Ah, breakfast, my favorite

The shuffled footsteps down the hall, the glimpse of an old man in his shorts, then the sound of the refrigerator door opening, "Heh, heh. It worked! Look!" David found a quart jar and lid last night (I didn't even think he knew where to look) and poured the pint of heavy cream that he had purchased at the grocery store earlier that day into the jar. He gently shook the jar until butter separated from the whey. Our first homemade butter!* So this morning we spread the butter on homemade whole wheat toast made from flour we had ground from wheat berries the night before. We sliced fresh strawberries and laid them over the butter and garnished with a few alfalfa sprouts (that we sprouted ourselves in another quart jar with a nylon hose lid). Seated in the back yard on a couple of old folding chairs with the songs of several birds, we ate our meal. At this moment life couldn't be better. Ah, breakfast, my favorite. Yum.

Besides the quality of ingredients and the incredible taste, producing your own food gives you such a satisfaction - a wide smile for a job well done. Why did we give this up for a faster more stressful life style? Why did we ever think that industrialization was better than independence? Bigger, better, more money, more power. Ah, power, POWER. That's a hard one to resist. Whatever the reason was, it's time to turn around, about face. Younger people stand at the point of choosing their life path. For those of us over 59, we've been on our life path for many years. Turning around can be fatal if we turn too fast.

For the past couple weeks, maybe a month already, I've been contemplating change. It is like contemplating going on a diet. Both are good ideas and both require sucking it up, saying "no" to a familiar habit, and lots of work. So after all my sulking and whining, the scruffy old man in the plaid shorts with the homemade breakfast won. Today we are joining the Independence Days challenge that Sharon Astyk posted on her website. More later...

*instructions for butter making at CrunchyChickenCooks , Feb.2, 2008