Maple Sugarin'

Liquid gold

In Syracuse we had four large sugar maples that grew in our backyard, just enough for making a couple gallons of syrup each spring.  Maple sugarin' is one of the things that I'd dearly missed about our time in Syracuse.  Each March we made plenty of syrup at Baltimore Woods Nature Center, and I also did demonstrations in my backyard and in city parks for city school students.  Faith was just getting old enough to understand some of what was going on the last time we made syrup in Syracuse.  I had always hoped that maple sugarin' would be a springtime Kauffman family tradition.

I've found it true that what we give up to follow God's call on our life is often given back to us in abundance.  So after two springs with little or no maple sugarin' this year I was given the amazing gift of being able to do more than I'd ever done before.  

Sugarbush set up - 19 taps, 180 gal. of sap, yield: 4 gal. syrup 

Tom Treharne has generously given the use of his land in S. Wales, NY, which he calls "Narnia", to be used for farming and educational purposes for folks in the city of Buffalo.  He sees all he's been given as a gift from God to be shared with others.  He's given up control over some of what is "his" realizing that the blessings that will be given back in return will far out weigh what he's given up.  And in just this one month I've seen Tom's gift multiply over and over, giving so much to so many.  

Suckin' down the sap!

I can't fully express my gratitude for what our family has been given.  First, we have a stash of syrup stored up for the year, but more importantly my children were given the amazing gift of being able to spend whole days with me in the woods.  Woodpeckers overhead drumming, bluebirds surrounding us with their serenades, white-tailed deer dancing across the field.  On warmer days, while the sap boiled away, we would steal away down to the stream to find stoneflies and water striders or play with clay from the banks.  

For my kids growing up in the city, days spent like this are so precious.  I grew up in the middle of a sprawling suburban development, but thanks to my dad, trips to the woods and streams were a very regular part of my childhood.  What those experiences have taught me and have given me is priceless.  This spring I was able to give a little bit of that to my children.

But the blessings go beyond just my family.  We also took four trips down to the sugarbush with kids from the House of Grace after school program.  Kids that rarely leave their neighborhood got to experience a whole new world, and gain a connection to the land and the ways it sustains us.  

Thirty students from Jessica's school (Tapestry Charter School) also came and spent two nights camped out on the property.  This trip also happened to be right in the middle of the 80 degree weather we had this March (which unfortunately brought maple sugarin' season to a screeching halt less than halfway through the month), so the kid's and I pitched a tent and spent a night camped out in the sugarbush.  All this nice weather mixed with the shelter building, clay face painting, adventure games, camp dinners cooked over the fire, plenty of marshmallows, and star gazing, gave the week the feel of summer camp.  This too was an amazing gift, allowing me to use my passion and years of experience as an outdoor educator to share with Jess' middle school students. 

Tapestry students help filter the finished syrup

All said and done we made almost four gallons of pure maple syrup, which even gave us some to sell.  With each pint I sell this story of generosity is retold, and the giving goes on and on...    

Generosity does this, one gift given becomes two, then four, then more and more.  The miracle of multiplication happens when we simply share what we've already been given.  May we all experience the gifts God has for us when we give our stuff and ourselves away.

"Green" Code

The city of Buffalo is currently going though it's first rewrite of it's zoning code in 60 years.  It has titled the new code it's developing, the "Green Code".  However, as we've gone through the process of its development, I've been left wondering what color this code really is...

Is it Mayor Brown's "Brown" Code, because of it's failure to really include innovative opportunities for greening a city filled with brown fields?

Or is it the "White" Code, because it is being shaped primarily by input from affluent white folks (in a minority majority city, nonetheless)?

Either way we want to let city hall know that they have to work harder to address these issues.  Last week we sent out a flyer to folks throughout the community to make sure the land use plan for the West Side neighborhood took into consideration the unique people of the West Side, and the unique opportunities the neighborhood represents.  We called for three basic things:

• Food Production: In cities where many of the West Side's immigrants came from, food production is an integral part of the "urban fabric".  Also many of these immigrants are looking to supplement their income by selling food, so safe commercial production of produce, poultry, and fish needs to be allowed.
• Pocket Parks: Parents lament over and over about the lack of playgrounds on the West Side (not one exists on the Upper West Side - not even at schools!)  Kids play in the streets, and we need the city to identify vacant lots (that it already owns!) to build safe play spaces for people to stay active in.
• Air & Water Quality: The smells from the sewage treatment plant, and diesel fumes from I-190 & the Peace Bridge are something the neighbors are sick off, literally (45% of West Side residents suffer from asthma).  Environmental buffers to prevent sewage from reaching our waterways and clean the air around our highways need to be established.

Many responded to the flyer and flooded the inboxes of city planners!  So far city hall has been responsive.  The lead planner for the West Side has promised to include these economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable initiatives in their plan, and the city's senior planner has contacted our church about getting more input from the community. 

The reason for the lack of input from refugees, the poor, and disenfranchised on the West Side are many and complex.  But we feel called, as people who do have the ear of city hall, to advocate for those that don't.  Our neighbors contribute so much to the West Side neighborhood that makes it a unique and exciting place to live, the least we can contribute is our voice and efforts to protect that.  

May we all contribute what we can to make our communities places worth protecting!

Lots

God has provided us with lots!

The fall harvest seems to be the time I most recognize this reality. Recent visits to the garden yeild tomatoes and peppers, squash and beans, carrots and collards, onions and beets. Land, which a year ago lay as an overgrown grassy lot, now provides such bounty and goodness.

At the farmer's market a few weeks back, I bit into my first fresh Honey Crisp apple of the year. It sent me into an immediate moment of praise and worship; our God is the Provider of lots of good stuff!

Well, this week God literally provided us with lots! At the city auction I bought four vacant lots in the neighborhood near the church.
These lots make up a quarter acre of land, which leaves us with lots of space for the kids to explore, lots of space for growing our own food in sustainable ways, lots of space to offer our neighbors room to grow their own food, lots of space for enjoying the abundance our Creator, Sustainer, and Provider gives us. Three of the lots are adjacent to each other at a corner two blocks from the church. The 100'x85' block that they make up will be used to offer plots to others in the neighborhood that want to grow food for themselves, or for a profit.

The other lot is a few blocks away (close to the house we hope to buy) and will be used primarliy to grow food for ourselves.

So as we enter this harvest and Thanksgiving season, we have lots to be thankful for; the abundance the land provides, and the provision of abundant land.

May we all experience the abundance God offers.

"Community" Garden

El jardinero (the gardener) is what the neighbors around the church know me as, and working in the community garden has given me fun opportunities to begin building relationships with them.

The neighborhood kids that worked hard helping us create the garden are now enjoying the fruits of the harvest. I've gotten Hector (the young guy on the left) hooked on pesto, but only after double-dog daring him to try it for the first time! The little veggie stand we put out at weekly BBQ's offers neighbors healthy local food choices. A real need in a neighborhood where a good deal of grocery shopping takes place at corner stores - not usually known for having extensive produce sections.

Another real need in the neighborhood is jobs, and training in job skills for the youth. A dream of mine would be to employ a few neighborhood teens by helping them run a small farm stand, or microbusiness selling produce to local restaurants. Today we took a small step towards that goal, as teens employed by the city's summer youth employment program, most of them from refugee families, worked harvesting veggies and turning the compost pile.

The garden project is also adding a splash of beauty to the neighborhood. Kids in the after school program created a mural with the help of local mural artist, Cornelia Dohse-Peck. Then last week, a youth group from Rochester helped install a native-plant garden in front of the church building. Small things like this can send a powerful message about the value of our urban neighborhoods.

I still have a lot to understand about the real needs of our community, and even more to learn about what it takes to meet those needs. But it has been a blessing to see the garden project begin to bless others in the neighborhood.

May we all be blessed with a chance to grow relationships that cause us to grow.

Food Justice

I open the frig, look in, pick through three shelves of food looking for just the right thing; you know that comfort food that will hit the spot. Not finding it, I call out to my wife, "Hey, there's nothing to eat in here!"

I speak often to people about the America systems that hoard resources in affluent communities, and about abusive corporations that hoard wealth and influence. But I have to be honest about my own hoarding. Is the abundance in my cupboards ethical in a world where my Haitian neighbors, and thousands of others around the world are starving to death each day?

Jessica and I have started to ask ourselves hard questions about how we relate to our food. Should we eat food that exploits workers, the environment, and our animals? How can we afford to eat ethically produced foods? What is the role of food in our life, survival or something more?

Last night at Baltimore Woods Nature Center, where I work, there was a community gathering where about a half dozen local farmers and their families came to share with us how they look to produce food ethically, and about the challenges they face in doing this. We watched the documentary "Fresh", which looks at creative ways people are overcoming challenges to producing food sustainably.

Can we partner with local farmers in new and creative ways to get ethically produced food? Can we start our own urban agriculture experiment? Can we save resources by eating less meat and being creative with the bounty of other foods available to us? Can we eat less overall, saving money that can be spent on ethically produced food, or shared with the hungry?

I would encourage us all, just as the farmers we talked with last night did, to ask hard questions about our food and how we relate to it.