Transplant

Nose nearly to the ground, I found the first sprouts in the garden today.

The sunflowers have decided to show themselves on this overcast Austin day. I'll take that as a good sign.

I'm pretty proud of those sunflowers, planted less than a week ago and only 4 days after my arrival as a Texas transplant from the San Francisco Bay Area. According to Sarah - a wonderful friend and my hostess in this foreign land - I've been a busy bee. I can't help it: I'm too excited and everyone in Austin is just so nice.

Since attending the Organic Farming Research Foundation's conference in 1999, I've been watching food and farming with much interest from the sidelines. I didn't go far afield: my professional life to date has been in the environmental nonprofit sector, learning from the original activists how using your moxie, being strategic and creative, creating networks of friends and collaborators, and flashing the cash are the necessary tools to get the good work done in this saving the world biz.

In February this year, I was finally pulled into food by the opportunity to work with April Davila to produce her exciting project, A Month Without Monsanto. April's journey has been followed by 20,000 people since February. We're now looking for an agent to help make this labor of love into a book. In the meantime, I figured as long as I was uprooting my career, why not uproot my comfy (and pricey) Bay Area life and transplant myself? And then came Austin.

I'm here to figure out ways to learn more, give back to, and get involved with the sustainable food movement in this community and beyond. It's a dynamic movement at the moment, and evolving by the minute.

There's a tight-knit group of Austin Food Bloggers, all listed on Austin American-Statesman writer, Addie Broyle's "Relish Austin" column and food blog. I'm just learning how each of them writes it up about Austin, so this blog will likely evolve as well. I'm not a fan of wheel re-inventions.

I am a fan of connecting people, so for the time being that's going to be my goal. I'd like to talk to people involved in different aspects of this movement and have them help me and you learn what's up and how we can get involved in getting the good eats to our plates.

Photo: Vegetable transplants at The Natural Gardener