Kagey

We’ve finally made our transition to the rural life; we’ve kicked off our Brighton boots and made our way West to the beautiful Cornish countryside. It’s a new direction and a new way of life and so far full of discovery. Though we’ll be considered ‘Blowins’ by the true Cornish inhabitants for years to come we’ve been made very welcome. It’s a beautiful place to be and we’re more in love with our 25 acres every day.
I’ll be posting more news from Harewood Farm in the coming months.

A Couple of weeks ago I joined Tim Vireo Keating on one of his city forages in Prospect Park, Brooklyn.

Tim leads regular events in New York highlighting the abundance that is all around us. His passion is for the wild edibles that nature delivers free to those ready to look and gather.

We didn’t need to look too far.  As if to make the point we stopped just 10 yards inside park gate. Here with the sound of traffic still clear Tim pointed out an impressive variety of common edible plants to be picked for free. Weeds to many of us these plants are packed with nutrients and can help to cleanse and detoxify the body. Venturing further into the park we picked and ate leaves straight from a Sassafras tree, delish! Then we harvested a few young roots from its multitude offshoots to make Sassafras tea to accompany our dinner that night.

In a break from gathering Tim explained some of his passion for foraging. He loves bringing people into the park to show them an alternative to the idea that the earth’s resources are running out. A view he believes is the misconception that leads us to compete for dominance over food, energy and land. His experience has led him to observe that in functioning communities when resources are plentiful the impulse is to share. We just need to see what’s under our noses. He recalled how on finding a sack of perfectly good but out of date tomatoes on the sidewalk his first thought was how he could make a fantastic spaghetti sauce to feed all his chums. “When nature gives in abundance we need to find ways to receive it, adapting and living according to its cycle. It’s way of thinking many of us have lost, he says. We’ve been conditioned to demand what we want, when we want it, from the earth rather than accepting what it gives in plenty.” With bags full of greens he set off to add his harvest to the dinner in the making at ‘Grub’ a community dinner in Brooklyn.

I joined them later, a friendly bunch of anarchic kids in an industrial unit madly decorated with recycled materials and smelling of great food. Together with Tim’s wild edibles there was a banquet of food lifted from the bins of grocery stores, out of date but cooked with love and tasting delicious!

Watch the short film from Grub ! “First the Dishes, then the Revolution!” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4eOSAQKDc4

If you’re in New York I recommend you join one of Tim’s forages contact him on info@rainforestrelief.org

UPDATE – It’s just about a year ago now since we discovered Real Food Direct and they’re great people so if you live in the Brighton area get Real!

Original post Sept 15th ’05

Before you think I’ve lost my scruples, I’m referring to my local box scheme.

Perhaps I was hanging on to old vestiges of a consumer habit but I don’t know why it took so long to get around to sorting it. Anyway Ben from realfood-direct arrived with our first box today. Packed with local grown organic veg, Fairtrade fruit, local cheese, fresh baked organic bread and groceries. All stunning stuff. It was packed in a cardboard box with loose items in brown paper bags. There was one plastic bag, which Ben said he’d re-use, and the flat-pack box to be exchanged next week.
So total packaging 2 plastic pots, one for yogurt (recyclable) and a small plastic tub for houmous (probably not) and 4 small brown paper bags. The produce is top notch, organic, delivered and cost me £26 for enough groceries for the week.
What a result, I don’t need to go to the supermarket, the produce is real, possibly cheaper and my organic fruit and veg got to me in fine condition without the need to swathe it in plastic.

That’s one small piece of rubbish for landfill out of the whole weekly shop, the rest is just food and compost nothing more.

 see my other images …

Years ago on the west coast of Africa I met a man who lived in a tree. It was a gorgeous majestic tree just back from the beach. He lived there with his cat and you could have dried your washing on his smile.

Sometimes I wonder if he’s still alive, beaming out at anyone who takes the time to go and see him, a glorious accompaniment to the African sun. I imagine him sitting high on a bow looking out onto a night sky of dazzling stars. He was as rich as any man I’ve met.

Yesterday in a traffic jam in wealthy suburbia I looked at the tight lips behind the tinted glass of shiny 4×4’s and late model status symbols and I longed for the sorted life of my African friend.

The simplicity of his lifestyle is the source of his security, there is little material he can loose and yet he has everything he needs. It was impossible not to smile sharing his understanding of real living.

Sitting in my car I felt very sad. Surely our carbon intensive lives will wreck the simple existence of people living naturally. Clearly there was little happiness in that traffic jam, even in the tallest of the gleaming vehicles spewing out their greenhouse gases.

It’s time to reconnect with the true source of joy and security before we screw it up for everyone.

Smile you have everything you need! 

Work for environmental justice