Seeds and a Fork in the Road

This weekend was a good one spent primary with Jerry’s family sharing a meal, prayer and great company.
On Sunday some of us met at the local coffee house to discuss our garden plans for the summer and to order seeds. This is a step up for us. We usually have a small garden of some type in our yard, just a few tomato and pepper plants, etc. Last summer we had a bumper crop of strawberries. The kids next door came over and saw how strawberries looked before they appeared on the store shelf in plastic containers. They enjoyed picking them and taking some home to the family. More often than not though by mid-summer the weeds have taken over and we end up just harvesting what we can.
However yesterday was a power meeting of what our garden could look like.
Spring fever set in and we began ordering seeds. Brother-in-law Jack was the experienced one. While Dave and I have done a little gardening for many years, Jack has done mega-gardening, at least by our family standards. Our true inspiration comes from sister Judy who has worked on Genesis Farm in NJ for over 23 years. She is the one with the ‘know how’ and the experience. She is the one who answers all our questions and offers advice. She is ‘the one’!
So a couple of hours later we were thinking green and tasting wonderful veggies in our heads. Over $100. worth of seeds to be shares 3 or 4 ways. Not too bad for a summer worth of vegetables. Oh, and don’t forget the flowers! Judy says that you must plant flowers in order to feed the soul as well as veggies to feed our bodies. I like that kind of thinking. So some of the flowers we ordered are edible.
So that was a fork in the road for me – to get serious about gardening and eating locally grown. How much more local can you get that your own back yard. Perhaps we’re taking the road less traveled but I think there are a lot of people beginning to walk down that path.
But wait, there was another fork in the road that we responded to yesterday. We attended two fundraisers on Sunday. Two different local high schools, two different causes, both worth our time and money. Besides you can’t beat $8 for breakfast and $6 for dinner.
As I was thinking about dinner I had an epiphany that I decided to act on. Jerry graciously went along with the idea or at least put up with it and decided to humor me once again. Instead of using the plastic knives and forks we took our own forks (didn’t really need knives) from home and our own napkins also.
When we refuse the paper napkin wrapped plastic ware the lady looked at us kind of strange but eventually said ‘that’s an interesting idea’. I’m not sure she meant it but I hope the idea got talked about later.
At the table we were sitting with some of the family. They either didn’t notice that we were using real forks and napkins or decided to ignore it as to not embarrass us – not that it would have. I would have liked to have had the chance to say, ‘yea, we did it on purpose’.
So another literal fork in the road has been taken. Hopefully we will continue down this path also. A friend of our daughter for some time now has taken his own container with him when he east out so as to eliminate the need for a ‘doggie bag’. I like that idea. Hopefully I’ll someday remember to do that also.