Two things of note today, the first is eating flowers and making one's salad pretty. Now to me a few flowers thrown onto the salad looks a bit naff, but apparently according to Sarah Raven they have plenty of vitamins, etc, so try it one day when you want to impress your visitors.
The second thing is I came across Scott and Helen Nearing on Youtube, a 'back to the earth' couple many years ago, who lived in Vermont. I used to have their two books, Scott as he grew very old decided to end his life by starving himself to death, which he did. They lived that basic life which they both loved and I noticed Helen knitted a lot of the time, something we share. Helen also built a wall round her vegetable garden to keep out the rabbits, and as I watched the videos the walled garden was there, though now tended by others who presumably run the Nearing Center. Their house looks very Swiss, but no animals of course as Helen was a vegetarian.
The Nearings settled in southern Vermont, becoming neighbors to my late MIL when she and her siblings were growing up. It was her family who taught 'Scott and Helen' to make maple syrup. They were in many ways the forerunners of the 'back to the land' hippies who invaded Vermont in the 1970's--but with a far sterner work ethic. Jim's parents visited them a time or two after the Nearings had relocated to Maine. Part of their land there was sold to Eliot Coleman who has since become well known in organic gardening circles--at least in America.
ReplyDeleteI have the impression it was Helen who was savvy about making an income from their various oddities, promoting Scott as a 'speaker' long after he was past it. [Sorry if I'm being tedious--you may have known much of this already!]
No it is fascinating Sharon, I had Eliot Coleman's book about growing things all through the seasons. The Nearings both look very strong characters, she fell in love with one of the 'gurus' of the time remember that before she married Scott. There is something that never quite works out when being self-sufficient, I think it is the need to have to create everything from scratch so that you don't need to pay utility bills, etc. Often wonder what would happen if we all took off to the woods to live, how many trees would be left ;)
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