Guest Post…by RavensMoon

Guest Post…




Posted on April 2, 2013 by Visionkeeper


http://www.favim.com


Written by: Raven

A few years ago I
rented an old farmhouse on a 200-acre organic dairy farm and moved there
in the early spring. Showing me around the property, the farmer took me
behind the house, pointed to a mound of aged cow manure at the edge of a
100’ x 200’ plot of naked soil and said, “And this is your garden.”

I laughed. What I knew about gardening wouldn’t fill a cucumber seed.

Born and bred on a
Florida beach, and virtually clueless about what went into feeding
humanity, I quickly read everything I could find about organic farming. I
learned quite a bit about how to plant, but very little about how much.
Gazing out on my plot of potential productivity, I decided growing food
organically was a complicated, risky business; that most of what I
planted would never reach the light of day, and even if it did, would
probably succumb to slugs or bugs. For this reason I felt a strong
compulsion to sow hundreds of seeds in the ground, to leave no clod
unturned, so that by autumn I would at least have a few tomatoes to eat.

By July I had a growing suspicion
I had overdone it. After a day of hoeing, weeding and hauling compost, I
decided to get some exercise and see what my neighbors’ gardens looked
like. I was naively smug to note mine was four times larger than
everyone else’s. On the way home, I passed wild strawberries ripening in
our farm’s fallow fields. This was quite a revelation since I had never
seen “real” strawberries anywhere but in those little baskets in the
supermarket. I looked around and there were thousands of them, so I felt
compelled to pick them all and carry them home in little baskets. Then I
felt compelled to preserve them and put them in little jars. Picking
and processing took about a week and I ended up with oh, about sixty
jars of jam, more or less.

By the end of that little
escapade I was exhausted. What had come over me, I wondered? But my
summer of putting up was far from petering out.

By now the garden had
caught on, but I had not. While I hauled manure and erected a
scarecrow, precocious green things kept popping up in my zucchini hills.
I soon recognized these intruders as stalks of asparagus and enough
garlic to supply a dozen Italian restaurants. But I felt compelled to
let each and every intruder grow… and grow they did.

My summer of
fecundity built to a climax toward early August when flocking martins
pointed me to a massive hedge of thorny bushes lush with blackberries. I
ate blackberry cobbler, blackberry pancakes, and finished up with 26
jars of preserves. When that affair was over, the previously unnoticed
fencerow vines bloomed with luscious purple concords. After I got over
being amazed I was crestfallen. How much jam can a person consume in a
year?

But I was on a fruit
and vegetable high I could not control. I lost count of the days and the
number of jars in my jam cache and began reading up on the finer points
of wine fermentation, while the zucchini grew as large as my thighs.
Within about a two-week period I had more vegetables in my garden than I
had consumed in my lifetime. I tried giving them away but my neighbors
had grown only as much as they needed. Ah-ha.

You’d think at this
point reality would set in, but not so. I blanched, processed, squeezed
and mashed. I rendered tomatoes into paste, a process that was useful
because it required bushels of tomatoes per pot. As the days wore on, a
slave to my compulsion to let not a single vegetable or berry rot in the
field, I shuffled from garden to kitchen to basement with nature’s
bounty until the cows came home, literally, to assume their winter
residence in the hay barn. I finally came to my senses the day I looked
out my window and saw my bountiful kitchen garden dusted with a layer of
soft snow.

Thankfully, I am now
rehabilitated and can stand in the produce section of the grocery store,
comfortable with the memory of the summer I went agriculturally
berserk. I remind myself that while it is true what you sow so shall you
reap, there is no compelling reason to harvest every lima bean, radish
and carrot you plant. Hopefully the young couple who moved into that old
farmhouse the following year felt compelled to sample the vintage wines
and Epicurean treasures I left for them in the basement.


Thanks to: http://oneworldrising.wordpress.com

Oh what a wonderful story Raven!! I have always dreamed of moving into an old farm with lots of old treasures in the gardens! That story just took me to a wonderful place where I dream of one day making jams from my own produce! Thanks so much for the story!

You're welcome Nannee! It all sounds so romantic and homey but full-on subsistence like this is a serious full time job. My best friend laughed when she read it. She told me when she was growing up in West Virginia her mother spent endless hours in the kitchen laboring over a steaming canner, making jams, sauerkraut, and pickles, and it was never anything but a whole lotta boring work. She couldn't understand how I could get so excited about it. I liked the wine part best, only you had to have a lot of patience!

Oh yeah it certainly does sound like a lot of work but gee fresh fruit and veg, jams and pickles that taste like jams and pickles, it would be an awesome line of work I reckon! In saying that your cooking facilities would have to be pretty good, I have a tiny kitchen and it would annoy the shit out of me here. Maybe when it blooody RV's and I get a new house with a big kitchen!

Great story!!! Thanks for sharing RavensMoon!!! And Purpleskyz!

Thanks Herb Lady!

Nannee, you really do need a big kitchen for this. That's why all the old farm kitchens were the size of living rooms! Big pans, big jars, lots of mess. I love the whole thing. I don't do it now with the B&B, too big, too messy, but I hope to change that when we move to our new place- bigger garden, bigger kitchen, and a big cold pantry to store it all in. One of the best things about canning is you know exactly what's in it because you grew it and you canned it.

I can remember the farm that my grandmother had growing up,in Aroostook County, in northern Maine, with a 'to die for' pantry, big 'seats 30' people kitchen,the size of a large, two car garage, garage, The beautiful Atlantic Clarion cookstove, with the warming ovens, temperature gauges,and you could use wood, kerosene, or coal-White, and clean,with the dark enamel blue trim, with chromed accents- It would heat the whole downstairs, and the rooms upstairs, had the big, grated floor vents- At -45 degrees,outside, that whole big farmhouse, { And I mean BIG} would be 65-70 degrees- I can also remember all the canned goods, not in cans, but 'canned' in glass mason, or 'ball' jars, with the red rubber sealing gaskets, and the metal ' bales' that snapped in place over the tops of the jars, and had in them,different preserves, jams, jellies, small potatoes, cucumber pickles, creamed corn,homemade spaghetti sauce, rice pudding, and freshly canned 'creamed corn',green string beans, yellow 'wax' beans, homegrown 'popcorn', stewed tomatoes,fresh homemade mustard, different types of relishes, onions,chipped beef for stews. cooked shredded chicken for soups, fricasee,chicken pies, swiss chard, dandelion greens, spinach, cauliflower, carrots,other choice vegetables, you name it, it was in there, and a dirt 'root cellar' to hang hams and deer meat, salt licks to be used to keep the dust down, and big 100 pound burlap bags of 'chef special' potatoes, dry beans, - {Hesus cripes I'm hungry} etc, etc- Damn, I miss those days-

bump-

Oh Terbo, what a WONDERFUL memory! I can taste all those things in the jars and feel the heat coming off the stove. You are so lucky to have that memory when most of us only remember the weekly trip to the supermarket with mom. Thanks for sharing that with us.

Ravensmoon, you are so welcome- This is what I remembered back when my grandmother was still alive, my grandfather on my father's side died in 1960, and my grandmother on my father's side, {his mother}, died in 1973- It took a toll on everyone, and the town of Smyrna,in the church where the funeral was held, you had all you could to to get inside, as it was packed- Everyone knew my grandmother, and when she was alive, when it was bad weather, and back in the day,from the 30's, til just before she died, people less fortunate would come ocassinally, and knock on her door, because they had little food to eat, and even on the coldest days, her door was always open- In the winter time, she would give them some firewood off the piles, that they had, and had them come inside, and say' get those wet cold, clothes off, sit by the stove, get warm, and I'll fix you people something to eat'- This went on for years, even as a child, I would witness this- My grandmother did everything she could to make sure these people didn't go without, or go hungry- That's what went on, year after year, when I was growing up, and she used to knit woolen hats, mittens,and scarves, crochet, weave blankets, and would give them to needy people there at xmas time, in the dead of winter, and if they couldn't get to her farm, she went to them, and she knew everybody's name-She was a godsend to the town, and the people in it-

That was a fine memory too, Terbo. Back in those days people didn't have much "stuff" like we do now. Food was cheap and it was a dire necessity, so that's what people focused on. I knew a woman just like your grandmother who lived in a rural part of North Carolina. She spent all her time making food of all kinds and taking it to the old people who couldn't get around. Every time I visited her she handed me a lot of food to take home. She tended to everyone who needed help in her small world. Her energy was limitless and her happiness was profound. I loved being around her, in the same room, because she had so much love you could just sit and soak it up. Like your grandmother, her funeral was an event of great magnitude and joy. Not that she died, but that she left so many people who might have died had she not lived. This is what we are missing in our lives now because we became wrapped so tightly in working to buy stuff that we have totally lost this connection to doing good in the world because we don't have time, or we don't make time. Thanks for reminding us.

Yes, you are welcome- I look back on those days, and to this day, I am so very thankful, that I had the family I did, and the accomplishments that were brought forth to help others in need- I am still, to this day, proud of my grandmother for the way she was, and the loving life that she showed everyone,and she NEVER asked for anything in return- That's how she was, it wasn't about her-She had her own kids, too, my uncles and aunts- She died of lung cancer, and NEVER, EVER smoked a cigarette in her life, and I never knew what caused it-She also had both breasts removed in 1971- My grand father smoked, but not in the house, or in his 1953 Packard Clipper, or in mixed company, and back then, in the town where they lived, smoking was somewhat frowned upon, and therefore he would smoke behind the woodshed, or outhouse-He did die of lung cancer in 1960-He'd roll two full size tobacco cans full of hand rolled cigarettes, each week, and I think it may have been 'Prince Albert', I'm not sure, or some big brand name back then, could have been 'George Washington' tobacco, and there were no filters on those back then, or I never saw those type-I was only 3-4 years old at the time,and remember the old rocking chair he would sit in when he rolled them-I remember the old rocking chair had a loud 'snapping' noise to it when it was rocked, and when my Father told my grandmother he was going to fix it,and she said, 'I don't want it fixed, that's MY chair, and it has character'- Needless to say, that rocking chair is still around, and now resides at my uncle's house in Dyer Brook Maine-And it STILL has that snapping noise!! Good 'ol memories-I've gone and rambled long enough- I apologize for the long epilogue- :affraid:

LUMP-

Oh don't apologize T!!!

What a wonderful story you painted with your words. I almost felt that I was there watching your grandma rock back and forth.

Awesome sharing!! Thanks so much

:heartsofluv:

No, thankyou for listening, and understanding what part of my life made a big difference- It's funny how you appreciate people and things like that when you don't have them in your life anymore-My grandmother was alot of my life growing up as a child. as she took care of me and looked after me until my Father got re- married in 1958-George Washington's Birthday, to be exact-He bought a brand new 1957 Chevrolet, and bought my new 'Mom' a new Mink coat, that matched the interior of the new car- My 'biological' mother divorced my father in 1957, shortly after I was born, to move out west to Washington State, with her new 'ride', so to speak- My Father wished him the best of luck, and that he was going to need it-She tossed me to my Father, in COURT, and in front of the judge, and said, 'you take him, he'll be in the way- I want to start a new family,and she had four other kids after that, 2 boys, and two girls- There is alot more, but too lengthy to get into- { I know, thank God for small favors}-LOL-

Whoa terbs its amazing how you remember every little detail and how wonderful your memories are! I wish I had awesome memories like that!!

Thankyou, but, sometimes I wish I didn't- Sad, really- :(

I don't have any really good memories, that's sad!

Yes, you do, NanneeRose-The memories you have are with your family, and your brother that has passed on- He is there with you, and if you look hard enough, he is there- If you are ever in a room, and you get a chill, or shiver down your spine, it is him, stopping by to let you know he misses and loves you all to pieces- Don't ever forget that- He shaped your life in one form, or way, or in another-He watches over you-My Mother and Father are here with us ocassinally, and I can feel it- My mother always like to play games and pull jokes on us- To this day when I get up, every now and then, she'll open the cupboard door in the hall way- I'll shut it, and when I wake in the morning, the door is open, yet again, and then it will stop for awhile- She's just letting us know that she has not forgotten us-Dad speaks to me in the middle of the night, sometimes-

Yes you're right terbs there are a lot of memories there with him! I thought if they are present there should be a warmth not chills? This is where I get confused?

NanneeRose, the 'chill' is his presence, and the 'warmth', is him shining his light down and onto you- I hope that clears it up!

Yeah I often feel a chill at night but I never feel a warmth? Why is it only at night I feel the chill? I always thought I was freaking myself out becuase my hubby works away and I am alone at night?

Your brother knows your hubby is away, and the chill is him being in the room with you, looking over and protecting you-Sometimes, if you have animals,especially dogs, etc, they will wag their tail as they sense things that most people can't- If you have a dog, and he is wagging his tail, seemingly for no reason,and or, a slight growl, you have reason to suspect that your brother is near- The warmth will come during the day in your most trying times- You'll see-

Thanks so much terbs, that put things into perspective! Just last night I had to get up and I got cold chills freaking myself out I was lol! Ewwww they dont follow us into the bath and toilet and stuff do they? What about 'other' things?

I'm not sure about that, but you get my drift of how he will appear-And, no, not other things-He is in the spiritual realm, and nothing he does can hurt you,other than maybe play a joke on you to piss you off, or something of that nature, like slam a door to get your attention, and he wouldn't anyway-he is watching over you, like I said previously-Although spirits do different things sometimes, only not to hurt you-

Phew! thanks terbs I feel better about that now. I knew he was here but I didnt know the cold chills was him!

Bump-

hahaha nannee you are always such a delight!!

T... you did a great job explaining all of that.

I think that the departed do things that they know will get our attention. Your bro must know that you will react to being chilled. Maybe he is trying to tell you to chill out. If he had a fun sense of humor he might be playing with you like T's grandma and the drawer. I told you some of the hilarious things my ex does. The first year after he passed was real active around here. The second year e settled down and now I rarely have to deal with the "fun". :)

Yes your ex played some doosies on you purps and yes my bro was always annoying me and paying out on me about being deaf lol! They are fond memories, you are right terbs!!

I am going to sit in the chill tonight and see what happens! He did know I got freaked out about stuff when I was alone!!

I came in late on this but Nannee, you and Skyz are very lucky that your brother and ex are still around at all and that you can feel their presence. It's much better than zero/zilch. Maybe the "chill" and the tricks that Skyz's ex played are their only avenues for expression that we limited beings trapped in 3D can detect because we're very tied up and deeply invested in creating our 3D illusion. Any attempt on their part to break through is like trying to walk through a thick pane of glass. Maybe instead of being scared or worried when the chill comes, try to relax into it, sit and be with him, and see if that changes anything.