Become a Member
February 2010
Dear Friends,
Sitting in the gazebo in the welcome sun after welcome rain, I hear the sounds of an early spring morning. The goats bleat as they wait for milking and breakfast, passing the time by stripping the bark off sticks from the pile of fruit tree prunings in the corner of the pen. A hen congratulates herself for the egg beneath her as her sisters croon and scratch for the kitchen scraps and tiny insects. Felcos and long handled loppers snick and bite branches, first of plum, then apple, pear and grape as the orchard and arbor are shaped for the coming season of abundance. Honey bees shrug and tumble in the early blossoms of mustard and calendula, then hum back home to bring their food messages to the hive, dreaming of the days of zinnias and coreopsis. I can’t hear the roly-poly pill bugs, worms, fungi and microbes turning the farm leavings into black gold compost, but I know they’re in there doing their digestive work to help us coax productivity from this land. It’s early in the year, there’s time for philosophy. I muse on.
What in the world is Camp Joy? Camp Joy is 5 sunny flat acres that has been producing vegetables, fruit, herbs, flowers, eggs, milk and honey for almost 40 years under the care of an ever-changing, ever-constant group of hard working planetary citizens. It is a California non-profit organization with a mission to show and teach the skills and arts of growing food and flowers. It is a magical garden that is shared with children and adults in this community and those who come to learn here.
Where in the world is Camp Joy? I look across the field from where I sit, and see the Santa Cruz mountains, rising from the curve of the San Lorenzo river up to the 3 poles on the skyline of Empire Grade above the small town of Boulder Creek flanked by slopes re-forested after being shorn 100 years ago. The fog curls and streams down that mountain when our few days of real summer heat eventually pulls cool air from the ocean 12 miles away, our natural air conditioning. My eyes are filled with our watershed, our skyshed – I hear Friend Hawk’s harsh cry as she circles overhead – we reach as wide and as high as the eyes can see.
Who in the world is Camp Joy? Camp Joy is the farm folks that labor now to bring the soil to blossom and harvest. Camp Joy is all the people who have imagined and built it since 1971. Camp Joy is everyone who’s gathered what they learned here as seed to grow lives elsewhere on other farms, in school or community gardens, universities, doctor’s offices, green businesses or in their back yards. Camp Joy is the people who are yet to come. Without them, this is just a sunny piece of land which would soon belong to blackberries and Bambi.
When in the world is Camp Joy? Camp Joy is the 1920’s field where a cow grazed while Cressie Digby, the woman who offered us the land, grew up across the road. Camp Joy is the late 60’s when Alan Chadwick built the teaching garden at UCSC which was the inspiration for this place. It echoes the work of Freya von Moltke before, during and after World War II. Freya (who died this year) brought Alan to Santa Cruz to create a place of beauty and creation to honor her husband and the cohort of German intellectuals who maintained faith that there could be life after Hitler, and made plans for such a future. Count von Moltke was executed, but many gardens flourish because of her intent. Camp Joy is the 1980’s when kids came to squeeze apple cider in kindergarten, and 2010 when their children come to enjoy our summer camp and garden classes. Camp Joy is then and now.
Why in the world is Camp Joy? To grow food. To protect and build our soil, and to learn more about how to do this better. To make a beautiful garden and gathering place and foster connection with our community as we work and celebrate together. To teach the skills we know that people need to have, especially since we finally begin to believe that we won’t be able to rely on the falsely cheap and easy fossil fuels forever. Even the White House has got the message, whether or not they got it directly from us!
How in the world is Camp Joy? How do we actually do this? Hard work, optimism and some money. This is a challenging time in all our economies, public and private. Even so, last year you helped make all this happen with your donations, CSA memberships and by showing up and spending money generously at events like the Mother’s Day plant sale, summer garden dinners and the fall harvest open house. We are so appreciative, and we ask you please to do it again. We just lost a long term source of support when Charter School 25 (that grew up entwined with Camp Joy) had its funding cut so deeply that it won’t be able to offer our garden and cooking classes that have been a backbone of our income. As far as hard work, we could really use some helpers, either live-in or local non-residential. We are looking for a few good folks who would like to offer their assistance on a regular basis in exchange for a great lunch, knowledge and the pleasure of spending some time in this beautiful place. Our idea is that once trained, they would concentrate in particular areas – propagation, harvest of flowers or vegetables, food preservation – and be able to work both under supervision and independently. The optimism – well, that’s built into being part of this long-lived local organic farm community, and by a sense that you can still fit a little Camp Joy into your life!
Warmly, the Camp Joy family