Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle-Barbara Kingsolver

I am so happy I found this book while looking for a tomato book for Wylie. This is the fantastic fiction author writing of her year of living local and off her land in Virginia with her family. It starts with the family moving back to Virginia from Tucson, AZ in the beginning of summer with the goal of planning and planting for the ability to eat off the land and from the local farms for one year. They had spent the summers previously returning to their Virginia farm for the summer but not living there permanently handling work and school and the farm. This was more than just the summer. This was going to be life.
I like that it is not just her take on it but her teenage daughter and her husband weighing in with science and reality. Kingsolver includes information from other authors pointing out that some tend to forget the reality that is life in their preaching of organic, local and sustainable. She also points out that sometimes organic isn't the best as it doesn't really mean anything (like the "organic" poptarts or "organic" cherios) if it's been trucked from another country or used child labor or only one ingredient is organic or a million other things. Organic ultimately means it was grown in the ground with soil that was not exposed to really awful harmful pesticides that kill everything but the fruit or veg.
I like that she isn't just about how great it is to grow this garden and have chickens and turkeys and eggs and the age old "lock your house and car and windows in August or you might find zuchinni" stories but she covers the recipes, the canning, the joining of family and friends in the process. The waiting for fruit and veg, the excitement of the first harvest, the ho hum of the last, the quiet of the September frost. This book is about living in the moment and preparing for the future. It is about teaching and learning from your neighbors and looking out for your neighbors. It is something that resonates very very deeply with me.

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