Ancient Futures (is already a book)

"It may be absurd to believe that a primitive culture in the Himalaya has anything to teach our industrialized society. But our search for a future that works keeps spiraling back to an ancient connection between ourselves and the earth, an interconnectedness that ancient cultures have never abandoned." (Helena Norberg-Hodge)

It's this quote that opens a chapter in Three Cups of Tea, the best-selling novel published a few years ago, that I just got my hands on this week.

Today was the second monthly pick-up of our meat CSA from Applecheek Farm. Last month we went through the share pretty quickly it seems - holding a dinner party to celebrate, and another (The T-Bones on the grill alongside raddichio) to soothe a relationship. This month, perhaps we'll get to do the same, though it goes more quickly that way.

Jamie went by the Bluebird Tavern to pick it up from Rocio, farm John's wife, who does the delivery. She is the sweetest woman, and I was sure she wouldn't give him a hard time even thought he meat was labeled with my name. She didn't, and Jamie came home later, happy that he had been more involved. He talked about the experience with rapture, though it was only a few moments. Something like "Why is it so special that we go and pick up our meat from them? I bet this is still a big part of her culture where she grew up!" (Rocio is from Ecuador. Even so, we're speculating.) And I said, "Well, it was a part of our culture only a few generations ago." I think this is true...haha.

In Italy I got another taste of this - it seems like a lot of European cities and towns still center around artisans. The tailor, electrician, cobbler and butcher are still lucrative occupations, and necessary neighbors. I am not sure if the butcher raises the meat himself...not likely since he's probably pretty busy, but I bet he's still good friend's with that farmer. His livelihood depends on the quality of his product and service.

The average current way of living is far from this. Most of us know that now, since stuff like this is a normal discussion around the (Vermont?) dinner table. Here in Vermont, both farmers/producers and consumers are turning away from this model. I wonder what it will do long term? Will Price Chopper no longer be open 24 hours? These small farmer's may have to struggle to stay small, because what we have right now could not feed the whole state...more people would have to take on this as a profession OR at least on a small, personal scale to feed themselves and their families. Modernity must meet practicality and not only 'get back to nature' but go back to what has been ingrained as natural to us for thousands of years. Self-sufficiency and independence with an emphasis on community.

Self-sufficiency - or being a successful farmer - requires skills, and skills are attained through practice. Our lives may have to slow down a tad. This does not mean we can not multi-task. The new future can pick and choose the best from both ways of life - solar panels, modern (or ancient/successful/herbal) medicine and the internet, with the old connection to the rhythms of the natural world.

Who's got ideas?

Peepers and Counting Receipts

Soon after we moved in last May I began collecting my grocery receipts in a small drawer in our kitchen.

It was separate from the 'stuff' draw that Jamie hoped we would not have. I think it's inevitable, because we just have a certain amount of stuff that doesn't belong with anything else, and happens to be small enough to fit in the drawer. You always know what will be in there - lights, scotch tape, twist ties and sometimes AAA batteries, if you're lucky.

But this is not the same as the receipt drawer. A new creation...for me. I was not very diligent about it, and this shows in my results. Still I am always proud when I start and finish an idea, and today I really did sit down and sort them.

Each month it seems I spend an average of 200 bucks on groceries, and at 4 different stores. I have yet to go through and find local stuff, or meat or produce etc...to see the differences there. That will take some detective detail work.

I remember that at the end of last August I really made the switch to buying and eating local produce. This April we joined the meat CSA from Applecheek Farm. I am proud of our changes.....We also already have quite a large garden going...I am proud of the way we have been eating.

These peepers are still going strong. I wonder, which parents told their kids they were insects, and which knew the truth? I'm finding that only about 50% of my friends know which little creature creates that familiar summer sound. I am also wondering how long they will keep on singing their love song. I believe they started early, April at least, and now it's nearly June.

Speaking of the peepers, I had an in-love-with New England moment. My landlord, Pat, had brought over a copy of the lease for us to sign. We're staying another year. I signed on Tuesday, since I was home, and to be honest, I began to have the tiniest anxieties that Jamie would not, until Thursday when I saw his scribble under mine. After a great class, I came home, poured myself a glass of wine, and walked across our front field through the twilight dew to personally hand the document to Pat. I took the long way back, down his gravel driveway, pausing to look over the land as I walked down the small hill into the valley that is Old Pump road. Nostalgia is a silent killer, it's why we're all afraid to make marriages.

I've certainly fallen for this place though - the romance began a while ago, but out of convenience almost. Not that any move in convenient, but the love came because it was supposed to. This week, walking back up my driveway right before dark, the smells of childhood came back. I looked for the constellation of grass in the driveway. I stopped to stare at the birches, and their bright, baby leaves. I sent love to the moss in Hercules' (the bull) pasture. I thought deer thoughts, and wanted to curl up and spend the night with the Earth.

Out there, yes, but true and intense. New England sows it's way into your heart. Many poets have understood this. Robert Frost was bitten.

Well, perhaps I will keep counting, but I've cleaned out one drawer.

...checking in.

"Mainly, I think that we (and by we, I mean me, again)—against our great wealth of experience to the contrary—harbor the belief that in reaching our goals we will be freed from the neurosis, fear, self-doubt, obsession, and myriad other emotional and psychological discomforts that accompany writing. Or any other kind of work, life, or humanness. If I just find love. If I just get into this graduate program. If I just lose this 5 pounds. If I just finish this book. If I just publish this book. If it just gets reviewed well. If I just manage to assemble this Ikea bookshelf. THEN, I will stop wondering if I am good enough. Then, I will be able to stop worrying. Then, I will be liberated from the bondage of self-concern and free to pursue a life of service. Needless to say, this secret expectation is never met. I mean, thank god. Each time it goes unmet, I think we wake up a tiny bit more to the actual experience of living."...zzzzzzttttttttttttttt! Bazzing!

I mean, i guess that just magically turns into a kind of living in the moment stuff. Our own, weird moment, it's ok. Well, hell, it's the only time I've ever really felt happiness. :)

Cheaters and eaters

I can't resist alliteration.

I'm out of the raw milk I picked up last week from Family Cow Farmstand. It's too far to drive regularly, but they are planning on expanding their delivery to include a stop along Route 15 in Essex, and if so, I will definitely join their weekly milk CSA. $5 per half gallon, and yes, $10 per gallon. Not the cheapest I've seen, but delivery makes it possible, otherwise, I'd just pay that in gas getting somewhere.

This is the first raw milk I have had for years, maybe even since growing up drinking goat's milk. I love milk, for years it was my beverage of choice, but I am already ready to boycott the 'regular' stuff. Not because of taste, but because I feel as though I am being lied to, and cheated on. This has been a huge reason for my localvore quest lately - true, I certainly think this food is more healthy for us, and for the animals, community etc, but I am really just sick of filling my belly with falsities.

After bringing home the milk last week, in a big glass 1/2 gallon mason jar, I poured off most of the cream to have with our coffee (not big coffee drinkers but we have this stuff from Panama mmmmm), and simply drank most of the rest. Mmm. So when ran out of cream yesterday, I decided to run to the store because I was already looking forward to coffee for the next morning.

I think I spent at least 20 minutes deciding what to buy. First, I went right to the normal dairy section in Hannaford's, thinking I would get what I usually do, I mean, I'd bee drinking it for years and enjoying it. Well, not so much now. I have been reading a lot of milk literature. Not only about the benefits of raw milk, but about the dangers of mass-production, and even banality of pasteurization. (See this article for information regarding types of milk vs. types of cow...)

I picked up a half-gallon, not wholly satisfied. It was a 'Vermont' company, but I do not know how much I trust it, I do not believe it's really 'localvore' because it's never labeled that and always available in the huge chain grocery stores.

Then I walked towards the 'Organic' section to see what I might find. Thinking perhaps Organic Valley half and half would make me feel better, but here again is where my attempt to gain knowledge is turning me away. I know that though organic, this company is still owned by one of the huge companies promoting industrial agriculture. SO what's the next option? Soy. There are a few choices, even a soy 'creamer.' First though: what makes it 'creamy?' And why should I choose to support soy, another of our mutilated, industrialized crops? Well, at least it doesn't have (as many?) dying or sick animals involved. So, organic plan soy milk is what it is. Yummy, but I still left feeling like a fool.

How am I walking around in this land of plenty, and mistrusting everything I see? It's all going to fill my belly, but I want more than that. We seek truth in all other aspects of our lives, and we deserve to be able to nourish ourselves with it from the inside out.

Meat Share vs. Car Repair

In line at Hannaford’s, I’m looking down at the black belt where I’ve placed my carefully selected items, knowing it’s going to cost more than it looks like it should. A plastic stick divides my bounty from the woman’s in front of me. I try not to be assuming, but I look out of the corner of my eye to asses her situation. She must have at least 3 children at home, and this week’s dinner looks like tacos, hamburger helper and salad mix. She had chosen meat, baby skinless carrots, bags of salad mix and soda. Delicious and home-cooked no doubt (except for the soda), and it will fill their bellies.
I look at my measly produce, almond milk, eggs, tofu and pasta sauce,(etc) knowing that she’s feeding three times as many people, and not spending much more than I will. And – I didn’t even buy organic this time. Hannaford's doesn't have much of a selection, anyway, Their organic produce section consists of lettuce, cucumbers and celery, and it seems to be cleared out by 4 p.m. every day. As far as I know, the only local products they sell are Bove's pasta sauce ($6 per jar, but delish) and hydroponic tomatoes - Vermatoes. Haha.
I am not pointing this out to try to make a point that I am a 'better' shopper. I have no idea what I would be buying if I had to feed a large family. It would completely depend on our budget - which is what sucks about this food system right now. It's nearly impossible to buy idealistically when you're broke. Many times, I come to the end of the month and buy good groceries on my credit card because I believe we deserve to eat well. Now I am being good, and leaving the credit cards at home, lest I think I will ever be able to pay them off.
Well, one of the reasons and I am working on a particularly tight budget is because I needed a new starter in my truck this week. $250. I can't complain much - I was not even very upset. I have had this truck, which I paid $700 for, for a full year this month (in fact, I also paid to renew the registration, but this was an expected cost.) I have not had a repair in five months, so I had felt it was due - routine maintenence kind of thing.

Though, that $250 was going to be Jamie and I's meat CSA money for the summer. I had met a woman from Maple Wind Farm at the last Burlington Farmer's Market. The farm had a pick-up point in Richmond (very close) and this could work for us! I had finally gotten Jamie even more excited about eating local, good, clean food. Though truthfully, I believe we can go without meat if we were going to be totally hardcore, but we are choosing a different angle. I know we will both want to buy it every so often, and the last six months or so we have been only buying local. It's easy enough to get now that we realize that Sweet Clover Market is close by, but it gets quite pricey. $12 for some chicken every once in a while sometimes gets hard to spend too.

Eating right has lots of challenges (who knows what is right, anyway - this just feels right and real right now) and budget is a big one. It makes me upset to know what I want, to know what is best, and to not be able to get it because we're trying to get enough to eat. I have certainly been the one to say 'Pay more, eat less' and I think I do follow this mantra.

But that unexpected $250 really threw off me off my golden path.

Whammy.

(PS, Jamie and I ended up finding a cheaper meat share from Applecheek Farm, which we will pick up on Thursday - wow!)

Ramps, rocket, redemption

It's only just hitting mid-April, but I found my first ever wild leeks (ramps). I feel like a Yankee, or Pocahontas, or something equally as idyllic and conjoined with nature.

It was a gift from our woods, the first one to come directly to me, unless maybe you would count the pussy willows I found a month ago, before anything had turned green at all. But well, I couldn't eat those.


I was actually heading downtown to go have lunch with a friend, but I just had these little things on my mind, and had to see if it was that easy to find them. I left the door open to my house, and the door open to my truck (not realizing this of course, until I came back to them both, and hoped that my battery was not dead) and struck out right then and there. Cell phone in my pocket, I was still texting Laura saying I was "leaving in 5" as I crossed the threshold from the yard to the forest. There were quite a bit of green things. Trilium (not blooming yet) as I had learned from one of the herbal talks I went to recently. Also, one other small, dark green-leafed crawling vine I recognized from the same talks, but could not name. Then ferns (not fiddleheads) and another single-leafed floor covering. I thought it may have been one of the leeks, they were just not fully grown yet. Perhaps I was looking too early in the season.

These little leaves were sticking up in patches everywhere, where any bit of sun ma have happened to pass between leaves and hit the forest floor. I had expected the leeks to be like this. These leaves, though, were not promising, almost menacing - a darker green, and dappled just as their mother.

We have a series of paths that begin beyond the large field behind our house. They would be perfect cross-country ski paths, or snowshoe paths, (we intended to do more snowshoeing, but did not do enough to get back there anyway - this year) wide enough for a tractor or something, which probably originally cleared them. Also, we hear, they go all the way to a neighbors house on the other side of the hill. We really need more than 5 minutes to explore, but that is another story.

I decided it seemed illogical to start out on the path - why would wild leeks be sitting nicely ready to be picked alongside a wide, once-tractor trodden path? So I started near and even crossed over into the bull's (Hercules') fenced in area, since he has kind of a little stream which I thought they might grown near.

They live in colonies. I saw quite a few pictures while I was dong some research, and they grow as in little families up out of the dead leaves. In the pictures I saw, there was not much else for green around. The trees are not green yet - we're lucky that there are even a few red nips of buds starting on some certain trees. It's going to happen so fast though - in less than two weeks, we'll have a neon backdrop. Just like in the fall, the hills are on fire for the same amount of time. It's even a fast change for us humans.

I walked through the woods, finding some old barbed wire fence (not Hercules') and tried not to catch my leggings on them. Dressed for yoga, cell phone still in my pocket. I felt so 17th century Yankee... I was only about 20 feet or so into the woods, walking parallel to my yard, up hill, the parallel to the field. Nothing but more of the same four types of greenery I mentioned before, but not what I wanted. I thought, "Why should I think it would be so easy?" Like wild animals, the leeks would know where humans were living, and wouldn't set up their homes so close by. They're wild things, they have the intuition. Perhaps I was giving plants way too much credit.

I kept thinking I saw them...those single-leafed beings were fooling me. Some larger than one another, and glowing in the bit of sunlight, looked like the lime-green feathers I was searching for. I almost turned around (mind you "leaving in 5" text was probably 20 minutes in the making) but I saw the path I had spoken about earlier starting in front of me. I had made my way to the top of our field.

There is a huge, ancient tree very close to the start of the path. This winter, and in other low-light times, this tree scares me - it's more like a dark being. It barely sprout leaves, and the few were so high up last summer, I could barely discern what kind it was (my guess is Maple.) The tree certainly has a presence, but I saw it and realized I had been building up it's size - for the winter, I had not wanted to face it alone, that's how intimidating it is...But well, I looked at it in the face, and asked gently "Tree, show me where the leeks are." In my head, not out loud, ya know, preserving some sanity. I turned my back to the tree, to head down the path towards the field and house, and BAM leeks right in front of me. Glowing green, the big bright floppy green rabbit's ears settled in their circle right under a different old maple.

Thank you.

Local recipes and perhaps a supper club

Hello all,

It's Spring and I am falling over myself deciding on a meat share, where to get my raw milk, and what I can find/harvest from my woods. I want to share my excitement (and bounty) with everyone!

I am going to start exploring and exposing recipes including all local ingredients, and maybe when we get it together, we can have monthly dinner parties.

Here's one from last night - a light dinner, but so good:

Sauteed zucchini and tomatoes w/shaved cheese on top of polenta, side of Vermont Cranberry beans. (The tomatoes and zucchini were not local last night, but could have been 100%!)

OK, enough for now....who's down for some dinner!?