24 May 2010

today's harvest

today's harvest

gardening and raising chickens, ducks, children. these are things of the pioneers....of my pioneer heritage. i come from a mother and great grandmother who lived their lives in this tradition. many times my dinners were what was ripe in the garden. my breakfasts of eggs from our own chickens. that garden, that organic garden was a joy to my mother (she was organic & homeopathic when it wasn't cool). thankfully, she passed that to me. i never fully understood what something as simple as a garden and a few hens could mean until now. it is feeding my family. a service of love and devotion from my hands to their souls. it is a relationship with our food. mindful not mindless eating. i think of the passages in Cold Mountain where Inman comes across the lady with the goats. she loved them and they her. she respected them for the sustenance they were. lovingly she milked them and she carefully let the life from them when she needed to eat them. mindful.

4 comments:

  1. This picture just makes my day. I love to see what you grow. I have an eggplant that's ready...but I haven't picked it yet because I don't know what to do with it.

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  2. awww erin you make my day. my favorite way to eat eggplant is to oven roast it. with or w/o other squashes, fresh tomatoes, mushrooms. basil and olive oil. so yum! oh you can sprinkle a bit of parmesan or regatino cheese....extra yum.

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  3. Oh, Cold Mountain is a true favorite. I was bereft when it ended. And the parts I remember most are those that deal directly with homesteading; storing food in the cellar, how to plant and harvest and so on. Good stuff. Sounds like you have an interesting family history to mine for inspiration!

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