I truly can’t believe I’ve been sharing garden, homestead, farmer and food stories with you all for eight years now.
Thanks for being part of the movement to heal our earth one garden, homestead and meal at a time.
In those 8 years lots has changed and much has stayed the same. Locavore is a known word. Farmers markets have exploded. We’re inching towards Victory Garden era numbers of people gardening (but not quantity yet). Climate news has gotten scarier, but many people are doing more.
There are so many reasons to love the earth; she is our home, our shared environment and, “when we protect nature, we are nature protecting itself” as Greta Thunberg said a few years ago.
Or, as Alan Watts puts it, “you didn’t come into this world, you came out of it. Like a wave from the ocean.”
Let that truth roll over you.
Yet our existential debates over coming ‘into’ or ‘out of’ can quickly fade when faced with our current environmental crisis. But then we realize that until we get our relationship with nature is at the center of our striving we’ll continue to fight against rather than with nature. There’s power in those prepositions.
There are so many proven ways (thank to the Indigenous peoples of the world) to work with nature to help tend the soil, grow food we need, raise the animals, and nourish ourselves.
Our current food system is broken, and we’ve known it for decades. Agriculture and land use, as well as the larger global food system, are among the biggest contributors to climate chaos (23-30%). And, as a result, changing these systems would be a leap towards climate solutions.
It starts with eating closer to home. If we could shift an additional half of our food purchases to locally or regionally sourced (instead of the average 1,500 miles it takes foods to get to our home pantries) we could turn the tide.
Read more on Eating Local.
When we decentralize crops and livestock we put the power back into the hands of smaller farmers rather than corporations. And small farmers take better care of the land. In the United States there’s about 2% of the population that farms. That means 98% of us don’t.
So, as a small-scale homesteader, I love doing my part, tending to the tiny slice of the planet I can, and I give a huge nod to our local farmers for all they do. I thank a Farmer three times a day.
But Earth day is wonderfully timed to be seated in the time of Spring Hope- and as a gardener, I am full of that rosy-glassed longing for sun warmed tomatoes that burst in your mouth. Just don’t remind me of the mosquitos quite yet 😉
Here are some of my go-to resources for feeling hopeful about the climate.
Daily Climate
Minnesota Farmers Union
Project Drawdown
Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Books
What are some places you go to for hope for the future our big blue-green planet?
And thanks for letting me dig into local food with you for 8 years.
Cheers to at least 8 more!
Michelle
