Monday, November 9, 2015

SeedBroadcast agri-Culture Journal : 5th edition.



The SeedBroadcast agri-Culture Journal, 5th edition is now printed and available online.   You can find copies at various places around New Mexico and the world,  or download it from our website


This is our 5th edition and we received contributions from many places such as New Zealand, Canada, Tucson, New York and of course from our home base of Northern New Mexico. The seed lovers network is forever expanding and strengthening.  Thank you to all that contributed to this new edition  your words, images and seed wisdom are inspiring and give us hope.

The deadline for contributions for the 6th edition is February15th 2016.  
You can send submissions to seedbroadcast@gmail.com.  

Sunday, October 4, 2015

Seeds and our Future

Inside the Mobile Seed Story Broadcasting Station
Downtown Block Party beginning to gather crowds

SeedBroadcast partnered up for the Habitat – Exploring Climate Change Through the Arts during the Downtown Block Party in Albuquerque, New Mexico. As a kick off for our current focus on the role of seeds, seed savers, and resilient grassroots ecology to cope with climate change, we were interested in asking people on the street to share their thoughts while sharing seeds and stories.

Taking a picture of Orianna Pavlik's Seed Story drawing

The event was filled with artists led projects and local organizations sharing innovative ideas and works which harness the power of sustainable energy, community, and creativity. People roamed the street and playfully engaged with these projects while talking about an unfathomable future that seems so distant yet present with each decision made in our daily lives. Everyone seemed to say that the future is here and its high time that we all begin to walk the talk.

Gathering Seed

If seeds could talk, they were talking on this day. Everyone who showed up at the Mobile Seed Story Broadcasting Station seem to be drawn to the seeds as if they were beckoning them with their belief in the potential for the future. In the sprouting of life and sustenance. Even though planting season was winding down everyone we met was keen to begin dreaming of next years gardens and the walk these seeds would take them on to try their hand at growing their own food, saving their own seeds, and sharing these with others.


Many thanks to our guest SeedBroadcasters, Andrea Gohl, Clark Frauenglas, Orianna Pavlik, and Joanna Keane Lopéz who helped out during the event recording Seed Stories and helping visitors with all this seedy fun.

Andrea demonstrating how not to eat corn

Here are some Seed Stories that were shared with us:

Phil Trujillo and Julie Holt share Seed Stories from HABITAT Downtown Block Party in Albuquerque, NM where they talk about finding old gourd seeds and following old timey traditions to grow gardens, save seeds, and share this with others.
https://soundcloud.com/seedbroadcast/phil-trujillo-and-julie-holt-talk-about-looking-for-lost-seeds-and-why-it-matters


Lynn picked up some SeedBroadcast seeds at Habitat - Exploring Climate Change Through the Arts and then shared her Seed Story and dream of changing her life to be closer to the earth and growing an urban forest with local resources.
https://soundcloud.com/seedbroadcast/lynn-shares-a-seed-story-about-growing-an-urban-forest-with-local-seeds-and-greywater


Iona Vernon and Noel Mollinedo share their Seed Story from Habitat - Exploring Climate Change Through the Arts in Albuquerque, NM where they talked about foraging for food in the mountains and the importance of seed sharing to keep our food alive.
https://soundcloud.com/seedbroadcast/iona-vernon-and-noel-mollinedo-share-a-seed-story-about-mountain-foraging

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

SEEDY Habitat: Exploring Climate Change Through the Arts


We will be SeedBroadcasting with Habitat: Exploring Climate Change Through the Arts during the Downtown Block Party in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This will kick off a very special SeedBroadcast project that we will be growing over the next several years, focusing our creative seedy cultivation on the role of local seeds, seed keepers, and regional foodsheds to feed communities and build resilient agri-Culture in the fact of Climate Change.

We will have a fantastic group of artists from Land Arts of the American West and UNM Art and Ecology working with us during this event.

Bring your Seed Stories to record and open-pollinated seeds to share!

Saturday, September 12, 2015 from 1pm - 4pm
On Central Avenue between 5th and 6th Streets
Downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico


In partnership with 516 ARTS

Here is more information about other events and activities during the Block Party.

516 ARTS is organizing a collaborative season of public programming in the fall of 2015 that explores climate change through the arts to create a platform for education and dialogue. The public programs for HABITAT: Exploring Climate Change Through the Arts will include: a series of exhibitions at 516 ARTS; the popular Downtown Block Party; special events with guest speakers; film screenings; and youth programs.

Climate change is an urgent issue of both global and local concern. The Southwest can be considered one of the most "climate-challenged" regions of North America, with rising annual temperature averages, declining water supplies, and reduced agricultural yields. In New Mexico we've already seen destabilized and unpredictable weather patterns, water sources going dry, forests not recovering from fire, loss of urban trees, and crop failures. Public programs for HABITAT strive to raise awareness about these issues by taking an innovative approach to engaging with social and environmental change, and by bringing the community together to focus on sustainability.

DOWNTOWN BLOCK PARTY:
Interactive Art Projects, food, music and fun for the whole family!

516 ARTS presents its third Downtown Block Party on Saturday, September 12, 2015 on Central Avenue between 5th and 6th Streets Downtown, which expands the gallery programs into the street. This year, the event is presented in partnership with the Downtown Albuquerque MainStreet Initiative in celebration of the Downtown Albuquerque Arts & Cultural District. It highlights outdoor artworks and projects that address alternative energy, food issues, and land and water use in the future, all with a focus on positive solutions and dialogue. For example, GhostFood by Miriam Simun, is a performance and interactive/participatory event that explores eating in a future of biodiversity loss brought on by climate change. The GhostFood mobile food trailer serves scent-food paintings that are consumed by the public using a wearable device that adapts human physiology to enable taste experiences of unavailable foods. Little Sun Pop-Up Shop, by artist Olafur Eliasson (Berlin, Germany) and engineer Frederik Ottesen (Copenhagen, Denmark), showcases an attractive, high-quality solar-powered LED lamp they have developed, which serves as a social business focused on getting clean, reliable, affordable light to the 1.2 billion people worldwide without access to electricity. For The Future of Energy by Andrea Polli and students, the public is invited to engage with local energy issues using an app to find and create potential, and to see what they are generating in real time through visualization tools.

Friday, August 14, 2015

Truth or Consequences with Seed

Charlotte Jared tending her corn circles in Truth or Consequences

Charlotte Jared contacted us back in the spring about partnering for some seed action in her town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. It took us a while to wrangle a date that worked amongst the chaos of spring and summer planting and SeedBroadcast tours already planned. But we agreed on the date of July 25 in partnership with the Sierra County Farmers Market, which was planned for that Saturday. It was going to be hot, hot, hot. But it would also be prime summer harvest season with farmers sharing their generosity through their labor of love and food.

Driving into Truth or Consequences (or TrC as it is locally known) does not seem extraordinary. It seemingly inhabits a barrenesque low desert shrub terrain until your car pops around the bluff and travels down into a small marshy shelf along the Rio Grande where hot mineral springs bubble up and share their healing waters with all manner of creatures.

Along this route I had my first encounter with TrC in a very local and global sense. As I was driving down the street a man sitting by the curbside with kayak on one side of him and inflatable raft on the other began pointing at the Mobile Seed Story Broadcasting Station van driving past and laughing hysterically. Actually it was a little beyond hysterical… But this struck me as a moment not to be underestimated, a thoughtful, emotional, and critical expression, which we may all need to embrace in our times of solidarity, crisis, and seed. A lot of laughter and a little madness might go a long way.


During the Saturday Farmers’ Market a good number of vendors arrived to set up tables under the shade of big canopy trees in a local city park along the Rio Grande. The shade lifted the heat and cooled the park making it a pleasant space to hang out with friends and family. Unfortunately there was very little produce available. Three weeks earlier the entire region had been hit with an unseasonable hailstorm that damaged and destroyed much of the summer harvest. That which survived was random and in little quantity. So, making it to the market this Saturday were small peaches, green apples which had begun shedding from trees, a few squash and melons, figs, onions, and greens.

Small, delicious peaches from Truth or Consequences

One farmer came bearing seeds and a farm to sell. It was just too much for her. But she laughed heartily and rejoiced in the fact that some young energetic farmer could take over her life-long work and move it forward. This was not a failure. It was the cycle of generations passing on their seeds and responsibility to labor, love, and live in a blessing of these cycles. Again there was a lot of laughter and a release from the burdens of worry. The seeds must go on.


And then the seeds began arriving in baskets, bags, bundles, and pockets. Local gardeners and farmers arrived bringing their generosity and care for community and a grand ceremony for every kind of seed they could share. There were medicinal herbs, indigenous annuals, flowers, vegetables, and careful selections of resilient varieties that folks have been working with for years. This is the family of agri-Culture here, a combination of people, plants, land, and animals working together for the joy of life and the need to be sustained. This crew was also quite jovial, with a laugh and twinkle in the eye, with kids jumping in to help with seeds and Seed Story drawings.


With this group of seeds also came a recognition that some folks were connected and many were not. The question arose, how do we stay in touch and how can we build this seed sharing network? By the end of the day everyone was talking about getting together again and organizing around the common interest in seed, and the needs we all have (seeds and people alike) to cross-pollinate, learn, and grow from one another. And of course share.

By the end of the Market the laughter and jovial madness had been sung and all the seeds had been passed among hard working hands. Rosalita a local farmer came by to give us a parting gift of quelitas, the best spinach ever. Thank you Rosalita and thank you to all those farmers and gardeners that give us sustenance.

Rosalita with her gift of quelitas

But the maddness was not over yet. Something unusual was still to happen involving an unbelievable story and something of a Zen Koan of Dadaist anti-matter….something that one cannot explain with the linear/rational mind. Take a gander and see where this story takes you…

a rada dada Sunflower

rada dada shares a Seed Story about the saloon he is transforming into a farm and the spare change that keeps growing from his vegetables.


Yet, madness and the deep arts of laughter are not really the anti-social of our times. They are the normalcy that we should embrace in our everyday lives allowing each of us to question our thoughts and actions and qualify them within our beliefs of beauty, spirit, and generosity. To stretch our laughter together through our many hiccups and laugh together for our many accomplishments. Maybe something the seed can guide us through to be asked, “what would a seed do?”

Charlotte Jared corn variation from Glass Gem Rainbow Corn

This is the path forward that two other generous spirits shared with SeedBroadcast as their Seed Stories. They were both inspired by Flordemayo and the Seed Temple in Estancia, New Mexico. Listen together and let us listen closely to our seeds.

Jia Apple tells her Seed Story about discovering seeds with the Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers and the path this has led her on to remember kinships and work towards a future sharing seeds.


Charlotte Jared shares her Seed Story about discovering a familial connection with corn and the magic and depth it has brought to her life and her relations.









Monday, July 27, 2015

Contribute to the Autumn 2015 SeedBroadcast Journal DEADLINE AUGUST 31st 2015

 SeedBroadcast agri-Culture Journal is a bi-annual collection of poetry, inspired thoughts, essays, photographs, drawings, recipes, How-to’s and wisdom gathered together from a national call out to lovers of local food and seeds.  This journal supports collaboration and the sharing of seeds, stories, resources, and inspiration within local communities and between individuals, while also providing pollination through diversified regional, national, and international internet-media networks.

SeedBroadcast agri-Culture Journal 

It is also available in print at various locations and directly from the Mobile Seed Story Broadcasting Station. If you contribute you will receive a stack of printed copies.

                                           Contribute! Participate! Propose!

Send us your seed inspired poems, images, photographs, recipes, articles about your work, provocative essays, calls for seed action!
The deadline for the next edition is August 31st 2015.  
Please send your inquiries, proposals, and contributions to seedbroadcast@gmail.com
Images should be at least 300 dpi, 4" X 6" if needed include captions and a short bio.

We are looking forward to your contributions.

Monday, July 20, 2015

SeedBroadcasting from UrbanRefuge A.R.T.S and Valle de Oro

Cuidad Soil & Water Conservation District watershed diorama

The Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge invited SeedBroadcast to participate in the UrbanRefuge A.R.T.S. event which brought together artists, advocacy organizations, food trucks, and a fun public crowd to explore transportation and movement across the landscape as well as investigate the movement of change occurring at the refuge as it transitions from the largest farm in proximity to the city of Albuquerque into a Wildlife Refuge.


During the day buses, bikes, kayaks, walkers, and dancers explored the open terrain heading out on bird watching treks and performing dances in response to the ground, clouds, and the sense of place across the green open fields and cottonwood banks of the Rio Grande. At the Valley de Oro, walking, biking, jogging, driving, and horseback riding are common, especially along the irrigation and drainage ditches that run across the fields. But what is more challenging transportation wise is how to get there in the first place. It is in far south Albuquerque and it is not the easiest area to get to if you do not have a car. Yet, local efforts are under way to create viable public transportation such as a bus stop and Railrunner stop.

Panorama of the Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge

This perfectly level landscape has been a working farm for over a hundred years. For a long time it was known as the Valley Gold Dairies, one of the largest historic dairies in the region. It is still being partially farmed, producing grass and alfalfa hay. During the event we hoped to meet some of the local farmers who have worked this farm and others in proximity to record stories. Many were busy on the farm and suggested meeting up in the fall to talk stories (so stay posted for more to come).

Here is a story that was shared from Chris Skiba, whose family has been farming in the South Valley for a long time.

https://soundcloud.com/seedbroadcast/chris-skiba-shares-a-seed-story-about-farming-and-gardening-in-the-south-valley-of-albuquerque



The transition to a Wildlife Refuge has many people wondering how this space will be transformed as one of the few urban refuges in the country. Its potential lies in its proximity to a major metropolitan area, its location in a dymanic riparian zone and sited on a major migratory flyway with access to water. With all these cues in place its value will be told in how it creates an urban educational opportunity through expanding the notion of what a wildlife refuge can be when it serves animals, ecology, and people. One might also wonder if there is room in the refuge mission and planning for the co-mingling of regenerative agriculture, an ecologically based agricultural system much like permaculture.


The Valle de Oro is located in the Mountain View community. This area of Bernalillo Country is far enough away from major commercial zones to be likened a food desert. With few options for fresh food it might make sense to create space where local food can be both produced and used sustainably, while enabling a demonstration site for sustainable wholistic ecology and education to bring people and the environment together.

Ruben Olgiun, a local artist presented his project Songs of Our Fathers: Migrations

Ruben Olguin is a local artist who was sharing his work at UrbanRefuge. He spent the day presenting his project, Songs of Our Fathers: Migrations, which explores "how land, time, and people are divided by technology and modern transportation. You can read more here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1044096048937167/

He kindly came by to gift SeedBroadcast a beautiful handmade seed pot he had made, its tiny mouth only large enough for the likes of very small seeds like lettuce, carrots, curly dock, and brassicas. Seed pots have been historically made and used by pueblo peoples to store seeds. These storage vessels keep seeds safe by providing a moisture free, self-wicking environment for seed preservation.

We hope to catch up with Ruben this fall for a Seed Story. And we will be Broadcasting soon with more local farmers.

Here are more Seed Stories from UrbanRefuge A.R.T.S.

Kayla Gmyr reads her poem "Vibrations" about connection and awakening to the earth and relationships from the Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge in Albuquerque, NM
https://soundcloud.com/seedbroadcast/kayla-gmyr-shares-a-seed-story-of-awakening-and-connection



Kym Loc shares her aspiring work to convey the relationship between people and trees, healing, strength, and roots.
https://soundcloud.com/seedbroadcast/kym-loc-shares-a-seed-story-about-her-work-painting-trees-and-healing-the-self


Wednesday, July 15, 2015

SeedBroadcasting from the Sierra County Farmers' Market

We will be SeedBroadcasting from the Sierra County Farmers' Market.
Come join us and share your Seed Story!

Sierra County Farmers' Market
July 25, 2015
830 am - 11:30 am

Ralph Edwards Park
Riverside, between Birch and Cedar St
Truth or Consequences, NM

SeedBroadcast and the Mobile Seed Story Broadcasting Station is a collaborative
project exploring grassroots food action and seed sovereignty. We travel near
and far to pollinate the culture of agri-Culture by broadcasting local seed stories
through audio interviews, while networking and distributing do-it-together-howto
resources.

Bring SEEDS To SWAP and SHARE YOUR Seed Stories

We will be recording local seed stories from TorC area

Visit our blog site for a schedule of upcoming events and resources:
http://seedbroadcast.blogspot.com
Seed Stories: http://soundcloud.com/seedbroadcast
Website: www.seedbroadcast.org

Contact: seedbroadcast@gmail.com

In partnership with:
Sierra County Farmer’s Market

Monday, July 13, 2015

Food Justice Celebration at Santa Fe Art Institute

“The interpretations of food justice can be complex and nuanced, but the concept is simple and direct: justice for all in the food system, whether producers, farmworkers, processors, workers, eaters, or communities. Integral to food justice is also respect for the systems that support how and where the food is grown— an ethic of place regarding the land, the air, the water, the planet, the animals and the environment. The groups that embrace food justice vary in agendas, constituencies and focus, but all share a commitment to the definition we originally provided: to achieve equality and fairness in relation to food system impacts and a different more just and sustainable way for food to be grown, produced, made accessible and eaten.” 
  From Food Justice by Robert Gottlieb and Anupama Joshi
The sharing of food and ideas.

This past year the Santa Fe Art Institute with the guidance of director Sanjit Sethi has brought it's artist-residency program into a deep inquiry into the notion of Food Justice. This was the first in a planned annual theme-based residency program and it brought over forty artists, from all over the world, together with local activists, farmers and lovers of home grown food to creatively investigate the idea of Food Justice as it relates to New Mexico.

 “ From July 2014 through June 2015, SFAI encourages creative minds to come together and examine the territory of food justice. Together, we will ask how can we use diverse creative practices to confront inherent social, cultural and economic problems in our food system? Further, how can we bring together insights from creative fields, environmental sciences, sustainable agriculture, critical theory, and food studies to have local, national, and international impact?” 


Alexis Elton and Brett Ellison of Jubilee farms with SeedBroadcaster Chloe
When Sanjit first came to Santa Fe he reached out to the community to explore what might be a fitting theme to kick off this initiative. The economic disparities, the lack of water and access to land, the difficulties for our native  communities to have adequate access to fresh food and the food desert of Cerrillos Road were issues many locals talked about. However there are also the long-standing traditional agricultural practices that are still tightly held in Northern New Mexico. It was this juxtaposition that Sanjit felt could be explored so the Food Justice theme emerged.
Desert by Street Food Institute.
The artists were selected through an application process where they were asked to create a proposal that would address food inadequacies in New Mexico and how they might engage with community partners. It was a rigorous selection process based on the impact of the proposal as much as the individual artistic practice. As part of this theme-based year SFAI partnered with the communities along the Española Valley and many of the artists-in-resident’s created projects in collaboration with those communities. They worked closely with cultural advisers such as Roger Montoya and Todd Lopez. Artists such as Holly Schmidt, Christie Green, Yoko Inoue, and Alexis Elton created projects with students at the La Tierra Montessori School that animated discussions and actions that were far reaching into the community at large.
Installation by Christie Green addressing issues of accessibility to healthy food

 On June 20th SFAI held a celebration and culminating event to highlight the creative projects that have emerged through out this year. The community was invited to a free lunch catered by Street Food Institute. SFI works with young adults and emerging culinary students and practitioners to develop the business and technical skills to realize their entrepreneurial dreams. The students begin with hands-on training at SFI Food Trucks, where they learn how to make delicious and healthy food using sustainable business practices. The event featured artists, open studios, organizations and workshops by:
 SeedBroadcast with Grow
Alexis Elton 
Christie Green Radicle
Rodrigo Guzmán de San Martín 
Hakim Bellamy 
Jessica Frelinghuysen 
Erik Banjamins
FICTILIS:Andrea Steves & Timothy Furstnau 
Marie Dorsey 
Tina Rapp
Hye Young Kim Currents New Media Fellow
Amy Malbeouf Canada Council for the Arts Fellow



UN|silo|ED Hub at Santa Fe Art Institute
 The SeedBroadcast UN|silo|ED hub was active with our food justice soundscape, a mapping of various food justice projects, including the Grow Your Own Story installation created by students from Catherine Harris’s class in the Arts and Ecology department at the University of New Mexico, interactive work station and seed exchange.

“Working together as a class and in collaboration with SeedBroadcast has been a wonderful experience! Grow has been both a gratifying and challenging project. We are honored to have made such a positive impact on our communities in Albuquerque at UNM and Barcelona Elementary and in Santa Fe at the Santa Fe Art Institute and Monte Del Sol Charter School. Thank you to everyone who took time to participate and allow us to GROW their story. Even bigger thanks to SeedBroadcast for sharing your space and giving us a platform for Grow!” 
Catherine Harris' Intermediate Art and Ecology Class of Spring 2015 
The Mobile Seed Story Broadcasting Station was parked at the entrance of the building to broadcast seed stories, loud and clear, around the event.

This was a time to share locally sourced food and conversation in a dignified atmosphere of mutual understanding and concerns over the contemporary state of our agricultural practices the inadequacies of access to healthy food. We shared stories and concerns; we discussed each others projects, and made commitments to keep this theme alive and vibrant in the optimist hope of eventually making change.

 The following are some thoughts on Food Justice from the SFAI residents:
Listen to Alexis Elton 
Listen to Yoko Inoue
Listen to Nikki Pike

SeedBroadcasting from the Albuquerque Community Day.

Peanut seeds shared from Farmer Lack Lopez West and Peas and Hominy Farm

How do we sustain diverse and meaningful food traditions in the face of climate change and with all the challenges we face on a daily basis?

This question seemed ripe during the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History Community Day celebrating Fathers and local food culture on Sunday June 21. It was Summers Solstice, the longest day of the year, and Father’s Day too. It was also well over 100 degrees and everyone was either wilting in the radiant glory of the heat or scurrying towards interior spaces of artificial cool to relax and go gaga over the high heels exhibit at the museum before scurrying off to yet another cool sexy space.

MSSBS out in front of the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History

The day was hot and so was the Mobile Seed Story Broadcasting Station and all the seeds that we share with folks. So seeds, people, and all had to bolster some resilience to be out celebrating the seeds, the farmers, the food, and the fathers that nourish us with their strength and care.

The event also included local chefs preparing gourmet items on site and the Vecinos Artists Collective engaging people in their project, IF I WERE A SEED… where they ask folks to visualize being a seed and growing the change they want to be through making an individualized seed mural. They were also collecting recipes on site and typing them out on an old typewriter.

Vecinos Artist Collective, If I were a seed...
Vecinos Artist Collective, If I were a seed... mural by anonymous

Paul Lopéz Jr. who is part of the Vecinos Artist Collective also shared a Seed Story with us. Check it out here:

https://soundcloud.com/seedbroadcast/paul-lopez-jr-shares-his-story-about-the-buena-tierra-farm-project



Drawing corn pictures
Posting peanut pictures
Several kids came by to draw seed stories as they were making a circuit, running through the water fountain to cool off then back around to the Broadcasting Station. They spent time drawing their favorite seeds and also drawing out the process of growing a seed into its traditional food way.

Peanuts and corn became the favorite seeds of the day and someone asked what the difference was between a peanut that is eaten and a seed of a peanut that is planted. They are the same. And this unites us in the remembering that the foods we eat, the daily blessings of the seed is also the seed that renews our local traditions on the land, in our kitchens, and with our families and communities.

The peanuts came from local Albuquerque farmer, Jack Lopez West, from Peas and Hominy Farm, who as a new father, came by with his family to share popcorn, peanuts, and carrot seeds and also record a seed story about his mentor from South Carolina who was the father of many plant children. Jack also offered up wisdom for starting a new local tradition, growing sweet potatoes as a staple food crop to replace energy intensive grains.

You can listen to Jack’s Seed Story here:

https://soundcloud.com/seedbroadcast/farmer-jack-lopez-west-shares-a-seed-story-about-learning-the-art-of-the-seed


Monday, July 6, 2015

SeedBroadcasting from Celebración de Culturas Familia Y Tradiciones

Seed Story drawings inside the Mobile Seed Story Broadcasting Station

On June 13, 2015 SeedBroadcast participated in the Celebración de Culturas Familia Y Tradiciones in the high mountains of Northern New Mexico. This was the first annual weekend event bringing together local artisans, traditional crafts, storytelling, presentations, demonstrations, and great food to celebrate the genius of place across the Peñasco valley. The event as a whole took place in the villages of Rio Lucio, Peñasco, Vadito, Rodarte, Llano de la Yegua, Llano de San Juan Nepomuceno, Chamisal, and Las Trampas. In each of these villages people opened their houses and shops to share their deep creative knowledge and historic rural practices.

Homemade tortilla demonstration and the best tortillas hot off the grill!

Visitors came from all over the region and many old timers came from far away to see friends and family. All weekend long people drove from site to site learning about fiber arts, ceramics, making posole and other traditional foods, wood crafts and furniture, retablo painting, herbs, and lots more. Here is a link the Celebración de Culturas web: http://www.penasconm.org

SeedBroadcast helper, Chloe Maize, helped several young folks make their own Seed Story drawings


Natalie Lopez invited us to park the Mobile Seed Story Broadcasting Station out in front of her small business, La Jicarita Harvest and old family adobe home where she serves up authentic Northern New Mexican food including the notorious chicharrón burrito with mounds of green chile. During the morning we watched as Ivan Rodriguez cooked chicharrónes over a small wood fire.

Ivan stirs the chicharónnes and talks about matanzas

Boiling chicharónnes

Chicharónnes are pork rinds that are boiled and then fried in their own fat. It takes much patience, time, and many stories to properly prepare chicharónnes . Here is Ivan’s Seed Story….. and of course the chicharónnes were perfect!

https://soundcloud.com/seedbroadcast/ivan-rodriquez-shares-his-seed-stories


During the day several storms passed through bringing blessings of rain for local crops but putting a damper on visitors to the Broadcast Station. Nevertheless, the event continued throughout the intermittent rain and we met several local farmers and gardeners who climbed aboard the van to talk seed. One young lady talked about revitalizing the old seeds by getting all the local families together to bring out their seeds, tell their stories, and cultivate an intergenerational effort to grow the seeds once more. She wondered how to do this?


The local chico corn is no exception and it was spoken of several times over the day as one of the most valued seeds, food, and traditions. Known as maiz de concho, this white flint variety is used to make posole and chicos which are staple foods for regional communities throughout the winter. Chicos are made by putting fresh ears of corn, husks and all, into an horno, roasting overnight, and then drying for storage. An horno is a large adobe oven that is pre-heated with firewood and retains heat overnight and throughout the next day. It is often used to make chicos, bake bread, and roast meat.

Horno building demonstration

Natalie’s husband, Roy, was demonstrating how to build an horno on site, right out in front of La Jicarita Harvest. He already had the concrete pad prepared and spent the entire day laying out the first course of adobe bricks and mudding them together. Once it is done they will use it to make their chicos and bake bread.


At the end of the day Roy sang us a seed song about keeping the seeds alive with families and communities. Here it is:

https://soundcloud.com/seedbroadcast/roy-lopez-sings-seeds-from-celebracion-de-culturas-penasco-new-mexico


Thanks to all we met at the Celebratión de Culturas keeping the seeds alive and growing!