“The shorter the chain between raw food and fork, the fresher it is and the more transparent the system is.”
―
Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal: War Stories from the Local Food Front
"I'll grow some sweet potatoes," you say.
The thing is,
every
single
thing
on a farm is far from that simple.
It seems like it should be:
1. Grow the potato.
2. Harvest the potato
3. Eat the potato.
But there are a million steps between deciding to grow potatoes and eating the potato.
Those steps mean that your "farmhouse" decor actually looks more like "sweet potato" decor.
Exhibit A:
So suddenly you have to figure out where to store the potatoes. How to cure the potatoes. You need to make sure that rats and mice don't get to the potatoes.
(Because rats and mice are part of a rural life. And so are snakes. You want snakes. Because you want them to eat the rats and the mice or you will have even less sweet potatoes. If you don't like snakes or rats and mice, just don't live on a farm. Don't.)
We are at dinner having a "Sweet Potato" meeting. When do we harvest? Where do we put them? Where do we keep them? What can we store them in? Do we need to buy something to store them in?
I just want to eat sweet potatoes. That's it.
But the thing is: living a sustainable life means so much more than pictures or a book might make it seem.
It means getting up early. And collapsing late at night.
It means eating what is growing RIGHT NOW and trying to preserve food so you can eat it later and not just getting a food anytime you want it that's been shipped from somewhere else.
Our goal is a family is to eat as much as we can straight from our land.I want to eat OUR food. The more of it I eat, the more I have trouble eating food from anywhere else. Even eating out at the nicest places has lost some of its appeal to me.
But the reality of that "dream" is not so simple.
No dream ever is.
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