A friend of mine Kelley, from work, gave me a cookbook last week called: From Asparagus to Zucchini from the Madison Area Community Supported Agriculture Coalition (MACSAC). It was a fantastic gift and had me engrossed all week, well, in between reading chapters of Hunger Games which was also distracting me from my farm duties. In fact, I discussed with a friend of mine how crazy it is that I have so enjoyed these middle school/high school reads of late. Are the books being published now just more mature than when we were growing up? Hmmmm..... I've decided, we must just be young at heart. Yup, that's it!
My head was swimming last week in all of the possibilities. Should we become CSA farmers? Should we just do a farm stand and provide produce and eggs to friends? Then I start brainstorming all of the other things that I could do. Use some of the raspberry harvest to bottle raspberry vinegar, make rhubarb marmalade, etc. etc. etc. Then I heard a great interview on Here on Earth about foraging. So Saturday afternoon I started picking flowers for dandelion wine. All great ideas. As you can see I'm on possibility overload! I need a mantra, something that I can repeat over and over like 'I don't need to do all of this now', or like the picture 'for my little lambs' or 'If I grow it, it will come.' Well, maybe that last one would be counter productive and just ingrain in me a greater sense of urgency.
So I've decided to do what I can, which this second year seems to be coming much easier, pace myself and pick up a good book in-between (high school one or not)!
We did get a lot done in the garden last weekend. All of the green beans and drying beans are in. We also got the onions, carrots, tomatoes, basil and swiss chard in. Everything is moving along nicely. Brian completed his annual century bike ride on Sunday and we got to meet the baby lamb's at Kelly's families farm. All in all very productive, very busy, and I still finished a book!
I think we/you pick a few things - get those perfected and then add a few more. Do a priority list of what you want to do the most and we'll just go down the list. I think you'd be happier with a few fantastic things than a ton of okay stuff. that's my two cents!
ReplyDeleteNow can you repeat all that to me? Because apparently I can't follow my own advice....
Karri
Ha! I agree. Must. Pace. Myself. But for all of the thoughts of things to do, I'm pacing ok ;)
ReplyDeleteYou're correct on both fronts: YA books have, indeed, become much more complex, and you're young at heart. :-) Quality literature knows no age restrictions, and some of the best literature being published is for this target audience. A truly good book, to whomever it is marketed, transcends labels and classifications, and more and more people are discovering the wonderful richness available through these expertly told stories. So not only are you young at heart, you're also on the cutting edge! A.R.
ReplyDeleteThanks Ayne! I gotta say, I like the cutting edge angle (no pun intended ;)
ReplyDeleteAR
BTW notice we have the same initials?