Bee Tree Farm

Last night we made our first dinner from ingredients grown and raised almost entirely at the land.  The obvious meaning behind that type of meal caused me to go all weepy and write an incredibly long, soul-searching post about eating locally and connecting to your food and blah, blah, blah.  All the stuff that, if you’re reading, you likely already consider.  In fact right now you might be reading this over a breakfast of your hens’ scrambled eggs and toast covered in the peach jam from your orchard.  But through the magic of the interwebs, the post suddenly disappeared.  I consider it divine intervention.  It really shouldn’t take many words to understand what it means when the plate before you is covered in your own sweat and tears and (sometimes) blood.  It goes without saying that an enormous feeling of gratitude accompanies every piece of beef and every snap of a juicy green bean.  I’m not a spiritual person, but last night, I bowed my head momentarily before taking the first bite.  

Despite my brown thumb and negligence, the garden’s been good to us.  We hastily threw down seeds and transplant tomatoes, but because they rooted down into the compost Jeremy spread, created here over three years of animal tending, they just took off.  So, with my surplus tomatoes, I followed my sister’s instructions:
Toss halved tomatoes with olive oil, a little sugar, salt, cracked pepper.  Spread it on a baking sheet and roast at 275 degrees for about three hours.

When they finally came off the pan, I leaned against the counter and popped one crinkled little golden beauty in my mouth.  It exploded with a little pop! and tasted exactly like summer concentrate- everything you remember best about childhood in summer: swimming pools, and sunburns, and watermelon, and fireflies.  It tasted like the culmination of thirty years dreaming of something I could never name but finally understand.

It doesn’t matter where you are and if your dirt is in a pot on the windowsill or acres out the back door: go grow something.  Plant it, tend it, eat it.  Then feel incredibly grateful that you can.