From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes:
Finally. Some good news from Haiti. There’s an effort to re-build their local food system, to move people out of the cities and into the countryside. Maybe we can learn from them and re-build our own.
One of the joys of being a locavore is the fun of shopping for food. Your list has, say, a dozen items on it. And, at each stop, the visit is a little reunion with people you care about. I’m always excited to see my farmers, grocers and bakers, and at Christmas it’s twice as fun.
So, on Christmas Eve, I stopped at Clover’s Natural Foods to pick up a few things. They let me peek at the space where they’re expanding into the old liquor store next door. Wow! I had no idea there was so much room in that old liquor store—enough so that Clover’s can host demonstrations or maybe a little deli. Chair massages, oh yeah! The possibilities are endless, so they’ll be deciding and probably changing things for a long time.
Then I went to Uprise Bakery for bread. Sam gave me a report on two hens that I dropped off a couple of weeks ago. We have so many predators at our place, and her hen house is pretty well protected; fearing for their lives, I donated the hens to her. They are moulting now, but the days will get longer very quickly and the hens will come out of it. One year, at my house, we ran out of eggs at Thanksgiving and didn’t have any until February. Ever since then, I’ve given myself permission to buy eggs and now we have a few neighbors raising them. So I stock up before the days get short.
Then I stopped at The Root Cellar for pies. Jen baked them using my freshly milled flour and since I’m completely an idiot when it comes to making pie crust it was a big help. Maybe I should say it was essential. Hannah was working, so I got to catch up with her also. I borrowed her ballpoint pen to check off things on my list—only two items left, and both from the farm store—a new bit for the donkey and long underwear for the farmer. For some reason, that list made Hannah laugh.
After the farm store, I stopped at the grain elevator just to visit. Joel had added a bit of décor to the lawn. Five little deer with white lights, you know the kind, and Joel had arranged them so it looked like they were drinking out of the old toilet he plants with flowers in the summer. Those guys have way too much fun at that place.
Amazing but true: Due to the mild weather, neighbors still have lettuce, although we don’t, and we still have tomatoes ripening in the shed. So it’s an easy trade. Most of the root crops—potatoes, turnips, sweet potatoes—are still available, and so are the chard and kale, not to mention the onions and garlic. And, of course, we have every kind of meat available. So, see, it’s not hard to eat local in mid-Missouri at Christmas.
I wish the same success for Haiti as they move forward.
And that's my blog from the heart for today.
