It's dinner time, March 28, 2020. Certainly there are days where I might eat out at a restaurant or use a traditional electric oven or microwave, but the sun is still high in the sky and it's a good day.
If my grandmother could see her lawn, she'd have a conniption at what had been done to it. Still, she understood gardening, but I had never really understood landscaping. Pretty is meaningless if ugly can be put to good use.
The yard is divided up into four sections, a small chicken coop and three gardens. The maize crop hasn't always come in perfectly, but it makes good chicken feed if nothing else. The other two are assorted vegetables, some native to the region, others genetically engineered to be hardy. They all make it a little easier on harvest and cultivation.
I pick up four choice ears of corn, one for each member of the family, glad to have prepped the carrots earlier in the day. Slaughtering the chicken isn't what I'd call happy work, but it's a grim necessity if meat is to be eaten. When the meat is clean, I throw it into a home built solar cooking apparatus, boiling some water for the corn in another. I used to check how much energy was saved by doing this ritual every day I could afford to, when the sun was high, the chicken's grown, and the vegetables were ready to harvest- but I don't bother anymore. Once upon a time, it was a struggle, something I did to feel better about how I impacted the world. Now it's just a habit- and that is a good thing.
Struggles have to be conquered each day, but a habit can last a lifetime.
You need to be a member of Urgent Evoke to add comments!
Join Urgent Evoke