From The Land

"I know one thing...whoever the Creator is, he's pretty brilliant.  Just look at all this!"  The Farmer sits in a dirty canvas chair beside the ashy, unlit fire pit, peeling garlic, smoking, grinning at the kids over at the frog pond as they try to fill the red bucket with the little amphibians, indicating this panoramic picture of green - trees, old and scarred, log home and rotted porch, kittens and hammocks, blue skies and sunshine.

We've come for a taste of earth - to get our hands dirty - to explore this organic, living off the land.  When we trek through the field, kicking dust and stones it is in search of our dinner, cradled in this acre nook of Grey County.

The Farmer's wife and I kneel before inexhaustible tomato plants so heavy and bent.  She talks of concord grapes and baking bread and winter markets where she'll sell these very fruit, blended into sauces and relish.  We fill a laundry tub - so heavy she leaves it waiting at the end of the row for the Farmer to carry.

The children duck through corn, breaking off cobs.  They pull back straw to turn potatoes from soil.  They pull carrots.  Garlic.  Onions.  Cucumbers and beets.  We say farewell with dusty feet and trunk laden with goods.

 There is something beautiful and immensely satisfying about cooking dinner with dirt beneath your fingernails.