Don’t be a Stranger! CA&ES makes it easy to keep in touch.

This was a project from the Fall. Just sharing FYI...

CA&ES on Facebook
Find us on Facebook and become a fan. You can view news and events updates and make connections with friends affiliated with the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

College home page
Stay current with what’s happening in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Just take a few seconds to update your e-mail address on our online alumni information form. Select the “Alumni & Friends” link at ww.caes.ucdavis.edu. We’ll send you occasional notices of upcoming events, as well as volunteer opportunities. You can also check out our online news and events, read CA&ES Outlook magazine and Impact statements, or sign up for RSS feeds.

Aggie Ambassadors alumni
If you were an Aggie Ambassador, we would like to hear from you. Just visit our college website at www.caes.ucdavis.edu. Take a few seconds to complete the brief “alumni information” form on the “Alumni & Friends” link. You can insert the years you were an Aggie Ambassador into the “news” field. We look forward to hearing from you!

IAD page for Outlook Magazine Spring 2009 issue

This is my page from the alumni magazine published this month.

Graduate students in agriculture put their passports to good use

The International Agricultural Development Graduate Group at UC Davis is really going places. IAD graduates are spread from California to the Horn of Africa, making a difference wherever they go.

“We have alumni placed all over the world, working
for the federal government, foundations, and many
nongovernmental organizations,” says program chair and plant sciences professor Richard Plant. “Our graduates are equipped with knowledge and skills that enable them to implement, facilitate, and manage programs in agricultural development, resource management, and rural life.”

The graduate group was created in the 1980s to prepare students for careers in agricultural and rural development around the world. The interdisciplinary program draws on the knowledge of 80 faculty members in 31 departments across the campus. The IAD master’s program, which admits 15–20 students annually, gives students an understanding of agricultural theory and application.

“Many of our students come with some experience, such as working with the Peace Corps or other organizations,” says Plant. “Many of them did not have an undergraduate background in agriculture, and only realized the importance of agriculture after their own experience.”
In addition to subject matter within agriculture and social sciences, IAD students learn about
development, leadership and management techniques, fundamentals of crop and livestock
farming systems, and agricultural economics.

For information about working internationally or for more training, check out the IAD Graduate Group online at http://iad.ucdavis.edu.
— Elisabeth Kauffman

photo captions:
Zachary Bagley spent time as an undergraduate studying links between wildlife conservation efforts and local poverty in Kenya. “This experience opened my eyes to issues related to both human well-being and wildlife protection,” says Bagley, now an IAD master’s degree student. “I chose UC Davis because of its positive reputation in the agricultural realm, its proven experience in the international arena, and its connections with the Peace Corps.”

Anna Petersons spent two years with the Peace Corps in the Republic of Niger, West Africa, helping the small rural community of Holloballe find solutions to its water needs. “I loved working with these small farmers in the middle of nowhere, but with only a bachelor’s degree, I knew I wasn’t qualified for a lot of jobs in agricultural development,” she said. “The IAD program has given me what I was looking for—a broader perspective on global agriculture.” Petersons began her master’s degree in the UC Davis IAD graduate program in 2007. Over the 2009 winter quarter she took some time off to work in India with a start-up company helping small farmers with drip irrigation. She returned for spring quarter to complete the master’s program.

Have I mentioned that I HEART my dog?

I mean, look at that face? What isn't there to love?

The latest cuteness on this adorable pup has to do with his efforts to win over my cats. Truth be told, Bangs and the nameless kitty hate the dog. I mean they HATE him. I often feel a little sorry for Tag. He is a gentle sort of pup. But occasionally he deserves their ire and derision. After this past weekend, though, he'll have to do something pretty heinous, like try to maul them, for me to think he deserves it.

We have a long hallway in our house. At the end, it turns a corner to the bathroom and the "cats' room," also known as our study. There's a baby gate up in front of the study so that the cats can retreat there and so that Tag can't go digging for buried treasure in the litter box. (Yuck!)

Sunday evening, the typical scene unfolds before my eyes. Bangs comes down off the cat condo in the living room and makes a sprint down the hall for the baby gate, puppy close behind. Instead of hearing the usual noise of a cat flinging itself over the gate, though, I hear... nothing.

Noah and I get up to investigate. What we find at the end of the hall amuses us. Bangs is crouched in the bathroom next to the toilet and growling. Tag is lying down outside the bathroom, nose on the ground and stretched out towards the kitty, sniffing.

Noah favors breaking up the incident, but I want to let it play out a little. I step over the puppy and into the bathroom to sit down next to Bangs. Noah stands in the hall next to Tag. Fifteen minutes or so go past in which Tag scoots close enough to sniff Bangs and gets growled and hissed back repeatedly.

Then something happens that neither Noah nor I could have expected. Tag gets up and walks away. Bored? We hear him go into his crate in the bedroom, presumably for a toy. When he comes back, I can't tell what he has brought with him. He walks straight up to Bangs and presents him with... a doggy biscuit! He is SO proud of this biscuit. He picks it up again, walks into the hall, puts it back down and barks at it, a playful puppy bark.

Noah and I are amazed. I take the biscuit and break it so that Tag can have some and Bangs can have some. Bangs sniffs interestedly for a moment but the biscuit's been in a dog's mouth so he's not about to actually consume it. Tag happily munches his part of the biscuit and then finishes Bang's untouched bit while Bangs looks on grouchily.

I can't stand it! It's so cute how much effort he made to make friends in that moment. Of course, half an hour later, he chased the cat back down the hall and over the gate again, Bangs's tail fluffed in terror... but he's trying. And I'm hopeful that he will succeed.

Puppy Love

This is the newest addition to the Kauffman family. Tag (Montague L Kauffman or MLK) is a joy, a bouncing baby collie full of energy and love and expressiveness. We have been greatly enjoying the time we spend with him.

We've also been greatly challenged. Patience and a fine tuning of communication skills and expectations are easy to wear thin when you get home from a long day of work, or when you are the only one who has been home to clean up after the puppy. Learning how he works and what he thinks and how to teach him the ways of life in a house as a well-behaved pup has stretched Noah and me more than I expected. I'm expectant that we will come out better people on the other end of this puppy stage of life.

Keep your eye out for Tag in the future. I have high hopes for this brilliant little fluff ball. Some good training and attention should make him into quite the performer! I'll keep you posted on his growth and progress.

This photo was taken on his homecoming day, February 7th, 2009. Tag was 9 weeks old.

Memory Lane

Some people are probably deliberate about their posts. Most likely they plan out exactly what they are going to say, well crafted, articulate. I blog like I live my life... by the seat of my pants, straight from the hip, into the wind... I can't do it any other way. I apologize if you find me hard to follow.

For some time now... I'd say a good 4 months or so... I've been catching up with old acquaintances on Facebook. I'm utterly amazed at how many random people from my past keep cropping up in unexpected places. It's the miracle of the age of social media, I guess. (I could digress here, but I'm going to try to stay on topic.) I've been on Facebook a while now, and, as typical with any technology, now that the star is fast burning out finally the "main stream" is beginning to catch on to the trend. More and more people keep cropping up.

There are those I am so overjoyed to reconnect with, and those that I choose to ignore, and those that choose to ignore me. Whatever, be well and happy... we're all on to the next stage of life anyways.

And yet, I find that the more people I hear of, see through other friends' photographs, catch snippets of reminisces from... the more depressed I become. Out of the fog of my past comes this memory that... I HATED high school... I was MISERABLE, lonely, depressed, and had no self-esteem. I mean, I had friends... but I'm remembering how utterly uncool I was, how much of a fringe kid, how awkward and unaccepted. Even my best friends had better friends than me.

I'm not sure what kept me from really engaging in life during that time, but I think I spent most of my childhood in an imaginary world. I don't really have many memories, souvenirs of my past to look back on. What is so terrible about that now is that I'm reminded of it through my total absence in most of the pictures that my childhood friends are posting. Granted, there are still a few out there... pretty sure I'm not a vampire, I show up in photographs and can see myself in mirrors.

I find myself sad, wishing that I was a bigger part of someone's happy memories of their youth. And yet... I don't think I'm even a part of my own memories. My heart aches for the lost years of my life.

The thing is, so much has happened in my life since then. I moved across country. I came out of my shell and connected with myself and with others. I found a wonderful man who loves me for all the stupidness and awkwardness that is me. I'm by no means a person who loves myself and accepts all people no questions asked... but I'm closer than I was before.

So I'm disconcerted by the way that seeing everyone else remembering how fun high school was and what dorks we all were then makes me want to curl up in a ball and never speak to anyone again. We're all SO ON to the next phase in our lives. What is it that I'm not letting go of?

Published!

I wanted to share an article I wrote for the CA&ES Outlook Magazine (College of Agricultural & Environmental Sciences alumni publication)

An earthy undertone
Viticulture and enology graduate helps a family winery go green

For Sarah Cahn Bennett, making good wine is a way of life.

Bennett grew up on her parents’ Navarro Vineyards winery in Anderson Valley, in Mendocino County, California. Her parents started the sustainable vineyard in the 1970s with the perfect Gewürztraminer, Pinot Noir, and Chardonnay their main objectives. As their business grew, so did their selection of fine wines. Riesling, Pinot Gris, and Muscat Blanc joined the lineup, and children Sarah and Aaron became part of the Navarro team. After achieving a bachelor’s degree in business administration from St. Mary’s College, Bennett set her sights on a master’s degree in viticulture and enology at UC Davis.

“Sarah knew exactly where she was going to go, exactly what she was going to do,” said viticulture and enology professor Doug Adams.

Adams’ research into the development of tannins in the skins and seeds of red wine varieties was a good fit for her interests. Bennett and her fellow students collected wines from California, Oregon, and Washington and compared the phenolics of the wine, including tannin which is found in grapes and wine. Bennett then began to look at how that research could be incorporated into winemaking methods.

Bennett now applies this knowledge to Navarro’s selection of Pinot Noirs. Her research helps the winemaking process, and adds a scientific scale to taste and perception.

“We measure many of these wines so that we have real number comparisons between areas,” Bennett says. Other Anderson valley vineyards use the results of Bennett’s assay to articulate what makes wine from their region unique.

Part of what Bennett believes makes Navarro Vineyards special is its commitment to sustainability. Along with avoiding the use of herbicides and pesticides on their land, Bennett has introduced a flock of Babydoll sheep to the vineyard. These miniature sheep have been extremely effective in controlling unwanted plant growth beneath the vines. The sheep, too short to do any damage to the fruit or vines, clean out sucker shoots and weeds that would otherwise be very difficult to reach.

Bennett and her family believe that sustainability stretches further than the field. Navarro Vineyards is committed to employment practices that establish loyalty and a sense of ownership for their workers. All Navarro Vineyards employees are full-time members of the company with full benefits.
Bennett recognizes the advantages that her time at UC Davis gave her. “I feel like I now know a good portion of the people in the industry,” she says. “I always knew I wanted to be in the wine industry. UC Davis was the perfect opportunity to help make that happen.”
- Elisabeth Kauffman

If wishes were horses...

So I haven't written here as much as I would like. Maybe I should turn it into a resolution to write more... but that would ensure that I never did again! Ah well... I'll have to be happy with myself one day.

Something happened this week that has been a long time coming, and something I never thought would actually come true in my life. If you know anything about me, you know I ride horses once a week. I have been riding for the past year. It has been a life-long dream of mine to work with/ride/enjoy horses on a regular basis. Once a week has been great... and I'm doing it even though we really shouldn't afford it... because I need to realize this dream... more than I need to save money.

Anyhow, my riding instructor has been telling me since the beginning that I should ride more than once a week if I want to improve my confidence and skill. Not an option for me, because to ride costs money and we're already outside the budget to do this as much as I do it. I finished explaining that to her for the 1 millionth time last week, and she said she'd get back to me... that money shouldn't be the issue.

When she got back to me, my riding instructor had found a way for me to ride 3 days a week a wonderful Morgan horse named Omega... in exchange for labor. Basically, I'll grain and water 6 horses every day I'm there to ride, and help with other projects or blanketing horses when necessary... an amazing opportunity! So I'm going to ride more... and (*torture of all tortures* said with dripping sarcasm) I'll have to take care of some other horses basic needs 3 days a week.

When I think about how I have always wanted just this kind of opportunity since I was 5 years old... and how it is here now... I can't believe how lucky, how truly blessed I am. How amazing to live a life where wishes really are horses and beggars really can ride...