Half Full: CSA Summer ’14 ” Week #4
After the Storm
Our eldest daughter, Zea, is four years old. Over the past few months, a drama and propensity towards sadness and moping has seemed to catch hold of her. As all the parents out there know, when your child develops a new behavior it’s impossible to know whether you are seeing a new part of them or whether it’s a developmental stage, an ephemeral spring in their larger personality. I’m deeply hoping this behavior is the latter… perhaps a reaction to the seasonal disappearance of her mother and father out the back door and into the fields?
Ephemeral spring or rocky core… it’s impossible to tell just yet. Regardless, as parents we are trying to help our daughter find ways to climb out of the sad emotions she sometimes seems to get stuck in. On my good days as a parent, I can hold her and try and talk her out of it. Say something goofy, help her think of something positive. Sad about her cousins leaving? And we’ll talk about all the fun things we got to do with them and what we hope we can do next. On my bad days as a parent, I get impatient with her moping and struggle to not see her as completely spoiled and ungrateful. A four year old has no basis of comparison to understand the good fortune he or she is surrounded by. The concept of a “first-world problem” is at least a decade away. But after an hour of listening to my moping child crying on and off because she can’t find her ballet slippers, or her tv show is over, or she wants to see her neighbor friend, or her cousins aren’t coming for another week, etc., etc., I wish I could tell her about war, hunger, poverty, and exploitation so that she could scale her woes appropriately. But of course, I remember that she’s four.
And then I also remember that I myself.. heck! our whole culture struggles to appropriately scale our woes. We tend to compare the issues of our day against each others, not against a global background. This is one of the things about both myself and our culture that really saddens me. Even if surrounded by love, shelter, and good nourishment, many of us are not satisfied. We are always looking for the next best thing.
So what does any of this have to do with the farm?
Just as we are trying to encourage Zea to ‘keep on the sunny side’, we too are trying to focus on the positive throughout all of this severe weather.
I could go on and on about the difficulties these storms cause (massive soil erosion, plant damage, increase disease pressure, moldy strawberries, muddy fields and heavy boots, stuck machinery, lost time and exhausted kids as we sit out multiple tornado warnings in the basement etc.). But instead, I want to look on the sunny side.
Our kids are safe. Our animals are safe. Our fields have surprisingly little loss. We have been spared massive property damage. (A farmer friend of ours in Dodgeville reported devastated homes and dead cattle all around them… ) And tonight Mike and I saw the most amazing site: a sunset double rainbow. Imagine two rainbows atop a bright pink sky with thunder and lightening still in rattling in the distance. Spectacular.
All around us, every day we are surrounded by beauty, kind acts, comfort and deliciousness. It’s just so hard to stay focused on those things. But I’m striving, always striving to keep that glass half full.
Cassie and family
In the Box:
- Basil
- Beets
- Broccoli
- Cucumbers
- Garlic Scapes
- Head Lettuce
- Snow Peas
- Spring Onions
- Strawberries
- Zucchini
EOs only:
- Green Cabbage
- Parsley
REGs only:
- Fennel
This Week’s Recipes:
Summer Week #4: Wednesday, July 2nd” Group B EOs
