Missing Grandpa Betz

After a long wait on the holds list, I was finally able to stop at the library yesterday to check out a copy of Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life.

I've only read the first three or so chapters, and already I'm loving it. Of course, Kingsolver has a wonderful way with words that makes reading about genetic modification seem like poetry, but even more than that, her words and experiences inspire and motivate me.

Already, I want to plant a garden from heirloom seeds, shop at farm markets (and even get to know local farmers), learn to eat foods in season, avoid the Walmart produce section at all costs, plant asparagus that I'll eat three years from now, make green veggies an enjoyable part of my family's meals, and more.

Right now, however, the thing that I'm wanting to do most of all is turn back time. I'd like to have read this book and thought about these ideas, and felt these motivations three or four years ago. You see, as much as I want to grow my own food and understand the art and skill involved in such a task, I really have no clue. Already, I've learned quite a bit from this book, and I'm sure there are loads of great how-to garden books that I can (and will) borrow from the library to help me get started, but this seems like the sort of thing one learns best by doing.

I'd like to work alongside a farmer who has been feeding his family from the land all his life (and his father before him). I'm wishing I could spend a summer, or even a day, on a farm in Michigan...with my Grandpa. Oh the things I could learn from him! Really, I have learned a lot from him (how to make "real" popcorn, for example), but I'm just now realizing how much I could have gleaned from his life experience if I'd only taken the time to ask. And he would have loved to teach me, I'm sure.

So, if I actually follow through with my lofty ideas to grow some food this summer (or at least shop the farm markets more often), I'll struggle through on my own, or with the help of friends, but all the while, I'll be doing it with Grandpa in mind.