Quote of the Day: Shauna Niequist
“I don’t know what season you are in these days, what’s broken down and what’s beautiful in your life this season. I don’t know if this is a season of sweetness or one of sadness. But I’m learning that neither last forever. There will, I’m sure be something that invades this current loveliness. That’s how life is. It won’t be sweet forever. But it won’t be bitter forever either. If everywhere you look these days it’s wintery, desolate, lonely, practice believing in springtime. It always, always comes, even though on days like today it’s nearly impossible to imagine, ground frozen, trees bare, and spiky. New life will spring from this same ground. This season will end, and something entirely new will follow it.”
Shauna Niequiest in Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way
When I read this book this past summer this quote really resonated with me. We often want our lives to be always sweet, without realizing that the bitterness is what allows us to savor the sweetness. If your life is sweet right now, enjoy it, relish it, savor it. If your life is bitter right now, look ahead to the sweetness that will come and try to grow from the bitterness that you’re experiencing now.
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Quote of the Day: The Land Institute
“When people, land, and community are as one, all three members prosper; when they relate not as members but as competing interests, all three are exploited.”
The Land Institute from Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn, 2nd Revised Edition
One of the easiest ways to build community is to support local businesses and farms. Find a local farmers market, a small food co-op, shop at local businesses, eat at local restaurants and you’ll be amazed at how this brings prosperity to your local community. When the local community prospers all the members prosper and that includes you. Take some time today and think about how you can increase support for the small, local businesses and farms in your area and help bolster your community. It’s vital for us to keep our communities strong because it helps us be more resilient and the responsibility is ours to strengthen them!
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Quote of the Day: Tamar Adler
“We’re anxious about serving, but the simple, blessed fact is that no one ever comes to a dinner for what you’re cooking. We are all hungry and thirsty and happy that someone’s predicted we would be and made arrangements for dealing with it. We come for the opportunity to look up from our plates and say “thank you.” It is for recognition of our common hungers that we come when we are asked.”
-Tamar Adler from An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace
Recently I’ve been thinking about starting a supper club or some sort of way to gather around the table with people. Then I read an article on Serious Eats titled Friday Night Meatballs: Changing Your life with Pasta and knew this is exactly how I wanted to structure my weekly dinners. There are so many people we want to have over yet somehow it never works when we try to schedule it, as is common with busy people. Setting one evening a week to open our home seems like the best way to have meals with people when it’s convenient for both us and them.
When we lived back in Ohio we had a couple that we got together with weekly, there were also lots of other people that came over often to gather around our table or we went to their homes to gather around theirs. There really is no better way to fill not only our stomachs but also ourselves.
I love the idea of settling on one simple meal to make each week, something that makes it easy for people to choose accompanying salad, dessert or wine to bring. I love the idea of people coming when they can, bringing friends and family if they happen to be in town. I love the idea of meeting new people and sharing food with friends we haven’t seen often enough. But most of all, I love the idea of gathering around a table for conversation and community.
Do you get together with friends often for meals and conversation?
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Quote of the Day: Prentice Bloedel
“Nature can live without man, but man cannot live without nature.”
-Prentice Bloedel
Last Tuesday we visited Bloedel Reserve right after our visit to Heronswood. One of the things I like about this garden is that there are so many large naturalized areas. There are meadows, sheep barns, woods, large sweeping borders, ponds, marshes and so much more.
The line between cultivated and wild blends blends beautifully in a way that most gardens cannot achieve. In much of the garden nature is allowed to progress as it should, trees fall and are allowed to decompose where they are, no tidying up as you so often see in other gardens.
I like this garden because it’s grand, and yet it’s very simple. The most cultivated area is the Japanese garden, the rest consists of large sweeping borders filled with shrubs. While it was clearly a very expensive garden, the ideas used would be very feasible for the average gardener with a larger lot. This garden is very inspirational for someone like me who now has a very large parcel of land.
Is there a public garden you have found particularly inspiration for your current garden space?
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Quote of the Day: Elderberries
“Once up on a time not so long ago, elderberries were held in extremely high esteem by humans. Elderberry trees feds us. They got us drunk, provided medicine, and protected us from witches. Everybody know elderberry trees. They offered everything from fruit to flutes and cosmetics to weapons.”
Connie Green and Sarah Scott The Wild Table: Seasonal Foraged Food and Recipes
I only have one small elderberry plant here in my garden in Maine so far, though it’s sending up suckers that will be transplanted when it’s finished producing berries. There aren’t enough berries for me to make anything this year, they will be cut and fed to the chickens. Elderberries are beautiful plants and provide such nutrition.
The lacy white flowers can be fried up as fritters, made into wine or syrup for sodas and the berries can be used in all sorts of different ways. When I have elderberry syrup I use it in my tea all winter long, it’s said to boost the immune system. My dad swears by its health promoting ability and doesn’t hardly go a day without consuming elderberries in some form (jelly is his favorite medium). Even if you don’t want to consume the berries or the flowers, they are a wonderful way to provide forage for pollinators and birds of all varieties and are worthwhile to include in the garden for that reason.
Do you have any plants you grow for their medicinal properties?
