A fine layer of wind blown snow coats my jacket as I walk the dark street home, flakes are big enough to make out their pattern. Dinner is a bowl of fresh bean soup. As I sit on my usual stool at the small kitchen table I watch my hosts attend to their task at hand. They are taking the milk from their cow and skimming the thick layer off the top to be stored in a familiar container for cream. Then pouring the milk through cheesecloth into various containers for later uses. I watch all of this earnestly and with a certain curiosity as I enjoy dinner. Then I realize the very beans that I am eating I had seen this morning. Only then they were in my hostess's apron and then being sorted on the kitchen table. Beans grown in their garden, picked by hand, shucked and dried.
Their communion with the land is so different and foreign to me. Land is worked; sued and reaped. It sustains life and will forgive us our trespasses. But the land sustains my soul and for that I cherish, preserve and try to protect what is given to the people.
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