Inner City Farmer

My trip to New Orleans was as enjoyable as expected. That town never fails to thrill me, and it’s particularly vibrant during Jazz Fest. The highlight for me occurred on Friday night when my krewe and I took a trip to the Lower Ninth Ward, one of the areas most devastated by Hurricane Katrina. We attended a free concert put on by Michael Franti and his band Spearhead as well as the Rebirth Brass Band. We’d heard the rumor the day before, and it was confirmed at the Fairgrounds: the show would be taking place at an elementary school at the corner of Claiborne and Caffin to benefit Common Ground Relief.

Those adventurous enough to stray from the beaten path most tourists are advised to stay on while in New Orleans discovered a real treat: one of the most uplifting bands you’re ever going to see, playing for less than three hundred people. At one point Franti talked to the crowd about the difficulty of trying to affect change in a world that seems hostile to it. It was an inspiring pep talk with a simple take-home message—all you can do is do your best and eventually the little acts of kindness we perform will have a huge impact. Change will come.

I found his words particularly moving because lately I’ve been struggling to find meaning in my urban-farming project. So what if I am able to reduce my ecological footprint down to nearly nothing? So what if I’m able to grow all my food right here on this lot? So what if I build a tool shed—my next project—entirely out of natural and recycled materials? Franti’s words reminded me that what I’m doing matters, that it’s important, and that I must continue to do it.

And then I returned home to discover that one of my chicks had died during my absence. Six weeks ago I started raising four chicks in a cardboard box in my garage. Right before I left for New Orleans I moved them into the chicken coop, separating them from the three hens with some chicken wire and building them their own temporary shelter. The space they had was triple what they had before, but evidently it was still too small. Three of the chicks went psycho on the fourth, pecking it to death. It’s a sad lost but not an unexpected one. The attrition rate for chicks is extremely high. If a raccoon or disease doesn’t do them in, something else will.

Zephyr doesn’t know about the chick’s death yet, but once he hears I doubt he’ll be too upset. We’ve lost chicks before and he’s come to understand that death is simply a natural part of life on the farm. One of the main reasons I started this project was so that he could learn such things, concepts city kids have grown completely out of touch with. I’ll be sure to tell him the news while he’s collecting eggs so that he can see that life and death go hand in hand.

Tags: chicks, Michael Franti, New Orleans

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 7th, 2008 at 12:32 pm and is filed under Chickens, Urban Sustainability. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.