UU guest blogging

I wrote a post for the education blog of our church (first unitarian universalist). It is something I would have written on this blog, so here it is again. Our early fall garden in sprouting lettuces, spinach, broccoli, peas, and still beans beans galore. I didn't know these beans would do so well so long! nice surprise. Anyhow, my "guest blogger" post:

Yesterday I knocked down a giant interconnected web craftily spun by a spider between our compost bin and the beans. Not very kind to the spider, but necessary if we were to walk around the beans to the tomatoes and pick our produce. The spider will only build another, I imagine. The web reminded me of the other giant interconnected web; The Unitarian Universalist one, of course, and of my hope that this messy little garden could teach Zoe everything that it means to me.

Perhaps it is too much to ask a modest backyard garden to teach a child about thankfulness, interconnectedness, and morality. But, here is a story about why I think it is worth a try.
Our backyard is a wild, overgrown, semi-cultivated children’s museum of educational opportunity for a toddler. Before she was born I daydreamed about gardening together. She would play on a blanket or be strapped to my back while I planted, weeded, and harvested. We would talk about where food comes from. Watch it grow out of the ground. Thank the worms that helped the dirt. Taste food right off the vine. Some of this came true in practice.
I want my daughter to understand that food is not something that magically appears in a grocery store. I want her to be aware that everything we do depends on people we do not know, plants, animals, rain, bugs, and our actions too. I do not want her to take things for granted. I would like her to think of the whole lifecycle of everything we use and the impact of our actions. There wouldn’t be so much darn litter in our neighborhood if the kids (and adults) had some respect for the things they used and some awareness of what happens after they toss it on the ground. I would like Zoe to learn respect, awareness, and thankfulness. A good place to start is to plant a garden.

I am not much of a gardener. I only started a garden maybe five years ago. It is messy and weedy and not everything grows the way it should. But every year we eat something that comes from our backyard and each year I have some additional success (and additional failures). I am learning. I want my daughter to learn from the get go.

What is she learning? Right now our biggest lesson is distinguishing between red and green tomatoes and only picking the red ones. But I don’t stop her from exploring and picking, even if it is a green tomato or a not-yet-finished eggplant. She will learn. And as she does we will talk about where the food that we buy at the store grows – who takes care of those plants? What water do they use to give the plants a drink? Is it from a rain barrel like we have at our house? Where does the water come from when it comes out of a hose? How did the food get to this store? How did this cereal get in this box? Did it come from a plant? If we can’t plant cereal in our garden, where does it come from?

Imagine that everyone thought about all the steps in the long long chain that brings a person Cheerios in the morning, and everything else that we eat, and everything else that we do.

Gardening together is a good place to start.

will work for coffee and mortgage payment

yesterday in church we sang "coffee coffee coffee" to the tune of "holy holy holy," and let me tell you, that shit cracked me up. unitarian universalists know how to make fun of themselves, especially on april fools day. this morning im singing the praises of ethiopian yrgacheffe. amen, blessed be, ohyeah.
its roasted by this fairly new local roaster, only a mile or so away. i wrote them an email praising their talents and letting them know we drink it every morning and, oh by the way, can i work for you this summer? they didnt write back. for the first time in three years i do not have a summer class to teach at Temple. my own fault, i was waffling and groaning about the commute and missed the deadline to bid for teaching spots. now i feel like a highschool kid looking for a summer gig, only i have a mortgage to pay and buy my own groceries. well, with help of course, but my help is also a student whose income source is debt debt debt.
oh we love loans in this house.
so im shopping my skills, sent out letters to local colleges (baltimore has quite a few) in hopes they may need summer adjuncts.
apparently not.
sent emails to coffee roasters lauding my knowledge of beans and tea and love of farmers markets where i would be honored to shop their stuff in the early early morn.
but no.
oh dear.
its a good reminder that although grad students often complain that we are worked too hard for too little money, even an adjunct position pays better than what many a folk can get.