It's The Small Things
With the astronomical, no end in sight and for no good reason rise in food costs, Paul and I decided to take matters into our own hands. This year we had a veggie garden planted. Because we come from the city and have almost zero idea as to how to plant and maintain our own food source, we hired Mark at Gourmet Garden Organics to do it for us. What a godsend! Mark did advise that this wouldn't necessarily be the cheaper way to go and we did appreciate his honesty, but I'd much rather spend my dollars on a local entrepreneur and our own local produce. Big Grocery needs to give its head a shake.
We were a bit late getting started but that doesn't seem to have mattered. The bounty now is plentiful. Lettuces, kale, Swiss chard, beets, peppers, tomatoes, beans, peas, zucchini, cucumber, herbs, carrots. Some we are already eating, others are still coming along. Mark comes by every Tuesday to expertly tend the plants and is more than happy to answer our questions. As for me, I get so much pleasure from visiting the garden every day, chatting up the new growth, picking lettuce for our lunchtime salads and zucchini for our dinner.
Summer is a time of plenty. I think of it as Mother Nature's glory days when she is in the height of her powers. Although I do worry about her, perhaps unnecessarily. We've been throwing her some crazy curveballs for a really long time now. Climate change is real and, yes, it is our fault. All around the world, weather has become extreme. I don't know if that is a result of our doing or if it is Nature's way of compensating, righting the ship as it were.
We have been adopted of late by Earl, the wild turkey. Some of you may recall our previous fowl beauty, Tomasina. Earl hangs out at our bird feeder and pecks the ground alongside the Mourning Doves. He doesn't care for red squirrels, flapping his wings and raising his head to scare them off.
We have a resident skunk family, a mom and two babies although, I'm sorry to report, one of the babies was dispatched by some coyotes. We have almost no bees this year although hornets are a-plenty.
I have only two frogs in my little pond when normally I'd be hosting a couple dozen by now. To offset, we've had a few Monarch butterflies (recently listed as an endangered species) alight on the milkweed and hummingbirds drinking from our garden flowers.
I'm feeling grateful to be alive these days, to witness the beauty in the natural world, to hold hope for its survival and thrival (just made that up but it works!).
Going to leave you with this lovely little video that gives me hope for humanity.