As if I didn’t have enough to write about with my road trip to the Rainbow gathering, Summer is in full swing and our property is bearing lots of fruit! 
Being new to harvesting food, I have been completely in awe of the beautiful bounty we are discovering every day… Blueberries, summer apples (which are excellent baked!), blackberries, peaches, cucumbers… even an accidental beet 😉 AND, the two pear trees are starting to bear some cute (yet rock hard) baby fruit 😉
The bottom photo is of a load of purslane we harvested, which is considered a “weed” in the United States, but It tops the list of plants high in vitamin E and an essential omega-3 fatty acid called alpha-linolenic acid (ALA). Purslane provides six times more vitamin E than spinach and seven times more beta carotene than carrots. It’s also rich in vitamin C, magnesium, riboflavin, potassium and phosphorus… and most people are just weeding it and tossing it away!!
I was so excited about this tasty and nutritious edible that I knew I had to learn more about it and many others! Lucky for me, a friend hooked me up with some amazing folks and I was able to catch the tail end of an eco/herbal/permaculture/foraging etc etc. weekend event that just so happened to be 30 miles away from me! I was absolutely INSPIRED by some of the most informed, thoughtful, passionate, and genuine people I have had the honor to meet, ever! With all of the ideas and information I learned there, I feel my love for biology has been rekindled, and my resolve to be a kickass gardener and steward of the earth is now solidified… and this is just the tip of the iceberg! I may be jumping the gun, but I see wholeness and serenity on the horizon. I’m also feeling a profound respect for life and the complex and divine and systems within our natural world. I am so grateful for the people who take the time to notice and expound upon the intricacies and grand symbiosis that has been going on since man ever wondered “why”. Is it possible to feel so small and trivial and yet so vastly important at once?
So, in a nutshell, I have been transformed! I feel alive, and ready to explore the avenues that have been laid before me. Sure, over half of my tomatoes have died of blight… but it’s all just a learning experience at this point. Once I made up my mind to “learn first and succeed later”- things got a lot easier for me. 🙂
Coming up…
-
A three part article about my trip to Utah! (with photos!)
-
A plethora of process pictures from the farm house remodel, complete with gripes and commentary from yours truly! (or did you forget we were still doing the remodel? :p)
-
More garden success and failure stories!
-
What I learned at the permaculture gathering! (with my terrible paraphrasing!)
-
And more exciting baby builder projects, like an outdoor railing and shrine structure using re-purposed materials!
Don’t miss it! 🙂
Molly in the Mountains 
The city of Vancouver, B.C., boasts a lot of fruit growing wild this time of year but outside of the Okanagan area in southern British Columbia I don’t think we can match the cornucopia of your part of North Carolina. That kind of bounty would, I hope, inspire anyone to want to be a good steward. The land and its people should look after each other.
I think Globalization has led us a bit astray, away from local self-sufficiency in out food supply, And I think pursuing self-sufficiency naturally fosters sustainable practices.
So your blog and your enthusiasm is cool. And I have to read up on permaculture. Thanks.