Since this is the time of year that I find myself chronically falling victim to optimism, I should know better than to say that things are looking very optimistic on the farm these days, but they really are. In the newly created position of farm manager, Alex Gravesen is demonstrating a great combination of practical skills, vegetable growing expertise and boundless energy. His "always on the move, always getting something done" work ethic is already improving work crew efficiency over my "I'll be in the house, on the phone, if you need me" style. And the work crew we have at present is one of the best of the many great groups of interns that we've had. They've done some nice work improving the area around the barn, they've researched flowers, herbs and berries, they've started the first crops in the greenhouse and, feeling so optimistic, they've even laid out new beds to expand our production area into the middle of Field 3.

Besides the upcoming growing season, there are other aspects of Maysie's Farm Conservation Center that warrant optimism. Our newsletter is now being produced by a team of two energetic shareholders, Colleen Cranney, the Editor, and Lisa Tollefson, the Layout Artist. They will build on the foundation that Hilda Kauffman created last year, almost single-handedly. And they would like to include your voice as well, so please don't be shy about contributing to the newsletter.

Our role in promoting organic agriculture and Community Supported Agriculture continues to expand as well. At a "Keep Farming in Montgomery County" conference, I stressed that preserving open space is not the whole answer to preserving agriculture and that for a farm to be sustainable, it must be so economically, ecologically and culturally, meaning that it operates with the support of its community. The audience was amazed, as I continue to be, at the amout of community support I was able to demonstrate in the case of Maysie's Farm. At a "New and Beginning Farmer" conference near Harrisburg, I spoke on starting a CSA and stressed that there is an increasing public demand for the direct marketed organic produce -- and the other, less tangible products -- of a CSA. As a member of the Agricultural Study Advisory Committee convened by the Chester County Development Council and the Chester County 2020 Fund, I am ensuring that the policy recommendations we produce will not discriminate against small farms, as most previous farm policies have, but will instead recognize that small diversified "niche market" farms constitute the future of agriculture in our rapidly suburbanizing county.

Our other educational programs continue to expand as well. Louise Smith, our Finance Director, Development Director and Keep Sam Organized Director, gave a workshop at the PASA conference (as in Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture) on the success of our SAITA program (as in Sustainable Agriculture Internship Training Alliance). We have formed an Education Committee to expand our school and youth programs, our lecture series and our on-farm demonstrations. Paul Morgan, our shareholder, board member and Intern House supervisor, is now also chairman of our Education Committee. Amy Bruckner, one of our most longstanding and active volunteers, will be contributing one full day a week of her very productive time to the Education Committee. And Louise and I continue to write grant proposals to help finance the expansion of our educational programs.

Some friends of mine, with whom I used to work, have become very involved with a Christian mission started by some friends of theirs in Haiti. Kevin and Trudi Krick have taken small groups of people to Haiti each of the last three winters to help the Living Hope Mission build its community center near the city of Cap Haitien. I've participated in these trips while following my own agenda of trying to teach organic vegetable production techniques and introduce the concept of Community Supported Agriculture.

Each time I described the mutually beneficial relationship that is at the heart of Community Supported Agriculture, the Haitians would respond by saying, "But you see, you must have this trust between the farmer and the consumers. In Haiti, there is no trust." So I thought that the best circumstances under which to attempt a CSA would be within the missionary community associated with the Hope Center, where there is a greater sesne of trust than elsewhere in Haiti. This year, I was hoping that the garden I'd started and the part time staff I'd helped train would be reliably producing successive plantings of a variety of high quality crops in sufficient numbers that I could actually establish a small CSA at the Hope Center. Upon arriving there, I was disappointed to see that, while the garden had many beautiful beds of lettuces, there was almost nothing else planted. The instruction booklet that I had written for the garden has not yet been translated into Creole and I suppose that even my best and brightest interns up here might stray so far from my directions if I gave them directions only once a year. Maybe next year...

This year I left the Hope Center for a few days and traveled to the other side of the country to teach organic vegetable production techniques to the people of a small village that is the family home of a gentleman who works for Voice of America in Washington, DC. The villagers were very impressed that I had come so far to speak to them and listened carefully to my simple advice: add more organic matter to your soil by building and using compost piles, loosen the soil deeply so that the roots can take full advantage of it, and use mulches to cover the soil whenever possible. After I returned to the States, the gentleman from VOA interviewed me again, translated my remarks into Creole and broadcast them over Haiti, so that my advice would be reinforced in his village and more widely disseminated to other villages.

A trip to Haiti really puts the problems we face here in Chester County into perspective. There was a Rally for Open Space in Northern Chester County held at St. Andrew's Church, right next to Maysie's Farm, on Friday, March 16th. Those in attendance included a state senator, a state representative, two of the three county commissioners, township officials, conservation organization directors and lots of concerned citizens. The problems mentioned were many in number and serious in nature, but the first step in each solution always involved citizen action. A lady said that between the pollution, the traffic and the other quality of life issues, the situation seemed hopeless. The speakers responded to her by saying that the mechanisms exist to ameliorate the problems and if concerned citizens take action, the situation is far from hopeless.

I responded to her by thinking "the situation seems hopeless?" The poor starving masses of humanity you see along the road in Haiti might seem hopeless -- born into a situation devoid of trust and so depraved that no amount of citizen action could ameliorate it -- but if you interact with those individuals, you will see that there is hope in their eyes. Hope, it seems, is as basic to human nature as greed or lust or the quest for air to breathe. So I guess my vernal optimism is not just a seasonal disorder after all. I'm looking forward to a great year on the farm, and if it's not as great as I'm hoping it will be, we'll deal with it.