Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Tonight, for some reason, I feel like praising God for saving me. Praising the God who saved me. It’s funny what started this trip: I went to the garden and potatoes are coming up. I planted some potatoes and onions three weeks ago, and the potatoes are up, and the onions are doing well. If we can grow some good potatoes, that will be awesome—those are nutritious and rib-sticking. I would love to grow a lot of potatoes.

And I think, too, I was really encouraged by talking to the principal and assistant principal. The conversations just happened and both mentioned that they were pushing for the architects to make the garden a permanent part of the school, integrate it into the learning process. Wow. How awesome would it be to not just teach biology, math, or science, but also life skills in cooking and canning, and then showing the kids how with a little effort, they could grow their own food. It seems to me that we are getting to the place where many people are going to have to grow their own.

It reminds me of the reason I got into all this stuff. On the one hand, some of it is family influence. My grandfather was a farmer, and I remember my uncle talking about how we could feed the planet if we were serious. But on the other hand, there was also this sense starting when I was a teenager that things in this world would get bad, like no civilization bad, and if I was going to make it I better learn to survive. I still say that if the stuff comes down, I will be on the Gulf Coast, ‘cause you’ll never starve there. I remember fishing with a Vietnamese dude, Trang, and when we pulled the net up: flounder, eels, calamari, anchovie, shrimp.

But I digress… food is expensive. It takes oil to run the tractors on the farms, gas to get it to market. Gas to get feed to the animals, gas to get the animals to market. Gas to grow corn to feed cows, gas to get the milk to market. Maybe this will make things get local. If I get a little weird, I see small gardens on Northside, maybe even an orchard spanning a few yards. Chickens and goats in backyards.

So anyway I am praising this God who pumps me up.

No comments: