A Love Affair

Currently, I’m involved with a three, each are different and knowledgable. One talks to me about baking, seasonal produced cooked up and surrounded by flaky pastry. Making several pies for each season when the produce is at its best. From fruit to veggies and even a shepard’s pie. How to dress it up with lattice work or tuck under a full top.

The second one tells me about growing, prepping from veggies to flowers. How to select the plants, prep the area and how to build structures to grow them upward. Creating a landscape based on color, theme, smell or herbal. From shady to full sun, from outdoor and indoor and from simple to complicated.

The third, wants to teach me about preserving and saving each season of produce. How to can nature’s bounty, so that I can enjoy it during any season. They are my current books from the library.

The library is my love affair, always there with endless books at my fingers, wants to know the books I’m interested in, gathers them for me and has them ready for me pickup. I get to tryout books to see if they are good before I commit to purchase. They let me copy the pages that I need, so I don’t need to purchase them. Read the ones that are one timer and never need to read again.

It provides a comfort during the winter months, when my garden is sleeping and the seed catalogs have not arrived. I catch the reading bug, wanting to read lots of things and different things. When the weather is cold, icy and snowy, I sit in the warmth of the fireplace in my living room. Snuggled in a blanket with the sound of crackling fire and my husband’s video games.

Motivation of the new growing season that seems so far away, aspiring me to try new recipes, and how to preserve my garden. It has this wealth of knowledge just sitting there for you to borrow. It is a way I inspire my daughter with the world that is around her. Testing out books to see if she is interested in them and taking her to see the “ahh” as she looks are all the books in her section. The library provides class and events for me and my family. There are monthly events for the children, with stories, crafts and characters. I’ve been to a few author book readings, a food justice event and soon my first “How To Festival”. A day, from 10-3, people give free lectures, workshops and how to’s for the public. The topics include everything from growing, dancing, bike maintence, cooking, health and organization.

All this and nothing is asked back of me, unless I don’t return my items on time. Then I must pay fees. Even with the growing technology, it to has grown, the library offers downloadable books for the kindle. But I enjoy the touch of a book, the smells of its’ pages and coping a page to take.

I leave with this, “If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”