Davis kind of rocks
Well, I've now been to Davis, CA twice to visit my friends who recently moved there (Herman and Shelley and Chris). They are staying in Davis proper whole they wait for the land that they (Shelley) just bought to be vacated by a stubborn alfalfa-farming, Roundup-using tenant. Fortunately, there is 1/3 of an acre that they are using in Davis, and it's like a mile from their apartment.Things will sure be different when they move onto the land, though- you can't double-dig 65 acres with just a shovel and a pitchfork! And it'd be more like 15 miles instead of 4 to bike to the grocery coop. Did I mention what the sun is like out there? It is somehow stronger- I remember the first time I went to Sacramento. It feels like the sun is piercing your skin, at least at first. And we are all white, so they do everything they can to avoid going out during certain hours.
Anyhow, Chris has mostly been the one to show me around town. We keep using words like: "outrageous," "sick," and "just plain not fair!" to describe conditions there. There are bike paths on SO many of the streets. There seem to be 5 options for how to get from any point A to a point B. There are bike lanes that are lined with black walnuts, and bike lanes that go past streets lined with olive trees. Today we rode past a school, and the park next to it had to have been 2 acres. SICK! I mean, I would almost send my kids there (but I don't have any and I plan to homeschool).
There is lots of farmland around Davis, and UC Davis has lots of garden space. Yesterday we looked at a demonstration garden that is in the middle of campus. It's pretty similar to the one that I work on. 2 of their chickens were the same kind as one of the ones we have! Those poor chick chicks had no shade- they were just baking out there. They had no food and I couldn't figure out where their water would go. They came over to the fence (rather slowly) to greet us and beg for food, but they didn't say anything. Our chickens run over and talk a lot. After hanging out under an overhanging fig tree for a bit (far better "rad chill space" than the one we have and that people are obsessed with working on), we continued to ride around campus.
We got to see the garden by the Domes. This former friend of mine named Tim lived there when he was at UC Davis for a few years. I remember that it was represented to me as "2 acres" of garden that was next door, and I thought that was just his space. Now that I have seen it, I think that this was not the case. This garden is huge. It has individual plots as well as common areas, such as the mulberry (?) trees that we snacked on. Some of the weeds there were 2-3 times the height and width of the same kind of weed that I saw in other areas (we're talking like 8 feet tall). There is lots of space available. And there will be TONS of blackberries soon. How do those students have time to study with such a rad garden to work on?
One of the things that was so sick there was that there are SO many different kinds of plants, and the way that not all of the plots are occupied/active means that it seems really, really chaotic there. The other thing was the amount of space, and how far the campus watering system appeared to go.
Apparently the first garden gets mulch delivered from the school. We thought this was funny, considering that they have approximately 5 different demonstration compost bins. It is not unlikely that they put a lot of garden waste out on the curb for the campus folks to pick up and compost for them. Also, they don't grow compost crops like grains that could be fed to the chickens/used in the compost. How's that for sustainability? They do have rad solar panels that create shade and almost could have gone in the chickens' area.
The apartment that H, S, and C currently live in is near a seemingly far better apartment complex coop thingie- this place has about 2 acres of garden ALONG THE BIKE PATH! Oh my god. There are chickens, artichokes that aren't doing so well, a sunchoke thicket (maybe people don't know how good they are to eat, and they have been left there for a few years, cuz it is a big circle of sunchokes), and of course the usual tomatosquashbeangreenswhatever kind of gardeny plants. There are also private fruit and nut trees there along the path. Word has it that to buy a place there you get to shell out $750k. I mean, IT'S JUST NOT FAIR! They are creating rad community there, and probably not a lot of people get to see it, but they are doing it.
I am still not clear what kind of jobs there are around Davis that make it possible for people to 1. bike so much and 2. afford housing that is that expensive. I'd imagine maybe they all drive to Sacramento...?
One more thing- there are a pool and a hottub in the apt. complex where these guys are living. Poor things. Shelley still hasn't gone in! Tried to convince her, but it was to no avail. I went in. Believe me.
posted by mahtin @ 1:30 AM
