Finding a way home

Yes, we did manage to collect our Community Supported Agriculture share yesterday and get back home before the snow started. In fact, we even managed to get the Daughter Person's share of our share delivered to her and get back home before the flakes came down. We beat the snow by about ten minutes or so. The drive freshly snow blown and a freshening breeze is now shaking treetops and knocking snow from the branches. All told we got another three to four inches. The township crew thought it was plowable. We found the evidence where our drive meets the township road. The current forecast offers a week or so of slightly milder, sunnier, snow-free weather. Let's hope that's an omen as the new year begins, one which offers a promise of better days ahead.

isn't this true?

Photo by J. Harrington

We received a couple of surprise presents this Christmas, i.e., not on the list we sent to Santa. One was from the Daughter Person, Son-In-Law and new Granddaughter. It's a box full of a handful of different kinds of heritage beans along with a cookbook full of recipes for same. We've been getting more and more interested in heritage and place-based foods as an element of our interest in bioregionalism and localization. As we've been working our way through the cook book we're belatedly realizing that increasing the meals of beans instead of meat in our diet moves us in the direction of a plant-rich diet, better for the climate. We're fascinated that Drawdown doesn't seem to specifically mention beans as a substitute for meat and a source of protein. We also really like the linkage back to our place of origin and the famous Boston baked beans. Another sign of hope for next year? We have our fingers crossed.

Now that we have the beans and the cookbook, we want to find a good great local source for smoked, thick-sliced bacon. Can you see the slippery slope shaping under our feet? Local explorations for local food sources leads us, we hope, to more local knowledge about our local food supply and producers. We may yet begin to feel at home in Minnesota, instead of just being a long-term visitor. There is that old saying about the way to a person's heart is through their stomach.

Ode to the Midwest

By Kevin Young

The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
—Bob Dylan

I want to be doused

in cheese

& fried. I want

to wander

the aisles, my heart's

supermarket stocked high

as cholesterol. I want to die

wearing a sweatsuit—

I want to live

forever in a Christmas sweater,

a teddy bear nursing

off the front. I want to write

a check in the express lane.

I want to scrape

my driveway clean

myself, early, before

anyone's awake—

that'll put em to shame—

I want to see what the sun

sees before it tells

the snow to go. I want to be

the only black person I know.

I want to throw

out my back & not

complain about it.

I wanta drive

two blocks. Why walk—

I want love, n stuff—

I want to cut

my sutures myself.

I want to jog

down to the river

& make it my bed—

I want to walk

its muddy banks

& make me a withdrawal.

I tried jumping in,

found it frozen—

I'll go home, I guess,

to my rooms where the moon

changes & shines

like television.

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