Nature Loves Us Back

I missed the eclipse.  Although I was with friends on a terrace at the Museum of Modern Art, the buildings obstructed what might have been our view.  Watching a natural phenomenon generates a sense of awe and is a reminder of how much beauty there is surrounding us. I’m enjoying all the photographs friends have sent with their notes about where they were.

Last weekend I was in Tulsa, Oklahoma participating in a convening entitled Sovereign Futures. The program was organized through the Kendall College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tulsa and under the main curatorial leadership of Allison Glenn.

Tulsa is a city that has recognized the power art has to transform a city and bring people together.  Each year, through the Tulsa Fellowship, a group of artists are accepted into a fellowship that includes housing, a living stipend, and a studio where they can make their art. Now there are independent bookstores, art galleries, theaters, and a thriving arts community in Tulsa.

In looking at the future we talked about food sovereignty, which is different from food security. Food sovereignty is “the right of a community to identify and control how their food is produced and distributed, and this includes the quantity and quality of what they are consuming so it goes beyond just the thought of having enough to eat.”

We visited The Osage Nation Harvest Land Farm and enjoyed a traditional Orage meal with ingredients grown at the Clark-Asberry Homestead Ranch in North Tulsa, one of the last independently owned Black farms in Tulsa County. It was a delicious lunch and reminded me of how fortunate we are in New Hampshire to have access to local food.

Now that the growing season is beginning I pay attention to notes from Gilmanton’s Own, the non-profit organization and cooperative market and agricultural center In Gilmanton, New Hampshire. Beans and Greens Farm is open year-round, and we can think ahead to when we will have fresh greens and many choices of vegetables.

Driving up along the Connecticut River in Piermont is Robie Farm, a small family-run dairy farm in Piermont. There have been six generations of Robies who have farmed this property since 1870 and it is one of the few dairy farms that still produces and sells raw milk and cream, as well as aged cheeses and meats.

We’re a few months away from picking berries, but time slips away.  Keep your eye on the Smith Family Farm where there are three raspberry and blueberries in their fields.  The berries are usually available for picking in mid-July.  If they have a strong crop there stay open one night during the week for what they call “Twilight Picking.”

One of my favorite seasonal dishes is rhubarb pie.  We always had a rhubarb plant when I was growing up and we might have one or two pies during the spring season.  Warm rhubarb is also delicious on vanilla ice cream. I’m not certain how the unexpected snow has affected the rhubarb this year, but it is usually available in late March or early April.  Probably later this year.

During the pandemic, I lead a reading group around Braiding Sweetgrass, Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of the Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer.  The book spent 129 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list.

Maybe it was the smell of ripe tomatoes, or the oriole singing, or that certain slant of light on a yellow afternoon and the beans hanging thick around me. It just came to me in a wash of happiness that made me laugh out loud, startling the chickadees who were picking at the sunflowers, raining black and white hulls on the ground. I knew it with a certainty as warm and as clear as the September sunshine.  The land love us back. She loves us with beans and tomatoes, with roasting ears and blackberries and birdsongs. By a shower of fifths and heavy rain of lessons. She provides for us and teaches us to provide for ourselves. That’s what good mother’s do.   Braiding Sweetgrass (Milkweed Press, 2012)