The Goddess of Gumbo

I’m eight years old again. My mother has planned a huge birth­day party for me, with cake and bal­loons and all my friends from school. (No, no clowns, or jug­glers or face painters, but it didn’t take much to please us in those days.)

I have a new dress to wear in my favorite blue–royal. And I have new patent leather Mary Janes. I can’t wait to get dressed and make my big entrance.

That’s how I feel right now–except the shoes are my new high-top work­boots, with easy zip entry, and my biggest worry is whether the prun­ing shears packed in my bags will bring down the wrath of Home­land Secu­rity on my head.

I’m trav­el­ing to the wilds of north cen­tral Cal­i­for­nia to for a mini-farm train­ing at the ranch founded by one of my heroes, John Jeavons–he of How to Grow More Veg­eta­bles fame. The idea is you’ll learn how to grow all the food you need to feed your fam­ily for a year on one acre of land–you know, the stuff my grand­mother knew how to do, that my mother knows how to do, but is too ill and infirm to teach me.

I could be work­ing. I’ve graded a set of papers… I should be upload­ing the results online… but I’m just too rest­less, too dis­tracted, too … wig­gly to sit still for it.

Stay tuned … There will be blog­ging from the road…