Here is the link!

Ed, Chris and i arrived in Grand Rapids last night for Artprize.  If you have not yet checked out our profile, please do!  The journey from Charlottesville took us about 50 hours, about 15 of which were spent solving a fuel line leak.  The steal line coming from the injection pump going to the combustion chamber broke and started spewing fuel at an incredible rate.  Luckily, Chris, who was driving at the time, needed to switch out.  We pulled over, noticed smoke, noticed tons of fluid, killed the engine and ended up staying the night.

After large amounts of gasket maker, several rolls of electrical tape, and an extra 100 mile driving adventure that took us to Detroit, we aquired a new fuel line, which we estimate to be one of three to exist in America (the bus is an International.  Only one of 5 International parts dealers in Detroit, MI had this part).

We arrived in Grand Rapids around 8:30 pm.  Emily greeted us, cooking up some amazing fried green tomatoes given to us by our host and venue at Artprize: the Newberry Place Co-housing Community.  At Newberry Place, 60 people live in 20 units on 1 acre.  Everyone owns their own house and has privacy, while the land and common house are shared.  Cars are parked to the perimimeter, while people spend time in the center, between the houses.  Kids play together, neighbors share meals, and everyone seems to be very happy with the whole affair.  We are too, as we have been treated with the utmost hospitality, and find this community a blessing and nourishing at the same time.  Its a model for living in community designed in Denmark, one which has proved successful for over 20 years.  Check out more information about cohousing here!

Last night and today we drove downtown to show the bus at a more central location for Artprize.  Artprize is intense!  There are SO many people, so many cameras, and an incredible level of competition.  We should have expected this though, given that a $500,000 in prize money is to be given to artists.  The sights are amazing though, and we have met some truly wonderful people, including the Beerhorst family and the Wonderwagon.  We look forward to what the rest of the week brings.

Nourish(meant) has met wonderful reception, overall.  Response varies from interest to amazement, from liking to absolutely loving what we do.  We have enjoyed a number of fabulous conversations, met genuine people and recorded numerous responses to the central question of our project: “what does nourishment mean to you?”  We look forward to posting these responses on our website in the coming weeks.

Another update will come soon.  Thank you to everyone for their support!

Here’s the link!

Sorry for the lack of posts!  We’ve been working 20 hour days for the past little while, putting the finishing touches on the Waste Veggie Oil conversion, passing the state inspection, and centrifuging WVO for fuel.  It’s been messy, difficult, and very rewarding.  Pictures of the filtration process forthcoming!

Thanks to all who came out for our launch party last night!  And a huge thanks to those who helped us prepare.  It was a great, heartwarming success, and it made our imminent departure feel quite real.

The party spread included tons of homemade delicacies: beet risotto, sauteed squash, curried broccoli, a cheese and fruit platter, fresh salsa, kale, *and* peach cobbler!  And lets not forget our forays into fermentation:  lacto-fermented beet ginger relish (YUM), graham’s deliciously refreshing mead varieties, and some pickled green beans.  The food was made almost completely with local gifted, foraged, or dumpstered ingredients.

As the evening wore on, and the home-brewed cider was uncorked, the Ruffin hall courtyard transformed into many things:  a stage with quite theatrical lighting, a magical garden (well, maybe it already was that), a soccer field, a sidewalk mural.  Most of all, it was a place to be- the bus finally felt like a home (our newly-welded grate its back porch)- and we enjoyed giving tours.

Wow, it’s been an incredible couple of weeks.

Right after speaking at Nature Camp in VA, we headed straight up to DC to catch a flight to Alaska, graham’s home state.  The visit was adventuresome (apparently unavoidable in a place with 22 hours of sunlight a day), relaxing, and just really lovely.

We began the trip in Anchorage, where I worked on a few grant applications, did some reading, and caught up on sleep.  Oh, and cooked and ate amazing food, which brings me to graham’s activity of the week:  launching a smoked salmon business with his dad.  Alaska has the best managed fisheries in the world, and thus have the highest yield of wild salmon (and lots of other fish).  It’s beautiful, delicious, sustainably farmed, and wildly good for you.  I ate it three meals a day.  I could go on and on about how amazing it is, but I’ll just leave it at that.

Then, graham took a trip to Naknek, the site of all that salmon-catching.  This year, they’re going to catch 30 million fish in one month, letting plently swim upriver to spawn.  And me?  Well, I went south to Homer with graham’s mom, Nancy and her friend Audrey, and they took me on a wonderful kayaking expedition in Kachemak Bay.  I learned how beautiful the land up there is, how to get into a kayak without getting wet, and why camping in Alaska in the summer is the best ever:  you never have to worry about a flashlight.

So, now we’re back in Charlottesville, continuing to prepare for our voyage.  The WVO conversion is well under way, and we’re putting the last finishing touches on the interior.  We hope to leave this week- info about the launch party will come soon!

“Beside a creek that tumbles down between two mountains, fingertips are taught to see.” – a 1970 nature camp brochure.

We arrived in the dark on Monday night, but the nighttime forest sounds were enough to tell us of the beauty of this land.  The beauty of the people, however, was revealed as we walked up to a brightly-lit wooden building, its walls vibrating from the singing within.  As we entered the room, our dear friend Hannah, a veteran Nature Camp counselor, welcomed us with a big hug and introduced us to the gathering of high-school age campers.

We talked about the bus, the project, our foodsystem, and its problems.  We talked about gentle graffiti, dumpster diving, and urban foraging.  The enthusiasm of the campers was infectious, and they remained engaged throughout the entire program.  They asked us thoughtful and hard questions, making us reconsider many of our convictions:  How do we not contradict ourselves in what we eat- in talking about these issues and what we think is good for the world, can we really make the right choices all of the time?  How do we reconcile the principles of permaculture with the exponentially-growing human population?  Could biofuels and waste vegetable be a solution?  What kind of quail do you want to raise on your bus?

We learned a lot from these campers.  They gave us new ideas for gentle graffiti- including cleaning public spaces (like subway cars) and drawing imagery in that way.  We learned that dandelion greens can help regulate blood sugar.  Most of all though, we learned that there are so many young people (yeah, I know we’re young, but sometimes we feel quite old) interested in caring for the world and its land.

Thanks to Hannah, Flip, and all of Nature Camp for a wonderful evening!  Stay in touch!

Father’s Day was a scorcher in Charlottesville this year, and we started off the workday spraying each other (and the bus) down with hoses.  Soon, though, we set to work- and accomplished a lot!

We began to paint Sidney, using a watered-down latex paint-the impermanance of which adds to the constantly-evolving look the bus will take on during the journey.  Patterns of lines in white, green, and blue soon exploded into a beautiful chaos when Kayla and Liam, two kids graham nannies for, showed up.

The kids, their parents Gabe and Elaine, and our friends Julie, Jason, Evan, and Shannon, also helped with running errands, finishing off interior woodworking, and *trumpet fanfare* planting the rooftop garden!  We hauled soil (a gorgeous 60% compost, 40% topsoil mix graciously donated by Panorama Farm in Charlottesville) up to the roof one bucket at a time, mixing Perlite in for lightness.  After about 10 inches went into the 3′x6′ box, we planted!  We now have a dense polyculture crop of lettuce, radishes, kale, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, squash, basil, parsley, marigolds, and nasturtium.

The day concluded with a delicious meal of quinoa, beans, and greens followed by a workshop on companion planting.

Thanks to all for help and hard work!

Today, we met with UVa Professor Wende Marshall’s The Anthropology of Food class in the sculpture studio, and it was such a pleasure to meet all of her students.  After the discussion kicked off with a quick and dirty explanation of dumpster diving, our topics roamed from food deserts to how supermarkets became the primary source of food for the American consumer, and from GMO food and its political implications to food stamps and where/for what they are accepted.  Though the conversation did get somewhat political at times,  when we turned the discussion toward what nourishment means to us, today, in this world, we circled back to the fundamental belief that food is something that should bring people together rather than divide them.  We heard that nourishment is being full, it’s eating with friends, it’s the opposite of hunger, and it’s education and reaching out.  We heard that there’s a lot more to do with food than just, well, food.

We gave the students a tour of the bus and our growing container garden.  They responded with interest, curiosity, and lots of knowledge of their own, and before we knew it we had a dumpster dive planned for this weekend, were recommending companies from which to buy seeds, and explaining the fundamentals of companion gardening.  It truly is the enthusiasm and inspiration of others that keeps us excited.

On Monday, we’ll head over to Nature Camp in Rockbridge County, VA to talk about the project and lead a discussion with campers.  We’re so grateful for the opportunity to meet and exchange ideas with so many people!

Nourish(meant) is now on Kickstarter – an awesome fundrasing website on which people pledge donations to projects and receive rewards in return.  Watch our freshly made video, check out the project and consider making a pledge!  Also, please spread the word about our Kickstarter page to people you know – that in itself would be a huge support!

http://wwwkickstarter.com/projects/emilycorazon/nourishmeant