While researching an article that I was writing for our local conservation center's newsletter, I was struck by an interesting coincidence. The topic of the article is the highly anticipated emergence of the Brood II Magicicada, a group of cicadas that lives and develops underground for most of its 17 year life span, emerging only once at the end of that period. Synchronously and in huge numbers--millions--they tunnel up toward the light, crawl toward trees and shrubs and climb up, to molt one last time.
The last time this happened was in 1996, the same year we moved back to the east coast. We missed it; it is a spring event, and we did not arrive until almost Thanksgiving. Like the Magicicada, we have been doing a lot of growing in the last 17 years. We started small and have slowly increased our farm bit by bit, and we are now on the cusp of our own emergence. Wild Rose Farm will be participating in several farmer's markets this summer. This will be a whole new adventure for us, taking the show on the road, so to speak. We are looking forward to meeting lots of new folks who care about where their food comes from and how it was raised. There is so much in the news these days about commercial agribusiness, and the tide is beginning to turn in consumer awareness. Families are taking back control of their lives. It has become trendy to cook from scratch, to bake, to can and preserve, and to eat together around a table.
Cycles in life are inevitable, but change is always part of the cycle. Every day the sun comes up, yet no two days are the same. The re-emergence of cooking from scratch is part of a longer cycle, but it won't necessarily resemble the way our grandmothers and great grandmothers cooked. We have all sorts of new technology that makes it much simpler to prepare home-cooked meals. Ovens with timers, food processors, freezers, microwaves, dishwashers, great big refrigerators, and my personal favorite, slow cookers. It only takes a bit of planning ahead. The time has come. It's time to reclaim that which was good in the past and view it in the light of what is good in the future, much like the Magicicada.
The last time this happened was in 1996, the same year we moved back to the east coast. We missed it; it is a spring event, and we did not arrive until almost Thanksgiving. Like the Magicicada, we have been doing a lot of growing in the last 17 years. We started small and have slowly increased our farm bit by bit, and we are now on the cusp of our own emergence. Wild Rose Farm will be participating in several farmer's markets this summer. This will be a whole new adventure for us, taking the show on the road, so to speak. We are looking forward to meeting lots of new folks who care about where their food comes from and how it was raised. There is so much in the news these days about commercial agribusiness, and the tide is beginning to turn in consumer awareness. Families are taking back control of their lives. It has become trendy to cook from scratch, to bake, to can and preserve, and to eat together around a table.
Cycles in life are inevitable, but change is always part of the cycle. Every day the sun comes up, yet no two days are the same. The re-emergence of cooking from scratch is part of a longer cycle, but it won't necessarily resemble the way our grandmothers and great grandmothers cooked. We have all sorts of new technology that makes it much simpler to prepare home-cooked meals. Ovens with timers, food processors, freezers, microwaves, dishwashers, great big refrigerators, and my personal favorite, slow cookers. It only takes a bit of planning ahead. The time has come. It's time to reclaim that which was good in the past and view it in the light of what is good in the future, much like the Magicicada.