After I finished college, I gave away everything that wouldn’t fit in my Volkswagon and hit the road West, determined to see the Mississippi, the Grand Canyon and the Pacific. Thus began my love affair with the lost art of the Road Trip. Back then, gas prices were just starting to flirt with the two dollar mark and almost everybody who heard about my cross country road trip plans tried to talk me out of it.

When I left home I wasn’t sure where the road would lead me, if I would return or where I might end up if I didn’t. I never would have guessed the end of the summer would find me on an Oregon seed farm, toiling through a grueling harvest season and absolutely captivated by organic agriculture. I found the combination of ecology and genetics that lies at the heart of natural farming inspiring…