Working the Earth

For those who have not heard, Kate and I are taking this year to work on an organic vegetable farm somewhere on the East Coast. Since the New Year, we have spent time in San Diego and then put ourselves on a plane with our gear to fly back to New York/Connecticut. Well, we flew, and our bikes traveled FedEx ground. Because they’re afraid of flying. Imagine that.

We are just ending a short stint in New York City, showing my Mom around town, and saying hello to a few friends and family. Thursday, we head back to Connecticut to see more friends and family, and to continue work on our various projects. We will spend our weekdays in February working much, and sleeping much less. During the weekends, we will be seeing friends and family in New York,  Connecticut, and Boston.

We have not heard a definite yes or no from any farms as of yet. We are hoping to end up somewhere in New York, but we just cannot say who will have us yet. It’s a weird limbo period for us. The farms we have applied to have had to let their application deadlines run out, giving a fair shake to anyone that wishes to work on their farms. Did I do a good enough job keeping it vague? Bottom line is that you will know when we know, and right now, we don’t know.

Working Online

Kate and I are looking forward to being in one place and having time alone to work on our bicycle trip book. It is no small feat to process all the information from the trip. It is as an exciting venture as taking the trip. It has been fun to look back on the good days and the bad, and try to put them into words others will want to read. Not to mention, I have roughly one trillion digital photos, and hours of video.

The finished product will be published much the way Alastair Humphrey published his most recent travel book, There are Other Rivers. (If you haven’t picked up your copy yet, I strongly suggest you do. It’s a great read.)

I have been working on a side project that will launch this summer. To talk in cycling metaphors, the frame is built, I am starting to put on the components, and this spring will be spent fine tuning it, so that when it launches, it will provide a smooth and enjoyable ride. It is a project to help family farmers with the business side of producing food, and quite frankly I’m pretty excited. I want it vague for now because as the saying goes “Loose Lips Sink Ships.” To ensure you are one of the first to hear about this project Like us on Facebook, or Follow us on Twitter.

Amidst farming and writing, I also plan on further developing the FoodCyclist website this year. I will finally get caught up on gear reviews, photo galleries, video, and a gift shop. This will help me enhance your experience, so that when we hit the road again in 2013, the site will be an even greater resource for those who would like to follow along. With only about 40 hours required of us at the farm, it will not be hard to find time to make the rest of it work.

Part of producing our books and materials has been becoming an expert in Social Media. Much like craft beer and organic farming, social media experts or SMEs have seen positive growth in their market place. I have been studying best practices for social media marketing, so that I may apply my knowledge to our various projects. This will be very helpful the day Kate and I start a farm of our own. I am attending several events in New York City during the global Social Media Week from February 13-17. Some events that I am most excited for are held by one of my favorite social media companies, Likeable Media, right here in NY City.

It may all seem like a lot, but it feels good to be busy. It is all very exciting, and none of it feels like work. We are very motivated, and working very hard at what we are doing. This has been a serious transition for us, and we are getting to do what we love. Believe it or not, we have kicked some other projects to the back burner to give all the above mentioned work our full attention. I used to be in the entertainment business, now I’m going to be the World’s First Adventurer/Farmer.

Working on the Blog

For this year, we will keep up the photos and Video Vignettes based on our farming experiences. I have a bunch of photos to put up from Southern California still, and those posts are in draft form right now. It has been a real whirlwind coming back East, and there is definitely some serious adjustment taking place. It has been good to see more familiar faces, and familiar places. Jet-lag is fun and great! I recommend it!

Working on the Future

Our travel days are not over yet! For those who have written in telling me, “It was just getting good. I wanted to see you struggle in some far-off land.”, do not worry. It will come. This year will allow us to gain further knowledge in agriculture before going abroad. It will also allow us to really develop the site so that the experience is even better for you when we start to travel again.

Right now, we have definite plans to leave the States January 2013. Our first stop, Indonesia. We’re going to start off on foot with just backpacks, and then travel through Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand in 2013. At some point we’ll either have our bikes sent out, or buy a couple of cheap bikes to get from place to place.

After SE Asia we head to Europe for 2014. Perhaps we’ll have a stint in India in there, or some other new and interesting place. The beautiful thing is that Kate and I can change our plans as we see fit. The steps we are taking this year will hopefully provide a mobile source of income so that we will be able to work from anywhere, and thus, go anywhere. To answer the frequently asked question, “How do you do this? Did you win the lottery?” My answer is no, it takes a LOT of hard work, and the willingness to follow your dreams, for better or worse. If we had won the lottery, we might be in another country right now.

One thing is for certain, we are not done traveling! (Much to the dismay of our mothers.) We are happy to be back on the East Coast living our dreams, and making it all happen. Just cross your fingers that we end up on a great farm this year.

Planning out the future…

With the wide world looming right in front of us, there have been a lot of tough decisions to make. Where should we go? What should we do? What will we see and learn when we get there? We realized, that if we are to study agriculture abroad, perhaps we should learn a little more about it first. Not to say these last 6 months have not educated us. Far from it. We have seen what American agriculture has to offer, and perhaps have a better perspective than most. However, before we go forward, Kate and I would really like the experience of living and working on a sustainable farm for an entire season. We would like to experience, from seed to harvest, just what it takes to grow our own food. That experience will better prepare us for the questions we want answered from agriculture abroad.

With that sentiment, we are officially letting everyone know our plans for 2012. As of right now, Kate and I are staying in the United States through most of 2012 to work the land and learn how to grow our own food. We still have plans to see the world and we are still holding onto our plans to travel by bicycle. We are just going to spread them out throughout our lives instead of doing it all at once. We will still keep FoodCyclist.com up to date with photos and stories of our adventures, and we hope that you will all keep in touch and experience them with us.

This trip of ours started because we wanted to follow our dreams. Those dreams change and clarify as we discover and experience more and more.  We always have our careers and future in mind. As many things that happen to us by chance, each step has been carefully thought out with our best interests in mind. These last few years leading up to our bicycling adventures and the bicycling adventures themselves have been a lot of work. We constantly feel challenged, and by over-coming those challenges, we find incredible reward. This next step will be pivotal in effecting the rest of our lives. I really do enjoy sharing such life-changing happenings with all of you.

So what does that mean for now?

For now Kate and I are 4,900 miles into our journey and going strong. We are currently in San Luis Obispo, CA, which is a couple of hundred miles North of Los Angeles. We will be in LA house sitting for a dear friend over the Christmas holiday, then heading to San Diego after the New Year to hook up with Julie from PubQuest.com. After a few weeks in San Diego (this is where our plans start to become uncertain), we will fly ourselves and our gear back to Connecticut to spend a few weeks with family and friends before starting our farm apprenticeship.

What farm are we working on?

Truth is, we have no idea. We just settled on this plan over the last week and do not know where we will be able to land an apprenticeship. We have a few areas that we are looking at including (but not limited to) New York State, Oregon, and Virginia. This next week, in addition to riding down the Coast, we will be sending out cover letters, query letters, and resumes. We have a few ideas with regard to farms we would love spend a growing season, but I’m not saying anything yet because I don’t want to jinx anything. We’ll just have to wait and see.

What about after we are done with our farm apprenticeship?

Well, how far ahead can we be expected to plan? After our farming endeavors are done, we will continue to travel for a while. There is still a lot of planet to cover and we are eager to get out and experience it. This year of farming will hone our skills and train our eyes for picking up farming techniques in other countries. My long term plan is to live like Alastair Humphreys, the professional adventurer, but with my own spin. I will be the first farmer/adventurer in history. “Can’t be done,” you say. Well, people told us we couldn’t ride our bicycles 5,000 miles across the United States. I will make it work, as I always do.

Side Note: Who is Alastair Humphreys?

You mean besides the guy with one of the best names in history? Alastair is London native who has made a life and a living from going on adventures. His books and website have been a resource and inspiration throughout our travels. His most recent book, “There Are Other Rivers”, captures the spirit of why he does what he does, and more selfishly, why I do what I do. Kate and I have both read it, and it really hits home with our feelings on our chosen lifestyle. To everyone, especially our parents (who I know are reading this thinking we’re crazy), I seriously recommend picking up a copy and reading it. Worth every penny.

Where’s our first book?

Kate and I have been writing, and writing, and writing. Until this morning, that writing was without direction. In one of those “aha” moments, we found our format. We are working on a book about our 5,000 miles across the States and the experiences we have had. We are going to edit it down to 15 of our favorite stories from the road, and each write our different perspectives for each story. The good times, the bad times, our best day, and our worst. Being happy, getting sick, being assaulted, getting “adopted”, and more. Even the two of us talking about it this morning discovered that are huge disparities as to what we thought the other person was going through. There will be a lot of stuff that has never made it to the blog, and things no one has ever heard about, including the each other. The plan is to work on it over the winter, and have it finished and published very early next spring. There is a good chance we will self-publish, especially as first time authors. Believe me, I am perfectly happy with that option.

For now…

For now, we’ll keep the farm visits and brewery visits up as we ride down to San Diego. We have a mountain of video to edit from the last six months, and a lot of plans to make for this coming year. One of the best parts about this current plan is that we will be around for Kate’s sisters’ wedding next winter. A huge congratulations to Ernie and Joe, one of the most fun couples to watch HGTV with.