Back to the garden...

It's time for a revamp.  Considering I haven't posted in about 6 months (deplorable, I know...), I think it's time to expand my subject matter a bit.  Not to say I haven't been getting my craft on, I have.  But I think recent decisions in our lives have lead to many lifestyle changes that kind of fit into the crafty mold.  And so, without further ado, I give you the new and improved Made in the Mountains...

I've added a new wee quote to my page, one that I think is pretty befitting our life now and hence, this blog.  The inimitable Joni Mitchell said it quite well in her song "Woodstock"- "We are stardust, We are golden, and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden..."  I'm not about to go traipsing through an upstate NY field covered in mud and daisy chains, much fun as that might be, but that line rings pretty dang true to me these days.  The homesteaders had it right, and so did (do) the folks on 'hippydippy' communes (minus the cultishness).  Back in the day, growing your own food, building and making your own homes and tools and furnishings and toys, preserving food, and generally being self-sustaining wasn't just what Earth-conscious nature freaks did, it was what most everyone did.  It's in our racial memory, imprinted in our brains from thousands of years of being hunter-gatherers.  And yet, in just the past 60 years or so, our lives have become so accustomed to once-novel ideas like packaged foods, freezer meals, and drive thru fast food, that for so many, the thought of baking your own bread, or *gasp!* grinding your own flour is crazy!  'It's too time consuming!  Who really grinds their own flour anyways?'  How can it be that in such a relatively short amount of time we have made ourselves so utterly dependent on supermarkets?  On foods shipped in from all over the world?  There are children in our country who cannot identify whole fruits and vegetables, but know tater tots and chicken nuggets like their own two hands (For proof, watch Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution... it's frightening, to say the least).  This is so wrong on so many levels.

Ok, don't get me wrong, I shop at a grocery store, I love packaged foods, I appreciate their convenience, and I don't think poorly of anyone who only buys their food.  I know not everyone can have a garden, and for most people who do garden for food, they can't support their vegetable food needs completely.  We certainly can't!  And in our efforts to fill our new root cellar, we're filling it mostly with food we've bought.  There's nothing wrong with that!  But it is our dream to sell our house and buy a bigger piece of land, build our new home, and grow as much of our own food as we can, both crops and livestock.  In the meantime, we're trying to do as much of that as we can on our little half-acre in the mountains.  And that, my friends, is where this new blog is headed- getting back to basics!