Crosshatch’s Carbon Cohort Program in a Nutshell

What is the Carbon Cohort program and why does it matter? Click the video above and you’re five minutes away from a better understanding.

In the end, the program might be of interest to you, or maybe it’s worth sharing with a neighbor or niece, but either way, know that it’s a program shaping this region’s small farm and forestry landscape through long-term visioning, education, resource-sharing, and relationship building.

The Warp — Ideas and Inspiration

|| 1 || Catuai, SL-28, Bourbon, Pacamara–those are each cultivars, or cultivated varieties, of coffee. There are quite a few of them, with more constantly in development, and years ago, thanks to my employment, I was just beginning to recognize a fair amount of their characteristics somewhat instinctively. I don’t have those conversations or sensory experiences on the daily anymore, so the connections are a lot fuzzier. Rob Hoos, a coffee-person’s coffee person, is working on a varietals project right now, culminating in a book on different varieties and how to best roast them. In typical roasting consideration, a person might consider moisture levels, regional characteristics, bean size, processing methods, farm altitude, batch size, etc, to form their strategy, and now it seems there’s a convenient reference for cultivar theory on the horizon. I’m excited. But I also understand why someone might turn their nose.

With anything, especially agricultural products historically viewed and treated as interchangeable commodities devoid of much nuance, you can go real deep down unnecessary-seeming rabbit-holes if you wish. If you’re kept awake at night by concerns about the treatment of the land in coffee growing regions, or working conditions, or equitable exchanges throughout the production chain, the easiest option to get some rest is probably to just give coffee up.

Or you could purchase something that’s high in ethical buy-in and transparency and is affordable, which likely means a mid-range cuppa joe in the morning.

Or you could purchase something from Onyx Coffee Lab, which does everything well. Heck, spring for their top-of-the-line subscription if you want the best that’s out there… That’ll get you primo beans sent to your door on a monthly basis—all said and done netting you seven and a half pounds of coffee per year, at a cost of about $2,000. If you’ve got that kind of money to throw at beans, well, that brings back a new array of questions.

|| 2 || Eight favorite Substacks were listed and briefly described in the last edition. I really appreciate that kind of curation, and by that I mean both the depth of content found on various Substacks as opposed to Medium that Brad mentions, as well as the curation-work of listing and outlining of things worth reading for others.

I’ve got a lot of limits on my time and capacity for reading in various forms these days, and that’s why I want to ask if you have any recommendations. If you’ve been reading something life-giving or helpful or satisfying lately, could you reply to this and let me know the what and why? I’m curious, and I’d much rather depend on you than an algorithm right now.

|| 3 || Here’s the last strategy from Brad’s last essay.

“Resist closure. There’s no perfection, no utopia, no end to the work, no glorious ending, just making it better, with rigor and intention—and plenty of rest—day after day after day.”

And that’s it. That’s the end of Brad’s series. Those essays covered a lot, and I’m looking forward to some rereading and responding more in depth. For now, I’ll just say that that last admonition brought to mind the end of Paul Kingsnorth’s “Savage Gods”. The book is a non-fiction account of Paul’s frustration with the prism-aspects of words, and how his knuckle-scraping reorientation of his and his family’s lives to a quieter, more resilient, localized farmstead in Ireland led him towards giving up on writing.

Just a few pages from the end of the book, in what nearly was the end of the book itself, he writes—“There is nothing that can contain this, and conclusions are lies, cop-outs, offerings of weak comfort. For a while I thought maybe that if I just ended the book suddenly, just stopped somewhere, maybe even in the middle of a sen”

The Weft — News and Events

|| 1 || Fire Cider-Making at the Crow’s Nest with the NW MI Herb Guild—Find information on the Thursday, October 12th event as well as reserving a spot here.

|| 2 || 300 Miles, 24 Hours, 1 Tandem Bike. Seth Gernot and company will be attempting an ambitious trek celebrating and supporting collaboration between Top of Michigan Trails Council and Tart Trails on Saturday, September 30th. "Seth's Challenge" is an adventure cycling event aimed at raising money for Northern Michigan trails—click here if you’d like to support the venture, and click here to follow their progress live beginning at noon.

|| 3 || Up North Pride’s Pride Week will be culminating this weekend with a series of events, including Saturday’s (Sept. 30th) Visibility Rally and March. Find more info on the march and other happenings here.

|| 4 || The Traverse City Film Festival begins anew on October 3rd. The new iteration of the annual festival features a curated film every Tuesday of the year, along with Q/A sessions with filmmakers, $2 popcorn, and more. Find details here. October 3rd’s selected flick is How To Blow Up A Pipeline, a film noted in The Whole Field, Vol. 2, No. 12.

|| 5 || The LC Collective presents Harvest “Wild Places”—A celebration of local art and music on October 14th from 3-6pm at the DeYoung Farmhouse. Featuring artwork from Amanda Acker, Roger Amundsen, Nik Burkhart, Dana Falconberry, Lindsay Gardner, Jamie John, Alyssa Smith, Matt Voight and Rachel Winslow, and music from Pete Farmer. Find more here.

|| 6 || The Fresh Coast Film Festival, a documentary film festival celebrating the outdoor lifestyle, water-rich environment and resilient spirit of the Great Lakes and Upper Midwest, returns for 2023 in Marquette. October 19-22.

|| 7 || The new Antrim County Writers’ Project is bringing the poet Keith Taylor, to Bellaire and Elk Rapids for two events.

October 24 @ 7 pm — Keith Taylor’s Reading and Book Discussion of The Bird-while

October 25 @ 2:30 pm — Keith Taylor Poetry Writing Workshop