i just told my mom

i just got off the phone with my mother. i waited until after 6 to tell her about the trip because by then her 5 o'clock 'jack on the rocks with a splash of water' has taken effect. all things seem doable after a cocktail.
basically i told her i was about to tell her something - something that's not bad - that she was going to have an opinion about. i summed up the whole thing in one short sentence - we've started raising money for a trip to central america to document our experience learning about farming. then handed the phone to tayloe. easy enough.
this trip is something tayloe and i have talked about for a long time in lots of different forms. every time it came up we were always looking for a way to turn it into an adventure that could last longer than a typical 2 week vacation. fantasy wanderlust. it's kind of a bad habit.
then one night i read an article about a family who took their two young kids (1 and 3) to costa rica for two weeks to work on organic farms. they did it cheap - the families hosted them and fed them in trade for work. they had afternoons off to play and swim and explore. i read the words and looked at the pictures and thought, 'hell. we can do that.'
a few days later we were driving in the truck, looking out the windows at miles and miles and miles of snow and bare trees and brown everything and it seemed like a good time to bring it up.
we could do it, i said. get plane tickets now. go for two weeks next winter. have a part vacation, part adventure. a vacventure.
it's my husband who thinks big in our family. and i've known him long enough to know what was coming.
wait for it ...
why would we fly when we can drive?
from there our plan started to come together. now here we are, raising money for a documentary film, writing blogs, sending out piles of letters trying to get sponsors.
there's tons to plan and lots of hoops and logistics to jump through and figure out.
will it all come together? will it happen? will i post an update to this blog on this date next year from a farm in costa rica? or belize? or guatemala?
i don't know. you're going to have to just come along and see.

Help us get to Central America!

Welcome to Expedition Organica!

We are working on a documentary film project that follows our family as we head south to Central America in our well-equipped Land Rover Discovery to work as volunteers at various organic farms for one year. Sort of a reverse migration...

We're a young family preparing to move to a 350-year-old family farm in Virginia and we want to educate ourselves and our children on how family farms in other parts of the world work. We're particularly interested in learning about organic farming practices in hopes of bringing the knowledge home and building upon a thriving operation that can sustain our family for generations to come.

The best way to learn it, we think, is to get out there and do it. So we're hitting the road and heading for Central America where there's been a huge increase in organic family farms willing to take in and feed families in exchange for help on their land. Our sons are 2 and 4 and are sure to add elements of wonder, sentiment and of course drama to our adventure. We'll take it one day at a time over the course of a growing season, exploring the land, people and culture of Central America on a quest for knowledge about the future of organic family farming.

We are award-winning journalists and photographers with experience producing and directing fiim. A blog will track our adventures and discoveries in humorous, down-to-earth language that'll either make you want to be riding along with us or get down on your knees and thank God that you aren't. We hope to release the documentary independently and preview at film festivals in the USA in late 2011 into 2012.

Thanks for stopping by. Drop us a line anytime!

Catherine & Tayloe Emery
Catherine@expeditionorganica.com