California Rural Community Story video log - May 2009

The California Story
A video local history of Rural California sponsored by the
California Council for the Humanities

Spring 2009 – from the video production log:

Notes on the beginning of video editing for the California Story –

The Chimney Sweep, the Bee Keeper and the Farmer – our story begins -

The Spring/Summer video editing work is underway. New local history interviews will be taking place during May and June and then we will begin weaving all the materials together.

As video interviews have progressed we have been looking at rural life in this part of California from many different points of view. The memories of local growth and personal success, on the farm and within our rural communities, are diverse and explore the economics, the family and the communities which create Rural Central California.

We are learning our own local history from the eyes of a chimney sweep, a small farmer working to make organic vegetables and fruit a successful business, from the eyes of a rural community Mayor and from the eyes of men and women who have worked the land to make the small farms and ranches succeed. We have begun to explore life and work in the rural zone with a family that has kept bees and made honey for two generations and with families who have created model Permaculture farms and urban farms/orchards that show new ways to build Agriculture and Sustainability into the community.

New understanding and renewed memories have come into our video, sometimes from the most unexpected sources. Farmers, rural community residents, farm workers, each take their place in these videos.

Our experience, in bringing these videos of rural life together, has come to be very much focused on small farms and ranches. Stories from the families who have made these farms and ranches weave an important part of the fabric of this story. Grandparents, parents and grandchildren all have a part of the story to tell

Work on the farms is another issue. The reality of life for farm workers who are the backbone of whatever economic prosperity comes the way of each farm, how does that reality line up with the life of rural community residents and farm owners?

In many respects life in the fields is very influenced by the Catholic faith, very family oriented, very survival oriented. Life in the rural communities is more diverse, although the issues of survival and family are sometimes closer than either the farm worker or the rural community resident would imagine.

Food – we’re not making a Food Channel video, but you can not get very far into rural America without realizing where all the food comes from. The small family farms we have come to know produce organic produce, honey, native and heirloom plants, herbs, olive oil, wine, roasted and flavored nuts, lavender, fruits of all sorts and remarkable new cheeses. Food is, indeed, a central part of the history of rural life.

Along side the farmers are the ranchers. The videos have begun to explore small, multi-generation ranch families working to find new ways to keep working cattle and horse operations going. And such a tremendous role in the shaping of the rural communities the small ranch families have made. Their history has been one of shaping and defining the land and the rural communities which have grown along side the ranches.

These videos explore a unique and historic heritage immortalized in John Steinbeck’s writings and Dorothea Lange’s photographs. Generations of farmers working to carry on a threatened agricultural tradition, remembering their history and imagining their future as they pioneer new crops and products, and innovate new organic growing and processing techniques and new sources of renewable energy. How quickly, in the making of these videos, we have seen the recording of local history pull us straight into the future.

We dedicate these videos to the California Heritage Growers who are agricultural producers and workers on the Central Coast of California in the Counties of Santa Cruz, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura. These videos tell the story of their essential role in creating the rural communities in this part of California..





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The California Story is a one year video project sponsored by the California Council for the Humanities and the RAIN Network.