In which His Majesty salutes Les Landeck, soil soldier, keeper of the land, provider to body and soul.

His Majesty, Norton II, Emperor of Petaluma and Protector of Sonoma County met Les Landeck on a royal visit to the Santa Rosa farmer's market some years ago. Les runs an unassuming small stand selling greens for salads, local cutting celery, and various other vegetables he grows on his acre and a half, hand tilled farm. His Majesty and Mrs. Majesty bought a one pound bag of greens for $12. Not your grandmother's salad greens it turns out. Les' greens include chard, kale, beet greens, Asian mustards, arrugula, calendula flowers, highly concentrated nutritious seed pods of greens that have crossed with each other and don't have a name other than "good stuff". To the royal household a salad had always meant lettuce, nice enough, but not the most nutritious. Back home the royal couple made up a salad of Les' greens, dived into it. Then a silence broke out as His Majesty looked somberly at Mrs. Majesty and she looked back. His Majesty spoke first with an "Oh, my God!" Mrs. Majesty replied with "I know." This guy working the land in cooperation with Mother Nature had produced the most exquisite salad greens ever to grace the royal palate, bar none. His Majesty had to learn more about this. A royal visit to the Landeck farm ended up feeling more like a visit to a cathedral. Landeck's scientific knowledge of what constitutes good farming and good soil stewardship combined with his sense of oneness with the land and the plants themselves was not a little awe inspiring. Over the past couple of years Les has instructed the royal gardeners in his techniques of soil building, letting greens go to seed, and the royal castle now enjoys some of the same excellent food. His Majesty was moved to write a two piece posting on Petaluma 360 describing his visit to the Landeck operation. You can read them here for Part 1 and here for Part 2:

http://tim-hurley.petaluma360.com/default.asp?item=2187419&mode=blog

http://tim-hurley.petaluma360.com/default.asp?item=2187420&mode=blog

Make your swords into ploughshares and your soldiers into farmers...

Well, Les Landeck, a veteran himself has gone and gotten himself involved with something called The Farmer Veteran Coalition. It's worth a click. and take a gander at the video here

Seems there's a problem out there with unemployment [some sort of economic crisis going on], and it's even worse for shell-shocked [we call it post traumatic syndrome now, Your Majesty] soldiers returning from war. Turns out war is not healthy for children and other living things [who woulda guessed?], including the souls of the young men and women we send to do the fighting to preserve our access to the earth's stockpile of energy producing hydrocarbons. [Kinda makes ya want to not consume so much hydrocarbon, doesn't it, Your Majesty?]

Gimme an F...

Anyway, it reminds His Majesty of the ancient days of the late 60s when, as a simple medical student, His Majesty was seeing some pretty messed up soldiers returning from that other ohsonecessary war, Vietnam, some guys with their heads screwed on backwards. "What the hell is going on over there?" asked His Majesty. [don't ask] So what are we, thirty or forty years since then and apparently none the wiser. 'Cause like Country Joe said, "we got ourselves in a terrible jam, way down yonder in Iraq...and Afghanistan...soon in Pakistan...and Iran." Gonna be a whole lotta fun. More screwed-on-backwards heads for the medical students to look into.

God doesn't count the days you spend in a garden...

Well, it's turning out that for a bunch of the returning veterans learning a thing or two about that ephemeral quality of spirit that His Majesty sensed in the Les Landeck salad greens works better than prozac. 'Cause some veterans are finding out that getting into farming not only solves the unemployment problem, it heals broken souls. His Majesty always knew there was something amusingly ironic about the fact that getting his hands into dirt and manure was about as close as he was likely to get to the angels. Working the soil, nursing a plant to life and growth, listening to Mother Nature murmuring her approval. These things go a ways to healing the raw spots that form on one's innards. Not to mention it produces damn good tasting calories for dinner.

Check it out...

So Les has taken a vet named Jeremy Lopez under wing, taught him the fine points of providing good food for a hungry emperor and the good people of Sonoma County. You can see a slide show of Jeremy and Les at the farm and farmer's market here

http://www.californiareport.org/slideshows/vetfarms/index.jsp

and listen to the KQED Soldier to Farmer radio broadcast here

http://www.californiareport.org/archive.jsp

It's worth slowing down the royal Hummer to think about. Might do body and soul some good.

A tip of the royal tophat...

His Majesty salutes you, Soil Soldier Les and Soil Solider Jeremy. May Mother Nature always smile on you, may your crops be healthy and plentiful, and may there always be a little dirt beneath your fingernails.

PEACE

Shalom

Salaam