Thursday, March 04, 2010

Meet

One beautiful thing about blogging is the people you meet. Grace is no exception. We came together in a rather roundabout way...a mutual read, Leah, decided February was so droll, we needed to have a swap. All the interested readers threw their names in a hat, and Leah paired us up. There was a list of possibilities to include in your box; we simply chose 4 and went from there.

Grace is from Georgia...yet another cool person from a state I know so little about I'm embarassed...

This was in my box:
She is crafty beyond my abilities - she made the t-shirt (can't wait to wear it to the Farmer's Market) and the bags and the horse...it was all really neat. The book is one of her favorites - I have never read it, so I am waiting for the first rainy day to curl up with a cup of tea and off we go...(Anyone else read it?)

And she finished with chocolate. Chocolate!!!! She's crafty and smart.

Go check out her blog. (link above)

I'm off to make "lemonade." (Tell you tomorrow)

Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Meat


It's never been a priority for me; in fact you could call me a vegetarian for most of my life, and it is still my preferred way to eat. But my outlook on meat has definitely changed.

I committed to eating as a vegetarian in college as a way to make a conscious choice about how I eat and what I eat. When I had that epiphany in Freshman Bio about the food chain, energy, and resources I just simply could not go on eating at the top of the food "pile". I didn't feel any more entitled to greater than "my share" of the Earth's energy than the next person.

But this year we raised Tamworth pigs. Pasture raised, and nut-mast and fruit finished. (With a bit of commercial grain to cover us). And suddenly it was my energy raising them, my efforts to provide drops and nuts, those were leftovers from my organic garden. I was hauling water, and moving fences and chasing them when they got out. And for the first time, I wasn't looking at meat that had been raised in a commercial operation with petro-fuel feed that my consumerist American culture had thrust upon me - I was raising quality, heritage-breed stock that had been a key part of my whole cycle of living, growing, working and family.

So, I now eat pork. My pork. Our pork. (And, it's not half bad!) I'll still take chickpeas over ham anyday...but it's growing on me...

This summer we are going to try meat chickens. Stay tuned...