Harpooning Baja Mama's!!

As of the last 5-6 months a completely legitimate question consistently reoccurs…

Where the hell is….

Well I'll tell ya.

As of today I have finished a eighteen day road trip taking running me ragged up and down the California coast, today we finally arrived to our long term destination.

Esconedo Baja Mexico.

I am staying on a six mile long, by quarter mile wide peninsula about twenty miles south of the city of Esconedo with the head honcho of the farmer veteran coalition Michael O'Gorman.

Covering many miles, and meeting with many folk along the way for official FVC business we tumble-weeded down the California coastline on Tuesday had meetings at Sword's to Plowshares in San Francisco to discuss veteran case management/funding . (in the same neighborhood that my mando was stolen) :-( www.swords-to-plowshares.org

That night I stayed in the hipster mission district with my good friend Joey Braccio who is also a former Peace Corps volunteer and sudsy swilling cohort who recently moved to San Fran.

On Wednesday we had a noonsies lunch meeting with an organization named Food First http://www.foodfirst.org/ and discussed the possibility of developing the agricultural sector of a monumental project named the "HOPE collaborative" http://www.oaklandfoodandfitness.net/
to create a network of urban farms headed by farmers from our project to develop the "food shed" around Oakland. In addition we were offered an opportunity to write a book and have it published by our veteran farmers explaining their experiences transitioning from soldiers to farmers.

Six hours after the meeting we had a 2100 dinner meeting with a Neem Pesticide salesman in Los Angeles. I grew Neems in Niger, they are an introduced species from India and have a gazillion useful purposes from food, fuel, construction, medicine,and forage

Another two and a half hours after this meeting we arrived to our final destination of the day at another veteran farmer who owns a greenhouse hydroponic basil and three acre organic avocado farm named Archi's Acres near San Diego at about 0030. (http://www.archisacres.com/)

After an all to brief slumber we gave a TV interview to a local news station in San Diego in the early morn' describing our project work and then had a meeting with the proprietors of Archi's Acres on some ideas how to best start training other veterans to become farmers.

Another four hours on the road after this last meeting Michael and I finally arrived to this little slice of paradise….many I can hear the ocean from inside the house!!

Though again tomorrow appears to be busy, my hind quarters are refusing to sit on anything that has wheels and a motor.

I'm pooped. Time for bed.

But worry not, I do have a few more items to add that are in final draft mode and will be posted soon.

If I had a mando, I would jam :-(