The older I get, and the more I learn about (and feel) the connectedness of all beings, the more I like my cleaning products so nontoxic that you can eat them.  Hence, this recipe I tried this weekend, from the fabulous resource Organic Housekeeping by Ellen Sandbeck.

Homemade Furniture Oil:

Mix one part lemon juice with two parts olive oil

or

one part white vinegar and three parts olive oil.

Shake vigorously, apply sparingly.  Let soak in for a few minutes, then wipe with a clean cloth.

I had some lemons about to shrivel up in the fridge, so I did the lemon version.  Yummy!  Our table and chopping block really look gorgeous now, and I had a lot left over.  Which I may try in my hair, actually.  The one thing I love even more than edible cleaning products are multiple use edible cleaning products.  Yeah.

I got excited this weekend about our herbs, and starting harvesting and using them.  Lavender oil warming in the window, mint tea on the dinner table, red raspberry leaves and more mint in the drying rack.  I’m growing way more herbs than ever this year.  I’ve only ever used them in tea, but I’m really thrilled to learn more ways to use them.  I even learned that I can make sunscreen!  Yes!  I’ll share the recipe (and some photos) soon.  Here is some lavender I got at the Shutesbury farmer’s market for 50 cents, infusing in some olive oil in a sunny window.  This is so easy I can’t believe I’ve never done it before.

More good news – this issue of the Small Farmer’s Journal (on the counter at Wheatberry, if you want to check it out) shows a graph using data from the US Agriculture Dept census from 1992-2002.  Farms of most sizes were down, but the number of farms between 10-49 acres (what I consider a true “small farm”) more than doubled.  Yes yes and yes!  Here we go, small farm revolution.  I love being part of this, part of a generation that grew up away from farms, but is learning for ourselves how to steward the land, in a “small,” healthy, vibrant way.

Having spent the weekend enjoying the sun, a good meal with friends, and our hands in the dirt, I have been thinking a lot of this quote by Thoreau, which has been hanging above my desk since I was a teenager:

Ella and I left our dirty dishes on the counter this morning and caught a ride with friends to Lake Wyola (a vacation five minutes away, as we like to think of it).  I kept thinking of Mary Oliver, and when I got home and Ella fell asleep, I found this.  Perhaps she was thinking of Thoreau, too.

Little Summer Poem Touching the Subject of Faith
by Mary Oliver

Every summer
I listen and look
under the sun’s brass and even
into the moonlight, but I can’t hear

anything, I can’t see anything –
not the pale roots digging down, nor the green stalks muscling up,
nor the leaves
deepening their damp pleats,

nor the tassels making,
nor the shucks, nor the cobs.
And still,
every day,

the leafy fields
grow taller and thicker –
green gowns lofting up in the night,
showered with silk.

And so, every summer,
I fail as a witness, seeing nothing –
I am deaf too
to the tick of the leaves,

the tapping of downwardness from the banyan feet –
all of it
happening
beyond any seeable proof, or hearable hum.

And, therefore, let the immeasurable come.
Let the unknowable touch the buckle of my spine.
Let the wind turn in the trees,
and the mystery hidden in the dirt

swing through the air.
How could I look at anything in this world
and tremble, and grip my hands over my heart?
What should I fear?

One morning
in the leafy green ocean
the honeycomb of the corn’s beautiful body
is sure to be there.

Here’s to poetry, and the summer corn to come, and the sort of summer days that make you feel this is the best of all possible worlds, and worth fighting for.  Here’s to a President who feels the same way.  The debate on climate change is over.  The debate on foosil fuels is over.  We must (and will) find a new, more beautiful path forward.