I want you to grow your groceries.
Could you grow enough food to feed your family if you needed?Could we, as communities, sustain ourselves - even temporarily - if there was some major disruption like a cyber attack, supply chain failure, hyper inflation, economic fall-out, or - God forbid - war? Though I'm a fan of salads & tasty treats like sugar snaps, if you're hungry, those just won't cut it.
“Why I Wear Overalls?”
or, more simply, “Remember”
9.My grandfather was buried in overalls.His children placed seed packets in his breast pocket before they planted him.My mother, her bowed head dropping tears on his cold face,She tells me “He never wore a suit.”“Overalls everyday of his life. Wore ‘em to church.”“Ain’t that the truth,” chimes my aunt. “Clean shirt. Maybe some other shoes.”And my...
Well, today's my birthday. I turned 25 years old. For the first nine months of my life, I didn't have a name. My parents were waiting for me to "tell them what my name should be." I was known as "Mr. Baby." For most of the next 23-24 years of my life, folks referred to me as Nathan. Though my aunt did call me Brian up until I was about 15 because she named me ahead of my parents and thought it...
My grandmother this coming spring will turn 92. She grew up picking cotton on other folks' farms in "LA, Lower Al'bama," south Georgia and N. Florida. She continues to "farm" to this day. Her vegetable garden-- heavy on peas, tomatoes, squash, sweet potatoes and peppers during the summer and collards, mustards and turnips during the winter-- is one of the things that keeps her going. Born in 1918,...
Update 2018: Nine years ago I publicly launched as Man in Overalls in Tallahassee, FL with this blog post following a few appearances along Tallahassee roadways in my overalls with big, colorful signs that said things like "Will Garden for Food", "Grow Your Own Food and Share it!", "We Can Grow Food!", and "HONK! For Food Gardens!" My dual purposes - rooted in the context of the Great Recession-...