Happenings May 2023

May 2023

Reduce Situational Anxiety Through Mindfulness

Grants Received for Bountiful Meals

Putnam County Past: Between Rocks and a Hard Place

CCE Putnam County Receives Local Hero Award

Vendors Wanted for 4-H Showcase

Cornell Leaders Advocate for More Ag Research, Extension in Farm Bill

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Reduce Situational Anxiety Through Mindfulness

Lauren L. Griffeth UGA Extension leadership specialist, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences

Coping with the anxiety that comes with challenging seasons such as the current pandemic can be accomplished by implementing a few simple self-checks and tactics that can help calm your mind, body and spirit. It is important to first recognize the symptoms associated with anxiety. Shortness of breath, nausea, chest pain and feelings of fear or distress are all symptoms to be aware of when anxiety presents itself. Breathing is an important tool to center your attention on the here and now.

Our inner thoughts are often what creates undue anxiety and stress. Instead of thinking about what is causing the stress in your mind, shift your attention to active breathing. Take deep breaths in and out while counting to seven on each inhale and exhale. Do this exercise for a few rounds or until you can feel yourself calming down. Look for guided meditations or listen to relaxing music while you breathe for extra help in this area.

Create a mantra that allows you to channel your energy in a positive direction during times of crisis. A mantra should be a short saying that is meaningful to you. It should be something you could print on a t-shirt or repeat easily from memory. Create your mantra by thinking about your goals and what reality you hope to create. Use words that illustrate your ideas clearly and concisely. Repeat your mantra to yourself when you notice that you are starting to have negative thoughts or feelings. Allow it to sink in and create a renewed power for you to cope.

Living in the present moment comes naturally for some but can be difficult for others who are constantly scanning the horizon for problems or using intuition to make decisions. When you notice that your thought patterns are not focused on what you are actually doing, take a moment to shift your thinking to the here and now. Tap your legs, brush your hair, move into a cold room or change your surroundings in order to refocus your mind. Notice what activity you are actually doing and pay attention. Tuning out of your inner thoughts and into your external world is what living in the present is all about.

Stress can cripple your mind and heart, affecting your quality of life and the lives of those around you. All of us can suffer from anxiety from time to time, but how you handle it can mean the difference between living in a cycle of paralyzing symptoms or coping and handling situations as they present themselves. For more mindfulness resources, visit positivepsychology.com/present-moment.

https://extension.uga.edu/content/dam/extension/healthy-ga-news/HealthyGAnews6.519.pdf

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Grants Received for Bountiful Meals

In wonderful news, last week we received two major grants to support our Bountiful Meals program totaling more than $80,000 from the Farm Fresh Food Fund of the Community Foundations of the Hudson Valley and New York Food for New York Families Program from New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets.

This work will continue to supply Putnam County residents facing food insecurity with free and delicious meals made with Putnam County produce! The Bountiful Meals program strengthens our food system in Putnam County with the support of our Putnam County Food Systems Coalition work, builds economic opportunities for local farmers, and ensures distribution of fresh and nutritious food to those in need.

The Field Hall Foundation graciously funded our pilot program this past year, and these grants will take the program to the next level, expanding to cover all Putnam County senior centers for the next three years and two more distribution sites.

Thank you to donors who helped fill in gaps in between funding sources – we were able to continue serving Bountiful Meals throughout the late winter thanks to you!

(meal photo caption: Delicious meals by Second Chance Foods made with Master Gardener Volunteer grown sunchokes!)

Sunchoke photo caption: MGV’s Harvesting sunchokes to go to our Bountiful Meals program! 

Maureen Salerno, CCE Putnam Staff, and Erika West, MGV, and Andreas Rockstein, Flickr, under CC-SA

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Putnam County Past: Between Rocks and a Hard Place

By Cynthia Crossen

Here’s a recipe for woodchuck, courtesy of Lucas C. Barger:

“Wrap him in three or four thicknesses of damp cheesecloth, take some clean blue clay that you got from a brook, mix it with a liberal portion of finely chopped onions, adding enough sweet milk to make it the consistency of stiff dough. Put a coating of this over the woodchuck, about two inches thick, and wrap the whole thing with more clean cloth. Bake in a medium hot oven for about two hours. When you open it up, throw away the woodchuck and eat the milk, onion and clay mixture.”

Lucas Barger was a small farmer in Putnam County in the late 19th century, and if today’s Putnam County gardeners think they have a lot of challenges, Barger would like a word. In his wry, plain-talking diary, published in 2013 under the title “Life on a Rocky Farm,” he records a litany of hardships, headaches and pests that would flatten many modern gardeners. Starting with the rocks: “One old guy said that when the devil went out to sow the rocks over the face of the earth, he had about half of them left when he arrived in [Putnam]. His bag broke, and he went off and left them there.” A farmer who fled Putnam County for the West wrote back that he didn’t miss having to plant his corn seed by loading it in a shotgun and shooting it between stones.

In Barger’s early days, Putnam County farmers–mostly Dutch, with a sprinkling of English, Irish and Scot–had horses to plow, hand tools to harvest and thresh, and muskets loaded with buckshot to shoot geese. By the late 19th century, Westchester County had begun to attract some New York City folk, but Putnam County’s terrain and the lack of easy transportation from the city discouraged modernization.

Over the course of Barger’s lifetime (1866-1939), however, that changed in big and small ways. Farmers like him once raised turkeys and took them to town to sell for Thanksgiving. “Now he has to go there to get one for himself,” Barger wrote. “Pretty tough to have to eat a bird from Texas when he used to produce some of the best turkeys that ever flopped a wing.”

Speaking of tough birds, Barger and his farming neighbors–men, women and children–worked from dawn to dusk, and then worked some more. The women milked the cows, fed the pigs and chickens, lugged around armful of wood. Also, preserved, canned, pickled, spun, knit, quilted, baked bread, made soap–Barger could go on forever. “These women didn’t grumble like the city people do, at least not as much in the average,” he wrote.

One respite from this hard life was the annual Country Fair–there might be a 400-pound pumpkin, cabbage heads 16 inches wide, cucumbers as long as a baseball bat. For the Barger family, the fair meant gathering for a picnic with “a bunch of friends, some from long distances and only seen once a year. And if there is anywhere on this earth a pleasanter place to be than at one of those friendly picnics at the country fair,” Barger wrote, “I have not found it.”

“Life on a Rocky Farm” by Lucas C. Barger. Transcribed and with an introduction by Peter A. Rogerson. State University of New York Press, 2013.

This year’s Putnam County Country Fest will be held July 29 and 30 at Veterans Memorial Park in Carmel. 

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CCE Putnam County Receives Local Hero Award

Putnam CAP honored CCE Putnam with the Local Hero Award at their annual luncheon, April 13 ^th, for CCE Putnam’s Seed to Supper program, 2019, in the village of Brewster. (The pandemic delayed an earlier scheduled recognition event.) Volunteer effort is integral to the success of this program: Master Gardener Volunteers taught low-cost vegetable gardening techniques to residents, in partnership with The Southeast Cultural Arts Coalition, who offered their event space "Studio Around the Corner" for classes. A shout out to the many MGVs who shared their know-how and enthusiasm with class attendees, improving their capacity to grow fresh, healthful vegetables.

Here, Cornell Cooperative Extension, Putnam was awarded the Local Hero Award from Putnam CAP, along with Garden around the Corner, and Rich Robbins, as CAP honored those who "Feed our Food." Thank you, Volunteers, for making ours a more resilient local food system.

Pictured Left to right, Senator Pete Harckham, CCE Educator Jen Lerner, Master Gardener Volunteer Chris Bonura, Community Volunteer Rich Robbins, Master Gardener Volunteer Anita Conway, Putnam County Executive Kevin Byrne, and Assemblyman Matt Slater. 

Photo: Norma Pereira

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Vendors Wanted for 4-H Showcase

Calling all food and craft vendors: Save the date and participate in the Putnam County Country Fest and 4-H Showcase.

Interested in being a food or arts vendor at the 2023 Putnam County Country Fest?

Please call Kathy at 845-808-1994 for more information and application

When: July 29 & 30 ^th 2023

Where: Veterans Memorial Park, 201 Gipsy Trail Road, Carmel, NY, 10512

Time: 10am to 6pm Saturday

10 am to 3pm Sunday

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Cornell Leaders Advocate for More Ag Research, Extension in Farm Bill

By Krisy Gashler, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

April 17, 2023

The next federal farm bill should help mitigate the kinds of supply chain weaknesses exposed during the COVID-19 pandemic, prioritize publicly funded agricultural research and extension, and work toward a more equitable and resilient food system.

That is among the advice congressional leaders received during a two-hour listening session at the Broome County office of Cornell Cooperative Extension, followed by a tour of Cornell’s Guterman Greenhouse Complex, on April 14.

Every five years, Congress authorizes a new farm bill, which governs and provides funding for a host of agricultural and nutrition programs. The current bill is set to expire in September. Four members of the House of Representatives’ Agriculture Committee – Chairman G.T. Thompson (R-PA 15th District), Marc Molinaro (R-NY 19th District), Nick Langworthy (R-NY 23rd District) and Derrick Van Orden (R-WI 3rd District) – attended the session and heard comments from farmers, researchers, extension agents, state-level leaders and agency staff, and members of the public.

House of Representatives’ Agriculture Committee Marc Molinaro (R-NY 19th District, left) and Chairman G.T. Thompson (R-PA 15th District, right) speak with youth 4-H members.

“We recognize in upstate New York the value of farming and the economic engine that agriculture provides in this state and this country,” said Molinaro, whose district includes Ithaca. “As a young man who grew up on food stamps, I know the value of both the farms in our district and the experiences of those who struggle to access quality food.”

Jan Nyrop, former director of Cornell AgriTech and a recently retired professor of entomology, stressed the importance of public funding for agricultural research to maintain a secure food supply in the face of worsening climate change and other challenges. In inflation-adjusted dollars, the U.S. currently spends the same amount on agricultural research that it spent in 1970. Both the European Union and China spend more on such public research, and China spends twice as much, he said.

“The private sector has invested a lot in research – private sector research funding now exceeds that of the public sector – but the challenge is that the private sector is primarily driven by short-term needs and profit and it does not address all the big, long-term challenges that agriculture continues to face,” Nyrop said. He urged congressional leaders to “increase agricultural research funding from 2% to 4% of the total farm bill, invest more in fruits and vegetables, which are a basis for long-term health, and invest in research that provides for a more equitable and resilient food system.”

Chris Watkins, director of the statewide Cornell Cooperative Extension and a professor of horticulture, advocated for Congress to adjust the formula it uses to allocate federal funds for state-level extension services. The current formula disadvantages states such as New York and Pennsylvania, which have large urban populations, he said.

“In a world where the food supply and natural resources will become more difficult to maintain, extension support is more critical than ever,” Watkins said.

Other speakers asked for stronger federal support for dairy farmers, continued funding of conservation programs that benefit farmers and the environment, decreased regulations on farmers who want to grow industrial hemp, and policies to ensure land access for new and young farmers.

Thompson affirmed his commitment to crafting the farm bill in a cooperative, bipartisan manner and to completing it on time. He also urged interested members of the public to submit written comments to the committee .

“Science, technology and innovation have always been critical to agriculture,” Thompson said. “We want to build a platform for the farm of the future so we’re able to serve whatever’s over the horizon.”

Krisy Gashler is a writer for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2023/04/cornell-leaders-advocate-more-ag-research-extension-farm-bill

Photo Credit: RJ Anderson/Cornell University

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Last updated May 3, 2023