Traveling Insights: An Inside Perspective

My view every evening I bike home from campus. Over the last few months I have been challenged. I have been criticized, praised, robbed, put down, and everything in between. My first semester of graduate school is almost over, and I have little travel adventures to speak of. The direction of this blog is going to change, undoubtedly, as will the trajectory of my writing in general. Having just accepted an internship position with Voices for Rural Resilience  and part-time work with Panache, LLC. , I aim to expand my knowledge of social media marketing, web content development, and apples! If nothing else, I would be remiss if I didn't offer some pieces of wisdom that these past few months in Minnesota have instilled in me: 1. Stand up for yourself. This can take shape in myriad ways, whether through a post-meeting email or an outright confrontation. Not one to easily engage in conflict, I have more subtle ways of getting my message across that still packs a punch. While t...

Tomato tasting of over 60 varieties at Cornercopia (farm on St. Paul campus) Tomorrow starts week three of classes. Week five of living in Minnesota. I dare say that despite the hiccups along the way, I'm quite happy in my new surroundings. No, I haven't hit it off with anyone in class and made a thousand new friends as a result, my job is far from as intellectually engaging than I anticipated, and find myself spending more time in the kitchen than the library...Despite my less-than-cinematic adventure, I find myself smiling at the way my co-workers pronounce 'bag', the way people around here cancel volleyball tournaments when it's 85 degrees due to excessive heat, and the fact that being a student means I will still be quite limited in the time I have to explore in the next two years. I am also starting to realize some important things about what I want for myself and my employees in a future business that I run, which is not something I could have said ju...

Best gluten-free pizza crust ever at Squash Blossom Farm So you know how at random times in your life things just come full circle? Well, that's happened quite a bit in my world over the past few weeks...some of the most notable: Applying for a job at UMN that would have me finding supply chain outlets for Kernza (links back to my roots in KS)--landed an interview but didn't get the job, in case you were wondering. :) Connecting with two Minnesota natives here in Minneapolis who I met in Lawrence last semester Seeing an article about what is happening with to the soybean market upon visiting the New Food Economy website for the first time (and having written about the topic here on my blog within the last couple of months) Having my fortune cookie's word turn out to be "fruit" and choosing to take a job with an apple farm in the same week Stumbling upon Cafe Racer, a restaurant my roommate recommended and then realizing it's catty-corner from ...

Amidst the chaos of moving weekend, I received a wonderful photo in my inbox today. My letter to the editor of the Beloit Call got published! I'll spare you the struggle of trying to make out what it says by just posting the text here for you to read. :) I think it does an excellent job of summarizing the impact that my internship had on me this summer. And to think I was freaking out about going over the supposed 250 word limit... Re: Reno to conduct 12 county food survey: Dear Editor, North Central Kansas is imperfect. It’s imperfect, but in the best kind of way. Ten weeks ago I could have told you a thousand reasons why living in rural Kansas is the worst idea anyone has ever had. I could not have come up with more than ten for why it is the best. Ten weeks later, and I feel obligated to write a letter of apology not only the community of Beloit, for not having given it enough credit at the start, but to the entire region of North Central Kansas. Time and time again I...

When you get plants as a parting gift you know you've done something right So...before I launch into a brief synopsis of my last day (and night) in Beloit, there are a couple of things that jump out to me during my first 24 hours back in Lawrence. 1. I love seeing so many cars around that look like mine! 2. The return of students has never felt so good. I didn't realize how much I enjoy the sight-seeing--i.e. young, attractive males. 3. I feel like I should give my parents a big hug for being so damn cool. 4. It's so weird being in Jayhawk country again! For the first time I actually get a small sense of pride for my association with KU. Up until now it has felt a little less embracing. But back to Friday. It started off pretty awesome, with our staff breakfast in the morning. I volunteered to bring batter to make pancakes (recipe below) using cornmeal I got from a local farmer, and decided to risk breaking into tears by reading my letter to the editor that I s...

I ran into a very progressive farmer the other day. And when I say progressive, I mean he has his finger on the pulse of everything that's going on with issues in the food system in America, what the trade deals are doing to farmers, and more. All I wanted to know was where I could find the nearest ATM, and I ended up immersed in a thirty-minute conversation about what we should do with the $12 billion check that Trump is about to sign off on for American farmers as a result of this tariff mess. For those of you less familiar with what's going on, this article  from Fortune does a good job of explaining some of the issues. Visited a shrimp farm in NE this week as part of the NCK Farm Tour What I found most staggering from our conversation (aside from his suggestion that we use the money to pay farmers to take their land out of production and encourage them to spend their free time learning about growing for organic markets) was his comment that, among all the professio...

I'm going to disappoint you all in not having a kick-ass photo of a golf cart to start off this post, but I promise you, I've probably seen at least 100 all together whiz by me or parked in front of a cafe. Being in Courtland yesterday for their 54th annual Fun Day was no exception. And neither was my time spent in Palmer for their fundraiser/auction. By far it was the most successful of survey collection events, as everyone was already sitting down, chowing down on a free will donation meal. All I had to do was give them my pitch and 9 times out of 10 they'd say yes to the dress! :) If you couldn't tell already, I'm getting over my fears of talking to strangers. This job absolutely necessitates that I do. Anyways, golf carts are the go-to for vehicular traffic around here. If it's not that, I run into a four-wheeler on the highway, just checkin' on the crops down the road from the house. It reminds me of many years attending races as part of the Sports ...

My Sunday baby-bouquet: Yarrow and scented geranium Why are rural areas notorious for being 'a great place to raise a family'? Aside from the lower crime rates and slower pace of life, I would think the ubiquity of mothers is one prime reason. I've come to realize this talking to others who are from the area or aren't and decided to settle here. The Planning Commission is no exception. My co-worker told me that being a mom wasn't difficult there because most of the other women had children of their own at some point, so working around daycare, appointments, extracurricular activities, and the like is not a big deal. The schedule is flexible as long as you get your work done. I absolutely love that mentality. I also realize that it is very hard to find companies to work for in urban centers that understand the obligations of motherhood and are willing to 'make exceptions' to work around the chaos that is childhood. There's just a different kind o...

I logged 200 miles the other day. 200 miles. I one day. Multiply that by 20 (five days a week for four weeks), and you’ve got about 4000 miles at least that I’ve probably put on the company vehicles this summer as part of my internship. On the drive back to the office one evening I reflected on how far apart things are out here. It takes twenty minutes to get to the next town, thirty to the one after. The vehicles that populate the roads are mostly SUV’s, pick-up trucks, things that can tow a boat, a livestock trailer. They’ve all got their deer guard, some with a “Make America Great Again” sticker…few are compact and get anything better than 15 miles to the gallon. It’s part of the culture out here to drive something robust, to serve all your towing needs. And as much as it pains me to be the smallest thing on the road (with my tiny Mazda 2, bike rack and all), it is in no way realistic for me to expect those around me to up and switch their vehicle of choice ...

One of the best things about being on the road, alone, for many hours in a day, is the benefit of reflecting. How I should cherish these moments before I begin graduate school (and strive to find pockets of time to relax moving forward)! They are too valuable to be discounted. Lot of cool thoughts came to mind today as I made my rounds from Cuba to Washington to Greenleaf to Linn to Palmer and finally back to Beloit. Among them were the invention of a job as agricultural marketing specialist, the possibility of satellite grocery distributors, and the epiphany that senior citizens and college students have a lot more in common than they might realize when it comes to food. Hence, the title of my post today. Cool engraving in downtown Washington, KS I'm very excited to share this with my readers because it has the potential to transform your marketing angle when it comes to selling food. There is of course the assumption that some of my readers are selling food. :) If no...

Admit it. We love to hate Facebook. It gives us an opportunity to show off the best parts of our lives while concealing the sad moments, the everyday blah that is our lives. We can connect to friends all over the world, people we may never meet in person but have so much in common with. It's also ubiquitous, and not necessarily in a good way. Used as a login for various websites so that we don't have to create new usernames and passwords...the way we converse has even changed. Do people keep asking them to 'like' you too? Why should our affection for each other have to be so publicly on display? On the flip side, Facebook allows for ultra-stalking, like we've never seen before. It has ruined relationships, made people overly analytical about their own relationship status...is it 'Facebook official' yet? Yet there is another angle that's talked about less, which is worth discussing. For example, how have rural businesses harnessed the power of Facebook...