Settling In

I was talking to a friend of mine today, telling him about our 100 mile eating plan, and he said, "That just seems like too much work."

I replied, "No it is great, we have a common goal, we have the challenge of finding things we want to eat, we have planning and gathering to do before winter gets here. It's fun. And besides, your average plate of food has travelled 1500 miles before it gets to your table. This is better for you and for farmers and for a community. And our whole congregation is doing it." Many in the congregation are committed to some form of local eating. Another person in the conversation said he was doing his part by cleaning out his freezer. He used to keep sheep and pigs and had slaughtered some and hadn't eaten all the meat yet.

Some things I have noticed:

1. We are spending more time and gas driving to find foods. I think this is because we are seeking out local farms. Once we have a better sense of where things are we will not drive so much (I hope).
2. We are only using one car these days. I walk or bike to work and errends when I can, so there are some days when the car doesn't move. When we do go out, we try to consolidate trips more.
3. We are sitting in our backyard more. This is becasue we are cooking at home more often and we got a table so that we do not have to eat from our laps. When I say backyard, I am talking about a space between our house and garage about10 feet wide and 25 feet long. This space has grills, grape vines, garlic beds and our two chairs and a table. It is not much of a yard, but we have found that it is quite pleasant this summer.
4. We are seeing and talking to our neighbors more. Jon has gotten to know many of them becasue he is often outside during the day working in the yard or on the house. I am not there as much. But now I am. And we say hi, encourage the kids to let the grapes get ripe before they eat them, neighborly things.

We think more about food, but it is helping us become more of who we want to be. We take a little more time with things now, we are not so rushed through our dinner. We are getting the bread making routine down. I figure by the end of the year we will have conquered the art of making the perfect loaf of bread. We are trying things we had not eaten before. Local eating is helping us make eating more of a celebration and less of something we have to rush through so that we can get to the next thing. Cool!