Disconnected

Is it just me, or does it seem like everyone’s become disconnected in regards to how their food gets on their plate?

We had some REALLY gorgeous weather last week, and then a cold snap on Sunday.  I mentioned how rough my apple blossoms looked after the frost on Sunday.  They don’t like the cold!  Last year, the apple trees blossomed a good TWO months too early, then the cold weather snapped back.  Absolutely devastating for the local growers.  (Michigan is the nation’s third largest producer of apples.)  Last year, we had NO apples.  Period!  The local cider mills had to ship in apples from other states.

You would have thought this would have been in ALL the papers, but I barely saw ANYTHING written about it.  And yet…I know there are orchards down the street from us that may go out of business if they have another bad year.  But when I talk to people I know about this, it’s like they just don’t GET it.  They don’t seem to understand that the pretty red thing they stick in their kid’s lunch box has to come from SOMEWHERE.  Everything is all interconnected.  

If there’s a drought in the Midwest  and you can’t grow hay and corn, guess what?  It’s going to cost the farmers more to feed their livestock.  Their feed has to be shipped in, and that costs money!  So what does that mean?  The price of beef goes up!  The price of milk goes up!

I bought a book a couple of years back called, Can You Trust A Tomato In January?, written by Vince Staten.  It’s an informative little book.  There’s a page in there about “non-dairy creamer.”  All I can say is ICK!!!  It really is scary how much we take for granite at the local grocery store.   Barbara Kingsolver also has a GREAT book: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.  She’s one of my favorite authors, regardless; but this is the story of her family’s adventures in eating food that was produced locally.  (My copy of her book looks like a train wreck  I’ve got sooo many pages bookmarked!)   🙂    

(BTW  In all likelihood  that poor little January tomato was probably grown in Culiacán Valley in Mexico, picked two weeks before it was ready to ripen, treated with ethylene gas so it would turn color, and has been off the vine for at least a week before it hits the local grocery store.  There’s a reason why most grocery store tomatoes have NO flavor.)  

Anyways…enough with the ranting!  We’ll see how my apple tree does in the weeks to come…

As a side note, yesterday I watched Introduction to Permaculture, Lecture 2: Ethics and Principles.  (This is one of the freebie classes one of my Facebook buddies recommended.)

http://courses.ncsu.edu/hs432/common/podcasts/  

Interesting stuff.  The instructor isn’t all doom and gloom.  He’s all about looking at the positives.  Like I said last week after watching Lecture 1, I had NEVER heard of the word “Permaculture” before I was sent the link.  I’m not looking to change the world.  I’m not looking to hug a tree.  🙂  I just wanted to learn about something “new,” something different, make my tired brain work a bit.  Still haven’t purchased any course books.  

This week’s homework assignment was to grow “something,” preferably something you can eat, even if it’s in a pot on your windowsill or outside your front door, even if you don’t think you can grow ANYTHING.

I am a bad plant mommy, but I still TRY to grow edible plants.  I can grow peas in a pot!  That counts, right?  Of course, peas are probably the EASIEST vegetable in the world to grow.  Stick dried up looking peas in dirt.  Water daily.  Even I can do that!  😉

Have a great day!

Juli