The Organic Farm

Honeybrook may be the most successful CSA – It’s a great organic farm.  This is a most bountiful year–Climate is going nuts all over, where a map of the US changes from searing heat to constant floods and we’ve just had the coldest days i9n August that NJ has ever had.  But there’s been wonderful weather for Honeybrook… Heritage tomatoes that I had never heard of before this..  I’m now spoiled – I know what tomatoes really taste like.

The “problem” with bounty is that we are hard pressed to consume it.  I now have in my refrigerator salsa, ratatouille, cole slaw, gazpacho and just made bruschetta.  Trouble is more’s coming on Saturday and I still have pounds of unused tomatoes and peppers and eggplant and onion and garlic and ….  My cooking is stellar, but whew!

And in addition to just our share, we can pick what they allow.  15 different kinds of basil, 10 different kinds of hot peppers… a quart of raspberries.  Nicest part in some ways is the fresh flowers… 

Food is beautiful as well as so tasty.  People who eat “American” don’t know how good food is (and healthier and actually, during these months, cheaper) And Sustainable.
It makes me realize how money – advertising – display – easiness – actually changes our thinking.

Food has a greater damaging effect on the environment than cars…  The average food we eat travels 1300 miles,  is wrapped in plasic and or paper bags (instead of canvas bags)….  And we don’t even know it.

I will at least come out with a cleaning product that is worthy of  great food.

A Fly on the Ceiling

I’ve written of my granddaughter’s aversion to insects.  Today there was a fly on the ceiling and she came  and asked me to kill it.  I was babysitting at the time (or she would have asked Daddy, of course.)

My interpretation was that she was lonely and this was a good excuse to have me keep her company.  I’ll never know if that interpretation had anything to do with reality, but I noticed that I often act on my interpretaion rather than what’s said.  I suspect we all do…

Meditating

I’ve been meditating for about two months after intending to for years.  The thing is, I always feel like me so I don’t know what’s ’supposed’ to happen.  Am I more loving, more joyous, even just more relaxed? I can’t compare myself today to how I was on other normal days. 

I know I’m more on purpose, because meditating is a purpseful act, not a habit.

I have a very active mind, so my attempts to just allow it to go without interfering are interesting.  I keep feeling as if there’s thinking happening right below the surface – non-audible thoughts that I know are waiting for me.  Occasionally I catch myself drifting and I do a kind of editing.  Sometimes I repeat mantras – different kinds depending on mood.  I favor Om Mani Padme On – that’s traditional.  And it helps that I have no idea what it means.

So – like many other things I do, I assume I’m getting  value by it and I’ll keep going.  I do it with Nancy, so the reinforcing works.  And electric timers are useful.

When I looked for quotations about meditation, this is the only one that made any sense to me:

I meditate and put on a rubber tire with three bottles of beer. Most of the time I just sit picking my nose and thinking.
James Gould Cozzens