moment of mindfulness...a baby step towards sustainable living

Saturday, Jude and I were invited to harvest the garlic at our CSA. I jumped at the chance. Earlier this year, I gave them a standing offer to help with anything they needed help with because having visited the farm before I knew the place was incredibly inspiring to me. Johnny and Leah are so conscientious and knowledgable about organic farming and sustainable living that I knew I would get way more out of a day of helping than they would. That’s just the kind of place it is and the kind of people they are.

I was given the task of harvesting a 3 x 40’ row of garlic and managed to do most of it myself before Leah finished her job and helped me with the last 1/4 or so. The garlic was beautiful with all the rain we have gotten this year. After the garlic was pulled Johnny and Jude strung it up to dry in the top of their barn, and Leah pulled the straw mulch off the bed as I pulled the weeds that remained in the bed. They were planting cauliflower later that night! In Lewisburg, this weekend there was an annual event called the cavalcade of champions, a drum and bugle competition. Johnny and Leah joked that they would be doing the cavalcade of cauliflower!

I came home really tired, but it was a really good tired and I felt fulfilled on so many levels. I haven’t been physically tired like that in long while, and it stirred up some deep urges to take the experience I had at the farm and use it to push our family one step closer to living more sustainably.

Today I sat down buried my nose in the seed catalog and dug through my own seed stash to organize a fall/winter garden plan so I can grow vegetables year round for our family. We have approximately 70 days left before our first frost so there really is no time to spare. There are cold frames to build, and beds to raise…despite a lot of unknowns and hard work required, a force of inspiration is driving me to step into this dream of mine without trepidation even if it is a small step.