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  • From: "Dori Green" <dorigreen00 AT hotmail.com>
  • To: market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Still Alive...
  • Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2000 17:44:02 EDT


There is no such thing as bad publicity, they say.

The local paper finally ran a piece about my farm a couple of weeks ago, after three years of promising to do so and cancelling every appointment. The editor finally got jazzed about my announcement of the birth of triplet goats.

When the piece came out, of course lots of info was garbled. I was happy that this time they got my name and phone number right. Local goat people are blaming me for the errors (I have pointed out that another name was on the by-line); I guess we'll all live through this.

Thanks to the publicity, I received a couple of calls inviting me to schlep my baby goats to birthday parties (nothing better for new babies than 20 screaming nudnicks), and one from a lady who was incensed and abusive because I didn't have ponies for similar schlepping. Everybody managed to miss the call for memberships.

The reporter twisted my statement that I had been home sick the day the babies were born into -- you guessed it, farmer was playing hookey from school. He had slyly said that it would be a cute start for the story and I had replied "Oh Ghod, don't say that." So of course he had to.

My administrators didn't bother asking me if this was true. They just sacked me four days later with an announcement that they weren't going to renew my contract next year. Turns out they had been looking for a reason to replace me with a certified teacher because of pressure from the rest of the English Department. Everything is always politics.

It took me three days to find something at three times the money 1/5 the distance from home. This one is temporary long-term; I'm interviewing later this week for a permanent position 100 miles away at almost twice the pay of this one (nearly six times what I made at the school). I would stay there during the week and drive home on weekends. Have done this before; it's do-able but I might be putting most of the market garden into cover crops for this year. Won't hurt it any.

I'm also welcoming a young family as partners at the end of this month.

Things are never slow or boring around here!

BTW, my 6,000-or-so nursery seedlings are up and going like gangbusters. That copious free TV-watching time planting six-packs has paid off again, and the back sunporch is packed.

Dori Green
Upstate New York

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  • Still Alive..., Dori Green, 04/03/2000

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