The past few weeks’ last harvests are coming to a close with setting the clocks back. I personally refuse to set my clock back, as I refer to “old time” as nostalgically as the great harvests of 2013. The sunlight will continue to abbreviate for many weeks, but enjoying the foods we’ve grown and gathered will likely last into the spring.
Julie here with this week’s article.
Despite having put the garden beds to “sleep” recently, there have been wild harvests on the land that I have been taking advantage of. Autumn olives are a fantastic fruit that grow on small shrubs, are rich in vitamin C, and can contain up to 18 times the lycopene of tomatoes. This nitrogen fixer is technically invasive, but I feel that the benefits of it outweigh my immediate concerns, as it also supplies food to wildlife otherwise displaced by mono-cultures of corn and soybeans. Reducing the seed by harvesting can reduce its likelihood of self-propagation, which seems less than prolific under the best of circumstances in this region. Forty years ago it was regaled for it’s drought tolerance as it was planted for erosion control on marginal soil. It does present significant issues in Michigan and a few other states, but the ten or so shrubs on our land at this time seem to be barely hanging on most years, producing little fruit. This year was exceptional, however, and we were able to harvest about 40 lbs of fruit, with most of that coming from a single shrub. I was able to make a couple gallons of juice, and a gallon and half of beautiful, almost maroon hued jam that is unusual and delicious, especially on my homemade bread and bagels. Add to that the 50 lbs of pecans, and 15 lbs of both persimmons and hickory nuts we recently found when traveling out of the village, and we’re feeling decadently rich with easy abundance. It feels amazing to have so much food outside of the veggies and chickens we’ve coaxed into fruition over the last year.
This weeks seems to be the week of dinner invitations. Three out of the six dinners I attended this week were goodbye dinners for Ziggy and April, who are moving to Berea, Ky. The Critters recently butchered a deer, and generously shared the delicious bounty of a backstrap with about 15 rabbits whose appreciation was a rapturous lip-smacking culinary ascent into food-heaven. I’m not-so-secretly hoping that Ziggy and April will decide that Dan and myself may adopt their pug named Pug, as he is a constant presence in our lives everyday, and is in fact cuddled up next to me as I write this. They will all be missed, and there will be a sadness that resonates throughout the village in their absence.
Despite temperatures dipping into the 20’s at night, I have scarcely had to light a fire as the result of the superior R-value (insulation value) my house has with its strawbale insulation. Given that my home is southern facing with an attached greenhouse, it stays between 65–70 degrees with no effort aside from rolling up my insulated window curtains to let in daylight’s sun. I know of many others in mid-November who report a similar efficiency, and I can’t help but feel a tiny bit
of hope that other people can reduce the energy consumed in their homes as well. So much of the gas and oil that is used in residential buildings is the product of poor insulative practices, or sun orientation, and if superior building methods could be adopted we could stretch energy reserves into our grandchildren’s children future and beyond. The use of other alternative technologies goes without saying here. We have a responsibility to our families and our planet to respect a finite resource so that they/it can prosper indefinitely. So often we feel that we have a “right” to a large slice of the resource pie simply because we can afford it; but the truth is that our access to this bounty is an abused privilege, often consumed wastefully and needlessly. If we could make some small efforts in our everyday lives, it could add up to a thriving society that respects others as much as we care about our own comforts. And for the record, I sacrifice no comforts; I only alter how those comforts are attained. It is infinitely satisfying to eat the food one grows, and to depend upon the infinite energy of the sun to obtain one’s electricity and heat. We often have such a disconnect between what we consume and its source. Being an active participant in generating most of what I consume is a joy that I hope to never be without. I honestly couldn’t live any other way, and am thankful everyday that I can choose the correct path that works for me. I have no children, but hope that my choices in some small way benefit yours.
I’m off my soapbox now, and thank you so much for joining me this week!
Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage is an intentional community in northeast Missouri, practicing ecologically sustainable living. We offer a free tour to the public on the second and fourth Saturdays of the month from April-October. Tours are over for this year, but you can still visit us on Thursday nights for pizza at the Milkweed Mercantile, from 4–9. For more information you can visit our website www.dancingrabbit.org, read our blog The March Hare at www.marchhareblog.com , or give us a call at (660) 883-5511.