Last weekend was the annual Georgia Organics conference in Athens and I headed up there feeling very meh about going, but returned with rejuvenated inspiration. A large part of that came from an excellent lecture I heard by Marshall Duke of the Center for the Study of Myth and Ritual in Family Life at Emory University. His talk was called “Family Dinner-- The Real Happy Meal.” It was about the importance of rituals for children and families, and especially the importance of the ritual of sitting down to dinner together each day. And it was great. Very, very. I nearly cried. He has written several papers, but he also recommended this book, which I am going to check out. During the trip, I spent some of my down time reading Nutureshock, which is a really fascinating read—even for folks like me with no kids. I’m just trying to absorb it all, and taking it slow. It's one of those books, though, where you want to tell someone about the crazy statistic you just read....on every page. My copy is from the library and I'm seriously considering breaking my February spending hiatus to one that I can write notes in.
One of the farms we toured was Woodland Gardens, which was possibly the cleanest organic farm I’ve ever witnessed! It was lovely and they had lots of delicious-looking food packed into several high tunnels. Another one, Roots Farm, had the cutest little 3-legged dog and a gorgeous passive solar log house. Swoon.
Upon returning from this conference last year, I changed my work schedule to work 4 10-hr days so I could spend 1 day working on a farm each week. That was my first baby-step towards my dream of farming. It has been fun and wonderful, and this year has flown by! Now….I’m trying to figure out my next step.
we are learning the importance and necessity of family meals times. thanks for the link, i'll definitely check it out.
ReplyDeleteit will fun witnessing your adventure in farming!