Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing,
Speaker 1: My chance to talk with artists, policymakers and performers, to
Speaker 1: hear their stories, what inspires their creations, what decisions change
Speaker 1: their careers, what relationships influenced their work. In a society
Speaker 1: where the convenience of food outweighs quality and farm the
Speaker 1: table is marketed as a luxury, it's rare to find
Speaker 1: someone whose full time occupation is farmer, and even more rare,
Speaker 1: as is the case with Scott Chaskey, to find one
Speaker 1: who's also a poet. But the bearded, sixty six year
Speaker 1: old farming virtuoso is nothing if not one of a kind.
Speaker 1: And Ohio native with a degree in creative writing, Chaskey began,
Speaker 1: in his words, consciously growing food while living in England
Speaker 1: with his wife in the nineteen eighties for moving back
Speaker 1: to the States to take over as the head of
Speaker 1: Quail Hill Farm in Amagansett, New York. One of the
Speaker 1: first community supported farms in the country. Quail Hill began
Speaker 1: in nine as a small piece of land for a
Speaker 1: few local families, but the concept, which hinges on sharing
Speaker 1: risk with the other farmers, has gone global and Scott
Speaker 1: Chaskey is known in the agricultural world as the quote
Speaker 1: spiritual father of community farming unquote. So we've been around
Speaker 1: twenty seven years, um, and we are part of I
Speaker 1: work for a land trust, the Peconic Landrust, which is
Speaker 1: a conservation organization that has preserved twelve thousand acres of
Speaker 1: land on the on the east end of Long Island.
Speaker 1: So Mechanic Land Trust is a conservancy that protects land
Speaker 1: out here. Who had the idea of let's take some
Speaker 1: of this land and farm it organically? Did someone come
Speaker 1: to you? You went to them? How did that happen? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So so um, two years before we actually came to
Speaker 1: emmaganstt and and and hooked up with a Pconic Land Trust,
Speaker 1: there were ten families that were heard this about this
Speaker 1: idea of c s A. And you know from the
Speaker 1: beginning of it in Western mass your parents not, Oh
Speaker 1: they were, that's right, they were part of the of
Speaker 1: the first ten families. And that's actually how I got
Speaker 1: involved because when we I lived in England for many years.
Speaker 1: When we came back, Bill said you want to come
Speaker 1: to this meeting about this community farm that were part
Speaker 1: of I obviously wasn't part of it at that time.
Speaker 1: And uh, here I am. You came back nine, that's right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What was dining like in your childhood and your relationship
Speaker 1: to food when you were a child? Where are you from? Uh? So,
Speaker 1: I grew up in um western New York, near Buffalo,
Speaker 1: a place called Tonawanda. Uh And um what he had
Speaker 1: an interesting job. He ran a bookstore at university, so
Speaker 1: he was. But he was so good at it that
Speaker 1: he kept getting hired to go on to another university.
Speaker 1: And so I like that living around a university and
Speaker 1: being part of that um. And so he ran the
Speaker 1: bookstore at the University of Buffalo and then at the
Speaker 1: University of Washington and then finally at Cornell. And so
Speaker 1: Ithaca became home in the end, and I counted as
Speaker 1: my hometown, even though I didn't get there until I
Speaker 1: was I think seventeen, so the end of your high
Speaker 1: school years. Yeah, yeah, I graduated from Ithaca High School
Speaker 1: and it was immediately home, even even though I don't
Speaker 1: I mean, I've never been back to Tonawanda actually, right,
Speaker 1: And we're not to college to college fifty miles away
Speaker 1: in Binghamton, Harper College at the time it was called
Speaker 1: sunny Binghamton was harper and what was what was the
Speaker 1: relationship with food? Because I think about my family and
Speaker 1: how it's unusually once when I think back now, Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: my mother is a great baker, so Irish mother Mary
Speaker 1: and German father Harry and um he grew up in
Speaker 1: a Germanic household, and so meat and potatoes were you know,
Speaker 1: was the law up? Well, yeah, until did you rebel?
Speaker 1: I rebelled a surprise surprise in the sixties. How many
Speaker 1: siblings to to an older sister and a younger sister. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was in the middle of the boy in the middle. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But getting back to food, it was really my mother's
Speaker 1: Irish recipes and uh highlighted also on Sunday evenings every
Speaker 1: Sunday by my father's German potato pancakes. Was it was
Speaker 1: it sitting down at a table, yeah, very conscious meal.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, very conscious, well paced meal and everybody bolting
Speaker 1: their food like my house. No, we we sat and
Speaker 1: we ate, et cetera, and lax there's always dessert, you know.
Speaker 1: It was it was every evening was you know, customary basically, However,
Speaker 1: I do remember as life got a little busier that
Speaker 1: there was also the beginning of the TV dinner era,
Speaker 1: so um, you know, yeah, I experienced that too. So
Speaker 1: when you were growing up and and and and living
Speaker 1: this way, when did you change your consciousness about what
Speaker 1: you wanted to eat and didn't want to eat? Well? College,
Speaker 1: I mean, so I went to Harper College in in
Speaker 1: nineteen and in the the pretty fiery year right after
Speaker 1: the UH Democratic Convention that year, I remember, you know,
Speaker 1: being shocked watching that and here I am in in
Speaker 1: uh initiation week in or you know, in introduction to
Speaker 1: college and being away from home and the SDS, the
Speaker 1: local STS chapter at at my university took over the
Speaker 1: administration of Students for Democratic Societies who was took over?
Speaker 1: And I was, you know, had no idea of what
Speaker 1: this was, what was happening. So I mentioned that because
Speaker 1: my entire consciousness and probably the consciousness of the country
Speaker 1: changed as well, a lot of questioning of everything that
Speaker 1: was ever, absolutely everything. How did that plan to your
Speaker 1: eating habits? Yeah? And uh, do you know of the
Speaker 1: do you know of the Moosewood Cookbooks? That's a it's
Speaker 1: a restaurant in Ithaca that's arted and right right at
Speaker 1: that time and and it was, you know, the first
Speaker 1: sort of vegetarian outburst really at that time, and so
Speaker 1: it was cooperative, etcetera. And so that had tremendous influence.
Speaker 1: And and also I remember when I left it may
Speaker 1: have been the year I left college. Um, Francis more
Speaker 1: Lapay had written Diet for a Small Planet, which sold
Speaker 1: millions of copies and still still does as a matter
Speaker 1: of fact. And that's what I took when I went
Speaker 1: out into the world to you know, learn about my
Speaker 1: own style of cooking and eating, etcetera. Where did you
Speaker 1: go to begin that process? Um? Everywhere? Traveling? It was
Speaker 1: a traveling I traveled, yeah, uh, you know, with a
Speaker 1: little Volkswagen bug. And then you know it's predictive everywhere everywhere. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: When did you first go overseas? What did you overseas before? Uh?
Speaker 1: Probably during during college, sometime sometime in the middle of college,
Speaker 1: which was putting uh, Switzerland, France. Um. And what struck
Speaker 1: you when you wrote? What was happening then for me?
Speaker 1: And the traveling was was opening to a new world
Speaker 1: basically because all I knew was the United States. So
Speaker 1: I just think it's about it in terms of it
Speaker 1: for someone who later on goes on to spend a
Speaker 1: huge part of their adult life growing food. Your life
Speaker 1: is about food and agriculture, so so your relationship to
Speaker 1: those things which is very in ordinary. Then I really
Speaker 1: entered into consciously growing food in England when I moved
Speaker 1: to England. So this didn't come Did you move there
Speaker 1: to get a graduate degree in in literature? And I
Speaker 1: lived in Oxford for a couple of years, but I
Speaker 1: actually was studying through an American university, Antioch College, which
Speaker 1: had a center for British studies in London, and the
Speaker 1: fellow who headed the program was studying for a d
Speaker 1: phil at Oxford. And so I said, I like the
Speaker 1: idea of spending time in Oxford, and I went back
Speaker 1: and forth to London, got a job as a gardener.
Speaker 1: That was the beginning job as a gardener, And that
Speaker 1: was the beginning. Did you seek that job? But that
Speaker 1: was the only job, you know, I think was a
Speaker 1: local paper and you know I had I I was
Speaker 1: living in a bedsit it's called you know, one one
Speaker 1: one room little not an apartment, just the room in
Speaker 1: Oxford across seven pounds a week and I didn't have
Speaker 1: any money. So I got a job as a gardener
Speaker 1: for a pound an hour. And what happened when you
Speaker 1: did that job? It really led to um, you know,
Speaker 1: my love of the earth. And I worked with gardeners
Speaker 1: up in a really beautiful place called Boers Hill outside
Speaker 1: of Oxford, is five miles uphill. Actually, there's a famous
Speaker 1: little woodland on the way up called Benzi Poplars, and
Speaker 1: there's a great poem by grown Manly Hopkins about Binzi.
Speaker 1: And I rode my bike by that every day, and
Speaker 1: I worked in these gardens and I'd come down and
Speaker 1: spend the rest of the day in the body Land Library,
Speaker 1: which was heaven on Earth and you and you did
Speaker 1: the gardening job for how long? A couple of years
Speaker 1: when I lived in Oxford, and then when I came
Speaker 1: back to the States, I sort of picked it up
Speaker 1: and and learned some more ardening from friends, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And yeah, and he decided to move back that went
Speaker 1: back to England, and because we missed it by that time,
Speaker 1: I met my wife in England. Two of us were Americans,
Speaker 1: but we were really cross paths over the cross passed
Speaker 1: in a poetry class because a friend of mine was
Speaker 1: teaching a class and asked me to come in and
Speaker 1: read next to your No, she was. The story that
Speaker 1: we tell often is that she was wearing ll bean
Speaker 1: boots and I had lived in Maine, and so I
Speaker 1: remarked about her ll bean boots and here we are.
Speaker 1: That was a key. That was a key. Actually the
Speaker 1: real key was that a week later because I was
Speaker 1: scheduled to go back to the States. And a week
Speaker 1: later we saw a poster for a Wordsworth festival in
Speaker 1: London and it was being opened by Shamashini before he
Speaker 1: won the Nobel Prize. And the second night, Basil Bunting,
Speaker 1: who was my teacher at Binghamton, by some odd chance,
Speaker 1: great North reading poet. We're reading Wordsworth. And so I
Speaker 1: stayed and she and I that was our first date,
Speaker 1: was to go to the words. Do you find I
Speaker 1: don't think this is necessarily so, but do you find
Speaker 1: that your passion for and your immersion in literature and
Speaker 1: poetry and your work in agriculture go hand in hand? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: they do go hand in hand. Yeah. I can't quite
Speaker 1: explain it, um, but but they go hand. Yeah. You
Speaker 1: get it to your dough. So you go to England
Speaker 1: for ten years, right, and you are involved in agriculture
Speaker 1: the whole time, are you studying literature teaching a little
Speaker 1: bit of a little bit of both actually, or all
Speaker 1: of that. But we lived on a Cornish hillside. So
Speaker 1: after Oxford, um, my wife read a book called The
Speaker 1: Cry of a Bird written by this woman who started
Speaker 1: a bird sanctuary in a little village called Mousel, and
Speaker 1: we went down as caretakers after they had died of
Speaker 1: of their studio and their cottage and uh and their
Speaker 1: publishers owned owned the places at that time, and they
Speaker 1: after we were there for three months, they said, well,
Speaker 1: it seems you know you're the ones who should be here.
Speaker 1: Do you want to buy the places? So we had
Speaker 1: never thought of settling in Mousel, or or England for
Speaker 1: that matter, and nor did we have any money. But
Speaker 1: we figured it out and we bought the studio in
Speaker 1: cottage and stayed there for eight years. So your kids
Speaker 1: born over there? Yeah, My oldest Levin Levin was born
Speaker 1: and had a Cornish accent, so it was really really
Speaker 1: fascinating to have the American parents with him and over there.
Speaker 1: That's when we came back when he got to school age,
Speaker 1: but he did he was enrolled in a preschool and
Speaker 1: then he went to you know, kindergarten for a while,
Speaker 1: and you came back for the back when he was
Speaker 1: about five. Because it wasn't really working schooling. It didn't
Speaker 1: seem quite right. So we thought, well, let's try it out.
Speaker 1: When you know, it's our first kid, let's you know,
Speaker 1: and you're really focused on that sort of thing. And
Speaker 1: so and also by that time we'd lived eight year
Speaker 1: is in this little fishing village and life was good,
Speaker 1: but my wife was missing home, and so was her home.
Speaker 1: Her home was originally New Mexico and then Berkeley in
Speaker 1: the sixties. And you guys are touching all the lefty
Speaker 1: touch stuff Berkeley. Yeah, well, maybe we'll get to that
Speaker 1: later on because because we actually my wife grew up
Speaker 1: on this beautiful property along the Rio Grand. Her father
Speaker 1: had kept the land. He sold the house, but he
Speaker 1: kept this ten acres of farm farmland on the real
Speaker 1: Grand and when he passed away left it to my
Speaker 1: wife and her brother and and we just put a
Speaker 1: conservation easement on this farmland in in that um lots
Speaker 1: of you know, hot things, peppers, etcetera. Right, and uh,
Speaker 1: it's a beautiful, beautiful place and uh, you know fifty
Speaker 1: five years later, she's coming back to this land that
Speaker 1: she grew up on. And uh, and you put an
Speaker 1: easeman on. It was really interesting for me to on
Speaker 1: this side. Worked for a land trust creating conservation easements
Speaker 1: with other people for many years, and now I was
Speaker 1: on the side of being a landowner creating an Eastman
Speaker 1: was it's a really beautiful thing when you come back.
Speaker 1: What year was that? Had you decided was there a
Speaker 1: preconception where you would go where you weren't sure? We
Speaker 1: know we would touch base here because we had moved
Speaker 1: Connie here and and yeah, Connie's my my wife's mom,
Speaker 1: my mother and my mother. And why here she moved
Speaker 1: here because she was divorced at that time. And and
Speaker 1: her best friend was Elaine da Kooning And Elaine da
Speaker 1: Kooning had come to teach at the University of New
Speaker 1: Mexico when Connie was there many years before. As a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, Um, there's a story of her dancing
Speaker 1: with Megan, my wife in her arms when Megan was
Speaker 1: one year old. So that's that's the year. And Connie
Speaker 1: stayed friends with with Elane and she came out to
Speaker 1: visit Elane. Uh. They took a walk found a house
Speaker 1: in the Northwest Woods, very close to here, and Connie
Speaker 1: bought that house and moved and we moved her. We
Speaker 1: were at this period where where we could help her out,
Speaker 1: and we moved and settled here for a little while
Speaker 1: to help her. Where part Uh, it's sag Saddle Lane
Speaker 1: now in so we were at Connie's house and it's northwest, yeah, northwest,
Speaker 1: it's you know, a stones throw from where we are
Speaker 1: right now. Again Elane lived right around the corner. What
Speaker 1: I love is when we're talking, I don't know Mausel
Speaker 1: and I don't know this little corners hillside, but you
Speaker 1: and I talking, our listeners are probably going, what you know,
Speaker 1: Hants Creek, northwest wife Brook. It's it's he's Tampton focus tempton.
Speaker 1: When did Peconic Glantrust start? And it was really because
Speaker 1: John Halsey, who grew up in in Southampton, had gone
Speaker 1: to school in California when he came back and he
Speaker 1: saw houses popping up in all the potato fields and
Speaker 1: he said this, this isn't right. Should do something about this,
Speaker 1: and he got together with some friends he learned abo Atlantras.
Speaker 1: Because land trusts had had been existent in this country
Speaker 1: since the nineteenth century, but they didn't take off in
Speaker 1: a way until the seventies. John found out about land
Speaker 1: trust and what land trust could do something that municipalities
Speaker 1: could not do right in protecting land, conserving land, and
Speaker 1: so three he started it and started kind of slowly.
Speaker 1: But when I came up a lot of money to
Speaker 1: run a land trust, a lot of money to buy
Speaker 1: land or protect land, and the Hampton's obviously right. So um,
Speaker 1: I had never heard of a landrust before I got
Speaker 1: involved with the community Farm. That was my first interest
Speaker 1: was that. But then I learned about what John was doing,
Speaker 1: and John was open to this idea of of accepting
Speaker 1: the community farm even though he had never heard of
Speaker 1: a c s A either. But that marriage took place
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty nine, the marriage between the community Farm
Speaker 1: where we talked about earlier, where my my my in
Speaker 1: laws were part of those first ten families, but I
Speaker 1: wasn't connected to the land trust at the time, So
Speaker 1: it was the first ten families, that first ten families
Speaker 1: was doing what forming the c s A. Forming the
Speaker 1: c s A because they had heard of this idea
Speaker 1: and it was you know, this little colonel what landed
Speaker 1: were they? Were they farming? Then I was in Bridge Hampton.
Speaker 1: Uh did you did you ever run into Hugh Williams,
Speaker 1: guy named you Williams. He had to so he had
Speaker 1: an apple orchard. He didn't own the land, but he
Speaker 1: was a biodynamic farmer. In the first c s A is,
Speaker 1: the idea of c s A started on biodynamic farms
Speaker 1: in different parts of this country. And Uh, when I
Speaker 1: went to the first meetings of c s A is
Speaker 1: in a little Waldorf school which is based on ruff
Speaker 1: Steiner's teachings. Uh, in Kimberton, Pennsylvania, there were twenty people people.
Speaker 1: The next year there were fifty people, and then a
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty people, and c sas began taking off
Speaker 1: all over the place. Now it's estimated that there are
Speaker 1: six thousand or more in the country. Um, so it's
Speaker 1: just taken off like blossoms. Basically coming up, Chasky discusses
Speaker 1: what community farming looks like in China. To hear from
Speaker 1: the founder of another socially conscious empire, this one a
Speaker 1: bit more caffeinated, explore our archives to hear my conversation
Speaker 1: with Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz in the back of my mind.
Speaker 1: I kept dreaming about what I needed to do for
Speaker 1: my dad, and my dad died in and I wanted
Speaker 1: to try and build the kind of company he never
Speaker 1: got a chance to work for. So the entire business
Speaker 1: model was trying to balance profit with conscience, benevolence and
Speaker 1: social impact. Take a listen at Here's the Thing dot org.
Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin, and you were listening to Here's
Speaker 1: the Thing. Scott Chaskey weaves together his passion for planting
Speaker 1: and prose. He's penned multiple books on the community farming movement,
Speaker 1: most recently Seed Time. Through decades of thoughtful farming in
Speaker 1: his fields, fueled by an earnest desire to do good,
Speaker 1: he's created a road map for the kind of food
Speaker 1: creation that America desperately needs. I mean, what what's happened
Speaker 1: is that I don't think we could have predicted this
Speaker 1: in the beginning, is that it would take off the
Speaker 1: way that it has, So that are I feel that
Speaker 1: our real influence goes way beyond those fields, for instance,
Speaker 1: So listen to this. I never would have guessed, So
Speaker 1: that you know we're doing this kind of work and
Speaker 1: spreading the word in this country but I just went
Speaker 1: to a global CISA conference in China in November with
Speaker 1: people from twenty eight different countries, and I never would
Speaker 1: have guessed that that level of engagement and would would
Speaker 1: would happen, you know, from from starting a community farm
Speaker 1: and amaganst so I was on a on a panel
Speaker 1: discussing biodiversity in China with a Japanese farmer, a French farmer,
Speaker 1: and a Chinese academician. It was absolutely fascinating. And and
Speaker 1: so the reach of what we've done, what I'm saying
Speaker 1: is is goes far beyond our fields. And but my
Speaker 1: attention daily is on those fields. How many separate parces
Speaker 1: of land other than the classic quail hill down there,
Speaker 1: other by the windmill, one other? How many other areas
Speaker 1: are you responsible for? How many fields? Well, so the
Speaker 1: total acreage that Deborah left was two We leased some
Speaker 1: to Part of our mission as a land trust and
Speaker 1: as a community farm is to lease land. Basically when
Speaker 1: you ask, you know, who's farming, who are we employing.
Speaker 1: The way we've done it all these years is that
Speaker 1: we have an apprenticeship and so we're actually training young
Speaker 1: farmers to you know, go out and manage their own
Speaker 1: farms basically, and so uh, Katie and Amanda for member
Speaker 1: Waves were my apprentices and now they're in their seventh
Speaker 1: or eighth year of running their own farm right over
Speaker 1: the railroad tracks. And and that's land that that's land
Speaker 1: that we had managed for another landowner as well. So
Speaker 1: what's your staff at the height of the summer, you have?
Speaker 1: How many people win your stuff? Ten? At ten at
Speaker 1: the most, it's and and we we could Is it
Speaker 1: tough to find those ten in the summer or is
Speaker 1: it easy? No? Because we're well known now we get
Speaker 1: a fair amount of applicants for the apprenticeships and we
Speaker 1: actually get to choose which is they come all over
Speaker 1: and house we house them. That was the most difficult.
Speaker 1: What's your housing plan here? We've got three houses which
Speaker 1: we sort of accumulated over the years one way or another.
Speaker 1: Basically Deborah left us one where yeah, but but the
Speaker 1: uh um, the other two. I mean we moved a house.
Speaker 1: It was a sixties ranch house that actually would you
Speaker 1: put it? We had a ninety two acre piece that
Speaker 1: had a separate lot on it so that we wouldn't
Speaker 1: and we put it right on the edge of the
Speaker 1: separate lot. What are you doing on that it's habitat,
Speaker 1: it's it's land preserve or habitat. So when these what's
Speaker 1: the number of people off season with you two? It's
Speaker 1: a little lonely. But we have a winter share, so
Speaker 1: we actually have people coming all winter to pick up vegetables.
Speaker 1: It's not just the summer. We have a traditional roots
Speaker 1: seller and we store crops in the roots seller and
Speaker 1: people come all winter and so they get we grow
Speaker 1: green's in the greenhouse and etcetera. So if you can't
Speaker 1: compare and contrast, if you would, I'm not assuming that
Speaker 1: one is favorable and one is not. But techniques and philosophy,
Speaker 1: even that you witnessed and that you lived over in England,
Speaker 1: compared to the way it is here, what do they
Speaker 1: do better than we do? And what do we do
Speaker 1: better than they? If anything, they do better by having
Speaker 1: a sense of history that is not ignored. So I
Speaker 1: mean that's a very general statement, but you know this thing.
Speaker 1: Recently I've been doing reading and returning to the thought
Speaker 1: that in this country where people without history, you know,
Speaker 1: and and of course there's lots of history, but we
Speaker 1: live as there's no time for history, have no time
Speaker 1: for history. So I mean that's what I was fascinated
Speaker 1: by in England. I mean I would have been anywhere
Speaker 1: else in Europe as well, just happened to settle in England.
Speaker 1: But that's what I felt there, and I felt perfectly
Speaker 1: at home with that concept and I missed the Yeah,
Speaker 1: in the end, it is a more thoughtful approach. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess people are in a hurry all over the
Speaker 1: world now. But um, this trip to China was open.
Speaker 1: It was absolutely eye opening, like what does a community
Speaker 1: farm look like in China? And how do you help
Speaker 1: the Chinese leap frog to where you think they should be? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and why are they at all interested? And what does
Speaker 1: it actually mean? And it was. It was absolutely fascinating
Speaker 1: and quite actually they're putting at the local governments are
Speaker 1: putting lots of energy into that in a way that
Speaker 1: isn't happening in the country at all. I mean that
Speaker 1: what we're talking about, the kind of work we're doing
Speaker 1: is all grassroots and it's not, you know, funded by
Speaker 1: government at all. Um in in China they're worried about
Speaker 1: feeding people. You know. Well, I mean I think that
Speaker 1: you bring it. You come to a point that I
Speaker 1: was going to get to, which is among the criickest
Speaker 1: paths to political instability, is a collapse of the food supply.
Speaker 1: And the problem in the United States is that we
Speaker 1: produce more than enough food for three square meals for
Speaker 1: everyone in the country, and and the and the gap
Speaker 1: there is distribution, and that's true worldwide. I'll never forget
Speaker 1: when I was going to sell my house and um
Speaker 1: my friend said to me, well, you know, don't say said,
Speaker 1: don't sell that house. They said, you know that problem.
Speaker 1: You've got ten acres there, you know you gotta And
Speaker 1: they said, because you know, in the next fifteen twenty years,
Speaker 1: we're all going to be growing our own food in
Speaker 1: this kind of global warming prelude, you know. And I
Speaker 1: wonder if you think that that's true. Are people going
Speaker 1: to start growing water politics? Well, I'm sure that more
Speaker 1: people are going to have to be engaged in growing food,
Speaker 1: uh in a sustainable fashion than we have now, because
Speaker 1: we're down to one percent of our population engaged in agriculture,
Speaker 1: whereas before the Second World War of the population lived
Speaker 1: on farms. This extraordinary and that is not sustainable, Nor
Speaker 1: is the kind of um corporate approach to you know,
Speaker 1: the industrialization of agriculture that you're talking about that really
Speaker 1: isn't sustainable, and so we have to come up with
Speaker 1: some other ways. And that's kind of what we're doing
Speaker 1: in our small way, and it's going to involve more people.
Speaker 1: That's that's that's the way it is. Are there major
Speaker 1: companies who you admire the way that they produce their
Speaker 1: products and grow food or youth or as all of
Speaker 1: the mass production of food, you know, without saying anything litigious,
Speaker 1: you know, is there are they all basically the same
Speaker 1: and cutting the same corners or their companies you actually
Speaker 1: mire what they do. I don't know. It's a slippery
Speaker 1: slow hope, Yeah, there was some nothing, nothing's jumping into
Speaker 1: mind immediately. But it is a slippery slope because of
Speaker 1: the I don't know, if you've seen the charts of
Speaker 1: who actually owns you know, the natural food companies, you know,
Speaker 1: and and they're almost all owned the ones who are
Speaker 1: playing so so, so you know, that's a very slippery slope.
Speaker 1: And we are trying to change that. And I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't I know of no other way to change
Speaker 1: it other than by actively working on it the way
Speaker 1: that we are. My fondness is more for people who
Speaker 1: are working on it on the on the grassroots, all
Speaker 1: all the not for profits who are supporting uh, young
Speaker 1: farmers getting into into this style of agriculture or whatever.
Speaker 1: So I can't think of a single company right now
Speaker 1: that I want to give all my praise to. It's
Speaker 1: really the all the people who are working behind the
Speaker 1: scenes in the grassroots way. Basically, what do you think
Speaker 1: about the whole foods revolution? Yeah, we're showing up in
Speaker 1: neighborhoods like you. I never imagined they would be in
Speaker 1: the New York and so, yeah, well it's serving it's
Speaker 1: serving some purpose. Let's say that. Yeah, so you're out
Speaker 1: here at a restaurant, an ordinary restaurant, even a top restaurant,
Speaker 1: with a very expensive menu, and the produce on the
Speaker 1: on the on the table, the tomatoes and the guens
Speaker 1: stuff is usually coming from Up Island. Correct, It varies
Speaker 1: a lot, but there's I'd rather talk about the local
Speaker 1: chefs who have been incredibly supportive of what we do
Speaker 1: and who bought Oh yeah, many mores aren't the big
Speaker 1: so for people to understand as precious as this area is, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the big, big farming operations for this area are Up Island.
Speaker 1: In the Riches and Riverhead correct well up as up Island. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well no, they're on the North Fork from there, on
Speaker 1: the North Fork and they're selling primarily to you know,
Speaker 1: high end restaurants, etcetera. But there are a number of
Speaker 1: local chefs who have been like, you know, we we
Speaker 1: we started a garden behind Nick and Tony's restaurant years
Speaker 1: ago and they've always been incredibly supportive. And so there's Nick,
Speaker 1: you know, Jeff Sure and and and then uh Joe
Speaker 1: real Mudo from Nickntoni's. There's Colin and Stas Uh, there's
Speaker 1: Jason at Allman's. You know, these these chefs are being
Speaker 1: so incredibly supportive and they we have a great relationship
Speaker 1: with and they're not the only ones. So so during
Speaker 1: the years you've been out here for um, you know,
Speaker 1: over twenty five years now doing what you're doing now,
Speaker 1: there's been this I don't want to say revolution, but
Speaker 1: you can almost say that in terms of wineries and
Speaker 1: wine growing and the conversion of North Fork properties for
Speaker 1: people who don't know this area that's across the the
Speaker 1: bay from US North Fork properties into wineries. What do
Speaker 1: you make of that operation? You said, that's something that
Speaker 1: you were surprised by Uh. Yeah, I mean I think
Speaker 1: everyone was surprised. But I mean in nine I think
Speaker 1: was the first one, and the Channing uh no, the
Speaker 1: first one. Um, I've forgotten the name right now. But
Speaker 1: on the North Fork there's only you know, there's only
Speaker 1: three wineries in the South Fork. There's fifty or so
Speaker 1: on the North for I think everyone's surprised that in
Speaker 1: since seventy that many have popped up. We have a
Speaker 1: very close relationship with with Channing, yeah, and with Wolfer,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, I'm very supportive of of of
Speaker 1: how they're caring for the land, intending for the land. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's amazing to me at the time I've been down here,
Speaker 1: how they unbelievable harvesting of the of the clippings and
Speaker 1: the soil and have been get that ready. And some
Speaker 1: people say because it was always a very reductive attitude
Speaker 1: towards that wine. I'm not a wine drigger myself, but
Speaker 1: people would say to me, oh, please, if you came
Speaker 1: to a house and said I want to bring some
Speaker 1: indigenous wine, people were doing why are you bothering doing that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And now all of a sudden, some of those moms.
Speaker 1: They're producing other producing some great wines. Now yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but it is interesting how they just which is it's
Speaker 1: a wonderful climate for growing things. You know, we're in
Speaker 1: zone seven. We're one of the only places in the
Speaker 1: Northeast that has the growing climate that his zone seven climates.
Speaker 1: So that's the amount of growing days that you have.
Speaker 1: And also we have a fair amount of sun cut
Speaker 1: y'all is the sunniest town in New York State. Not
Speaker 1: many people are aware of that, so we get the
Speaker 1: right amount of rain. We have these beautiful soils left
Speaker 1: by the glaciers, and we have a very forgiving climate
Speaker 1: for growing things. Yeah, what was an interesting, um, if
Speaker 1: you can say, what was an interesting issues or challenges
Speaker 1: you have with raising your own children in terms of food? Well,
Speaker 1: and naturally they you know, they're really great kids by
Speaker 1: the way, three and three and um. Growing up, you know,
Speaker 1: they enjoyed going to other people's homes where food was
Speaker 1: served that they didn't get in our home. But for example, uh,
Speaker 1: well meet for one, so my wife and I are
Speaker 1: both vegetarians, but interestingly enough, our our two sons. So
Speaker 1: I have two sons and a daughter, and the two
Speaker 1: sons really need meet and they you know, they they
Speaker 1: we found that out as they were growing up, and
Speaker 1: so I tried. I mean, I'm the cook and the
Speaker 1: family and I did my best, but um, I don't
Speaker 1: I don't think it was really what they were gett
Speaker 1: in another households. So that was something they missed. And
Speaker 1: of course we didn't serve a lot of suits at all,
Speaker 1: and we're fairly strict about that. And then we learned
Speaker 1: later when they grew up about the stash that they
Speaker 1: had in their room, you know, after after Halloween or
Speaker 1: something like that. But you know, now that they're in
Speaker 1: their twenties, my oldest son is thirty two. Um, and
Speaker 1: they come back they're so appreciative of growing up in
Speaker 1: a household with with fresh latency to that. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: you know, growing up there were you know, there were
Speaker 1: arguments one or two. But well, it's funny because on
Speaker 1: our website people will see a picture of you. We're
Speaker 1: gonna post a picture of you and everybody knows you
Speaker 1: from your striking facial hair, your gigantic and beautiful beard
Speaker 1: and you're thick mane of hair. And thank you for
Speaker 1: nominating me for best beard. By the way, my son
Speaker 1: sent me apparently you made a comment, so you do
Speaker 1: have You and the Smirnoff Vodka band are talked the
Speaker 1: best beard. But um, now, now for you doing this job,
Speaker 1: you're fit as a fiddle, You're a very lean, spry
Speaker 1: in spite of your golden beard. You're you're physically very
Speaker 1: on your toes. But I'm imagining you're not gonna do
Speaker 1: this forever. And the question becomes, how does Scott Chaskey
Speaker 1: replace Scott Chasky? Is there a succession program? I mean,
Speaker 1: right now, you know there's a number of people who
Speaker 1: can who can take over doing what I'm doing, So
Speaker 1: I'm not really worried about that. How much long are
Speaker 1: probably at the most a couple of years and sixty
Speaker 1: six now actually? And would you stay in the area
Speaker 1: after that? We'd want to travel a bit, I think,
Speaker 1: and we just stay home this land and this will
Speaker 1: probably be home. And the kids tell us you cannot
Speaker 1: sell these Yeah, that's what they That's what they tell us,
Speaker 1: So they want to come back to So what about
Speaker 1: your writing and teaching in the off season? The other
Speaker 1: part of you comes back and the win and the
Speaker 1: s in the wintertime? Yeah, I mean that's um, I mean,
Speaker 1: I do you know, I'm writing in my notebook throughout
Speaker 1: the year, but you know, to actually finish a book,
Speaker 1: I mean that does take the winter time for me.
Speaker 1: But um, that's what I'll be doing more of and
Speaker 1: I'm trying to I'm trying to do more of that now.
Speaker 1: So I've been working in the mornings before going to
Speaker 1: the farm writing for actually the last couple of years.
Speaker 1: Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to finish those last
Speaker 1: two books that I that I wrote. So there's gonna
Speaker 1: be a lot more of that. I'm working on a
Speaker 1: book now about Bill Kingbo, my my father in law,
Speaker 1: who who is a sculptor and a really great man.
Speaker 1: And so that's that's my work for this winter. Well,
Speaker 1: I must say that I can't imagine this community without you. Think,
Speaker 1: you know, you're such an important part of this community
Speaker 1: because you was just it's funny how because you're so
Speaker 1: striking looking the beard and everything, but for obviously but
Speaker 1: you're so strikingly but whenever people see you, you symbolize
Speaker 1: the fire is burning of the agricultural mantle of this community.
Speaker 1: I can't get over how important that is that we
Speaker 1: don't just save land that's all would have land that
Speaker 1: what you're doing hopefully carries on. Um while I have you,
Speaker 1: I want to take advantage of what one thing, which
Speaker 1: is now that I have little children and I finally
Speaker 1: get around to doing my organic plot on my property
Speaker 1: next summer, what should we be growing? This nice and
Speaker 1: easy for my little kids to get involved. And what's
Speaker 1: an easy thing to grow? Well? Starter, you know people,
Speaker 1: I mean almost everybody likes tomato, so cherry cherry. You
Speaker 1: have to grow cherry tomatoes, right, and there's this one
Speaker 1: called sun Gold that everyone absolutely adors. But also you
Speaker 1: know some squash. You know that's the summer squash grows
Speaker 1: fast and you know, um, it keeps coming, so that's
Speaker 1: a good thing to grow. We have a little patch
Speaker 1: on the side of our house and I said to
Speaker 1: my daughter, what do you want to grow? And said, pumpkins?
Speaker 1: Why not? Why not? I don't know If I'm okay,
Speaker 1: we'll share some seeds with you. But also demand that
Speaker 1: you have to grow garlic. That's only favorite crops and
Speaker 1: it's very easy to grow. Talking about his dual love
Speaker 1: of writing and farming, Scott Chasky says it has something
Speaker 1: to do with quote being in touch with the soil,
Speaker 1: and then actually having some time for solitude and reflection.
Speaker 1: No better time than now to heed his advice. This
Speaker 1: is Alec Baldwin and you were listening to. Here's the
Speaker 1: thing