Sustainable Living

There is an unclaimed, unharvested apple tree out front of my townhouse. It is left unharvested because other residents in my amazing community think they're CRAB APPLES (and for some reason think crab apples aren't useable)! I've since disabused them of that notion but they're still too lazy to do anything with them, so the pleasure is all mine. Last week I made a super tasty apple crumble. Yum! Tomorrow we'll gather about 32 cups worth, as I've gotten some good advice on how to make a lovely wine. I'm not looking forward to the collection so much but I'm sure that the feeling of self satisfaction I'll feel in a year when I first drink some will be overwhelming. Maybe not quite so overwhelming as if I had planted the tree myself, but there you go.
I had the fine fortune of coming across some really inexpensive mason jars on Kijiji.com, in the 250mL and 1L sizes. I have enough jars now to make several each of strawberry freezer jam, salsa, and some corn relish in the small size as well as almost 20 large jars of canned peaches, pears, and tomatoes. I can't wait!
The thought of eventually raising chickens, growing our own produce and eating in-season fruits and veggies is exciting. I look forward to the day when I open the door of my house and walk out into my garden, walking between the rows of beans, tomatoes, peas, carrots, potatoes, corn, beets, and peppers. Then I'll walk among the fruit trees: cherry, apple, pear, and peach. I'll weed my strawberry patch and then feed my chickens and let them out into the garden to free-range. The goats will greet me and follow me around looking for treats.
During all of this, Delilah will be learning, along with me, how to build a sustainable, ecologically responsible lifestyle. I hope that eventually our society will learn that the way we have built it (driven by consumerist lifestyle) is not sustainable and must come to an end. Commuting in and of itself is destroying our planet, global relations, and our health. Buying grapefruit that come from Africa? Frozen vegetables from China? WHY?!? Seems kind of ridiculous to me, considering North American, not to mention Canadian, farmers could grow all of these things, if they weren't so consumed with the idea of growing corn for E85 fuel. Grow food, not fuel! Alternate methods of transportation are the answer, NOT alternate sources of fuel. But who am I to convince people? Perhaps it's just as well that we'll exit the city gracefully and live happily ever after on our oh so satisfying homestead.