Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

This is my dog-eared copy of Barbara Kingsolver's book.  After at least one plane ride with this book and countless nights of reading before bed, I finished it this weekend.  I am a slow reader, but happy to savor every page.

At this point,  I would consider it a classic.  It was originally published in 2007, but I  came late to the dance and picked up a copy a little while ago.  Now that I've finished it, I know that I will come back to it time and again.

I have such a fondness for it because it reminds me of childhood and the gardens that my mother loved and kept.  And fire flies.  And running through the strawberries in flip flops. And summer dinners on  family farms.

It also makes me think of being a pre-teenager {brat}and grudgingly helping my mom snap 1,000s of green beans in preparation for the freezer boxes.  At the time, she worked full-time and somehow managed to put up an amazing assortment of canned and frozen fruits and vegetables.  She grew up on a farm and the harvest time just seemed natural to her.  I think this is remarkable what she accomplished on her 1/2 acre garden.

I digressed.  Anyway, if you have any inkling of growing your own food and like the idea of making your garden a primary source for summer produce, then you will find this read inspiring.  It's more than what I just said.

Kingsolver Family, photo from Garden Rant

From the book cover:  "This is a story ... how our family was changed by our first year of deliberately eating food produced from the same place where we worked, went to school, loved our neighbors, drank the water and breathed the air."  In a nutshell the majority of the food that the Kingsolver family ate came from either local sources or was grown on their own farm.  Think about this for a minute.  No oranges. No strawberries in March.  No tropical fruits.  No salad greens that come from bags.  And think about the months of January, February and March and the produce that is grown during those months.  ZERO.

Barbara's writing is delicious and curious and cantankerous.  Sometimes I got annoyed with her very strong opinions, but I kept turning the pages curious to learn more.

You can see her family's garden here.