Hello. Here I am, on here again, the blogosphere, wondering how I want to show up in the world. Now that I am 51, firmly settled into my empty nest. I have now incorporated my special interests, gardening and a hyper local food system, into my daily life. They are no longer hyper fixations but just the way we live life now.
There was a time when it felt like a frivolous act to skip out to my garden to snip herbs for dinner. In my first true garden I experimented growing Sage, Lemon Balm, Thyme, and Parsley. A few vegetables too. I found the act completely thrilling, magical even. It felt a fanciful endeavor to grow a few things in that garden space to add to my flash frozen chicken.
Now, as I tend 3 acres full of a wild and unruly edible landscape, procure my chicken from a local farm, keep my own chickens for eggs, process my own turkey for thanksgiving dinner, and keep a pantry full of preserved food and herbs, I find the act of harvesting and preserving it all to be a bit of chore. The magic seems to have dissipated from the act. Though somehow I still feel the tug of desire to do so. In fact, I’m not sure what I would do if this way of living were taken from me. I just wouldn’t want to live, or eat, any other way.
There is nothing more satisfying to me than being able to grow my own food, flavor, and remedy. It is an act of sovereignty that brings me a sense of peace in these wildly uncertain times. Knowing that I will have sustenance at my disposal by curating a garden and allowing native wild edible things to find footing in my landscape has truly been one of the thrills of my life. I feel blessed to be front and center to the seasonal shifts of flora and fauna on my little piece of home dirt.
BUT, I do crave that special feeling of something new, when magic is afoot, that overwhelm of beginners mind, where all of the information absorbed about a subject is so fresh and new. I miss that feeling so so much. So what to do, what to do.
It just might be that the magic now may come in the form of sharing it all with you. Taking you on my daily journey of garden to table living where I craft food, flavor, and simple remedy from my hyper-local food system. I hope you find it half as thrilling as I do!
In Donata's Kitchen 