I'm going to split this series into 3 topics: food, fuel, and fun. There's a whole lot more than these areas but we will explore them later. Today I'm going to talk about one of my favorite things, food!
We raise most of our own food (but not all of it, not even as much as we'd like) for lots of reasons. We know what went into it. We don't have to worry about recalls. And we enjoy it.
Every morning, as I walk out to scoop a bucket of pellets for the goats, I've got a cup of freshly roasted coffee in hand. I get greeted by their sweet nickering. By the time I've got them fed, I've also scratched their necks and had my tee shirt nibbled on. Even the stinky bucks want to nuzzle my hand. Sure I see the manure and wasted hay that's gonna need cleaned up later in the day- and I know it's going to cause a backache- but the view of the sunrise and the way the kids bounce around keep a smile on my face. Right now the mama goat is dried up but, come spring, there will be milking and cheese making to do.
Next up is the chicken pen, and as I open the gate I can almost imagine them collectively shouting "FREEDOM" as they race into the yard to scratch for green bits and bugs. For the rest of the day I will hear clucking and crowing each time I step outside. After I scoop their feed into the feeder, I'll check to see if there were any early eggs laid. Then I make my way to the rabbit cages.
The rabbits like to greet me by hopping and thumping. The bucks especially thump because they know morning time is when they get their "dates" if it is time. They also look forward to the twigs I snap off the apple trees or the dandelion and plantain leaves from the yard or the extra cabbage leaves from the garden.
Our garden has been a source of great pleasure this year! We didn't plant as much of a variety as usual but what we did plant was bountiful. We're still getting tomatoes and peppers. And the raised bed experiment looks promising with radishes and carrots and beans sprouting!
I don't know if there's a good way to describe the feeling you get when you sit down to a homegrown meal. Even after these few years of living this way, it still smacks us sometimes when we realize everything on our plates was from our little acre. It's a soul-deep satisfaction that can almost bring tears to your eyes (maybe that's just me?) but until you've experienced it for yourself, I don't think there's words to adequately prepare you.
There's much more care not to waste anything when we've invested our time and labor into producing our own. We freeze, can, dehydrate, and share our excess. What can't be saved or donated is fed back to our critters and composted into the garden.
It's an awesome feeling to open the freezer and see stacks of homegrown meat and vegetables, to grab a bag of broth instead of opening a cardboard box, to see the strings of peppers and herbs drying in the air, to observe the rainbow of canned goods on a shelf, to crack a fresh-from-the-nest egg into a sizzling cast iron pan. Simple food.
