It's the time of year when you want to eat nourishing things. I don't know about you but my body craves good fats and protein as the days get darker. So, I got home late-ish with three massive bones from my lovely friends at the Dirty Hoe Gastro Farm and Butchery. Certified organic beef bones from happy cows who had one bad day, grown by people we know (and both buy hay from). I roasted them at 375* for probably two hours, until they smelt all golden and wonderful. And then they went into my biggest soup pot with a bunch of our well water and some organic, raw (though not for long) apple cider vinegar and simmered on the woodstove for a few hours. When I get home from the day job tonight, I'll transfer them to the big stock pot and simmer them again. Tomorrow I'll likely make them into some kind of delicious soup with soba noodles and winter veg. Ah winter comfort food! How lucky we are to be here. Well, it's that time of year again. You know the time, when we're racing towards the Winter Solstice and the mornings are getting darker and darker. Today there was a little skiff of snow making me grateful I didn't have my 90 minute (each way) commute to work. These are the days when it just seems cold out; even just looking outside from a toasty house elicits a little shiver. When there's that pearlescent quality to the sky, I find myself unstinting on extra oats for the goats and extra feed for the poultry. They're adjusting to the cold, though I notice they find it easier than the wet we've had for weeks and weeks. I find myself in a minority at this time of year. I love the stillness of the dark mornings, sitting with a cup of tea and a book, maybe while some yarn scours, other is in a warming dye pot, and still more is in a warming mordant bath. The dogs sit at my feet chewing their bones. The world is quiet and peaceful. There's space to think and just feel and consider what will come in the hours and days ahead.
As I see it, there's no stopping it. There aren't enough bright hours in the day to daylight savings time winter away. Better to just enjoy it, be grateful that you are warm and cozy, help others who aren't; pause, have a cup of tea and revel in the stillness. So, it’s the next day. Trump is the President-elect and the Republicans run everything, or soon will. I’ve thought about this all night, what’s it going to mean and where it’s going to lead us. No, I’m not an American (though I am married to one) and no, I’m not planning to move the USA. And at the end of the day, while it’s important to consider where this could go, I think it’s far more important to reflect on how we got here.
Without even getting into the whole Bernie/Hillary issue, let’s look at why people would flock to someone who built a campaign on division. The short version is: there was already so much division in the USA. This campaign didn’t cause it. It might not have helped but it can’t be called the cause. No one, once the primaries were over, was building bridges in this campaign except Trump. He reached out to the people who felt that the system didn’t represent them, he tapped into a whole cadre of voters who had never felt enfranchised, and who appreciated is approach. Whether or not what he said was factual, his approach resonated with a huge percentage of voters in key states. These were people who have been sold on the American dream but have never had it come true for them. Trump was a representation of that dream and promised them it wasn’t out of reach anymore. These were people who have felt marginalized (whether or not any of us agree, it’s where they felt they were) and finally, someone was speaking to them, hearing them, acknowledging them. And what did we do? We mocked them. We belittled them. We called them uneducated and ignorant. We held ourselves with the exact superiority that drove them out of the electoral process to begin with and we contributed heavily to the cracks that the Republican campaign was only too happy to cash in on. So to my mind, this isn’t the time for more division and more hatred. This isn’t the time to be bullying our fellow humans, complaining that they did this or that (third party voters, Trump supporters, whatever). This is the time to come together, to put down the torches, to put away the anger and the hate. Sure there’s fear but I can assure you, fighting your way through doesn’t make it go away, it just makes the darkness behind the fear grow teeth. I’m going to suggest something I never ever would have thought in a million years I’d say. Learn from the Trump campaign. Instead of continuing to shunt those folks off to the side, learn from this campaign and reach out. I think now is the time to copy the model interfaith organizations have set forth - we don’t have to share the same dogma to acknowledge our shared humanness. Mobilize, listen, build bridges, create closeness. Invite people to the table. In these times I consider my farming life - we grow the best crops and plants out of the most disgusting muck. Let’s take the mess and recycle it into something that’s beautiful and nourishing. |
AuthorI'm a 40-something writer and smallholder living in the wilds of BC with my family, our small herd of Nigerian Dwarf Goats, chickens, ducks, dogs, and cats. Archives
August 2017
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