this morning i attended my first urban homesteaders meeting. i've been shy and retreating lately, so i wasn't sure i wanted to jump right into a group of people i've admired from afar but didn't know. but anne was encouraging, and my mom said, "hell, meg, just go and find your butter making people, and make some homemade dental floss while you're at it." so i did. ish.
at first we went around and discussed why were there, and i would have been completely intimidated had i not been inspired by all the passionate commentary about the ph balance of various dairy products, the cheese making classes mary teaches beside her sheep, the fermentation of vegetables, and in general, the high level of awareness that there is, in fact, a loud political statement that evolves from pickled foods.
it wasn't a skill meeting-- we weren't preserving or baking or culturing or crafting anything. actually, we were crafting something, but it was words: the meeting mostly revolved around developing a mission statement for the group, which involved philosophical tangents mixed with some serious finicky english teacher tendencies. i arrived home an hour and a half later than expected because we were going back and forth at the table, hammering out the important stuff like, "should we use the words 'discover and share' or 'promote?' would 'self sustainability' make it clear that we're actually very local-community dependent?"
i am a total novice in the urban homesteading scene, and i have a long way to go before playing little house on the prairie, but i could handle the minute particularities of these discussions with confidence, so i was ultimately glad i went. even if there was no churning involved.
1 comment:
Meg, those mission statement conversations must've been old hat for an Antiochian like you!
Vermont is the capital of homesteading crafts of the northeast. Now that I know this about you, we can do lots of these things while you are here.
xoxox Uncle Ace
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