I was reading a very good article about peak oil and the collapse of civilization this morning (way better than coffee as a wake up call!) when I realized that I would never have time to finish it. My daughter caught me noodling around, trying to figure out how I would find it again when she asked why I didn’t just bookmark it. Say what? Now I know about bookmarking. I have actually bookmarked a few things in the past but it was way past and I didn’t remember how. She showed me (it took all of about 2 seconds) and now I have the site bookmarked. I know that I will spend the next rainy day, assuming it rains again, bookmarking a lot of the blogs I find here. We have a ton of great bloggers  here and it annoys me when I can’t remember the site name of one I really like. And you know how it is. If you get out of the habit of visiting, it’s hard to remember to go back.

This leads to a point. Really. It does. Practice of any skill is necessary. I led a food preservation workshop for NOFA this weekend. For me, the best part, aside from the collaboration with other foodies, was getting the chance to walk through the processes for preservation in an intentional way. Why do I do things one way and not another? Why is that dangerous? What step makes this easier? Presenting the workshop makes me rethink everything and that makes me better at what I do.

I also had the chance to look at the photo album one of the woman brought along. She had great pictures of her freezer and her root cellar. Now I would way rather look at pictures of somebody’s GORGEOUS root cellar than pictures of their grandchildren or their trip to Europe. I found it inspiring to see how organized this woman was. I want tobe  organized too but it’s so darn hard to keep it up. But I’ll keep on trying. It’s good to have a goal.

It was an amazing weekend. The Creamery held their 10 year anniversary celebration on Sunday. There was an ongoing slew of musicians and jugglers and magicians to entertain us. There was wonderful food to sample, free Creamery pizza and cake and ice cream samples. Local authors autographed books.  Bruce and I pressed about 30 gallons of cider from gleaned apples (I thought the bushels of apples would never stop coming) and gave it out for free. I was shocked at thow many people had no idea how cider is made. We had a constant stream of kids helping with the press. One little guy asked his dad for a press for his birthday. Now this sounds like the Creamery must be a huge place. It’s tiny. The whole event took place in the parking lot. People came and went all day. It was really fun. I love my community.

I am off to PA on Friday for the Mother Earth News Fair. I usually hate to travel, hate to be away from home, hate to leave Bruce and the kids behind but, this time, not so much. I can’t wait. Two full days of collaboration with like-minded people sounds like heaven. I plan to take every workshop I can squeeze into when I’m not presenting myself. I’ll be sharing lots of news and views when I return.

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