Monday, December 12, 2011

Love the article, not sure about 'the look' :-)

Here's a great article about a small town of ~15,000 people in the UK with a goal of feeding itself by 2018.

I always tell the students who come to work with us that there is no need for fashion of any kind on our farm, which includes fingernails, toenails, suntans, designer sunglasses, cute tops, cute shoes, etc, etc, etc. :-)

There is no one here to impress! However, maybe I am wrong about all this.  First things first. Maybe I should be trying to look a little better myself!

As I finally finished mulching our green garlic this afternoon, I realized I would be a complete mess if someone came to take a photo of me. Seriously, I would be a 'real' mess, complete with blue jeans that just keep getting more stained, thinner, and maybe even looser, boots with cracks in them, two left gloves (I have probably worn out the right-handed ones), straw all over me, in my hair, stuck to my vest, in my gloves and down my boots, 'hoodie hair', some stray sunglasses left on the farm (not cute or designer), with an assortment of layers on top, some of which were out-grown by my boys.

Thankfully, no one did! So you have to imagine what I looked like as we finally finally finished putting the garlic to bed for the year. I'm not sure 'the look' of the woman featured in this article is for me (is that scarf functional in any way or just very very very long?), but maybe I do need help with fashion on the farm, at least being less messy! Advisers are welcome. :-)

In any case, getting back to the the article, I hope you read it. I loved several things about it:
1) "Aim high, otherwise, why bother getting out of bed in the morning?"
2) "This is a revolution, but we are gentle revolutionaries."
3) "There's a feeling we're doing something significant rather than just moaning."

My husband was saddened however by the black-and-white comment that "men meet at bars and plan wars while women meet for coffee and plan good things", like this effort called Incredible Edible, in which the goal is for the town to feed itself while also helping to  boost the local economy. "That doesn't leave much room in the middle for men", says Dick. I know plenty of men playing major roles in this local food evolution (i.e. revolution) and of course he is one of them (as are many good men I know, including my two sons), but the important point of this story is the awareness that so much of what we can do to help ourselves is in our heart, at the end of our two hands, and right under our feet, both "taking back" our food and sharing the local bounty within our local community.

From seed to satisfaction, from sowing to sharing, I hope you join the gentle growing revolution in 2012, but you can look for your own local growers now throughout the winter and support them with your purchases. There used to be an old ad (I forget what it was for) that said '________ It does a body good'. I hope you'll fill in that blank with "Growing your own food does a body good!" where 'body' = you plus your community.

And you do not need to make a 'fashion statement' to be part of this revolution. Just put a smile on your face, and I doubt that anyone will notice the straw in your hair.  :-)

"Cultivate your life - you are what you grow - inch by inch, row by row"

Diana Dyer, MS, RD


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