main Street, just out of our coverage area, I couldn't quite convince my editor to let me cover it so instead I went and enjoyed it on my off time.  

On Sunday, master carvers from around the world (the furthest carver was from Thailand) worked off a single word for inspiration "obsession." I was half surprised none of them carved an ice replica of themselves after watching their reddened and concentrated faces work on their pieces of artwork for hours in the freezing cold.