Life at The Good Life Center
(Page 2 of 4)
September/October 2001
By Chris Eaton and Neha Shukla
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Neha writes: Our first tender seedlings came up about a week ago: delicate shoots of onions, peppers, tomatoes, celery, leeks, and radishes. Delicate, but so powerful in their ability to push skyward through the soil. It certainly inspired confidence to see them appear. When we start to worry too much about the garden—whether it will all come together and if we’ll be able to leave the next caretakers the bounty that was left for us—I remember what our friend Mark would say: The seed, when planted, wants to germinate, and the plant wants to grow. We just help it along. All the good advice that we’ve solicited from neighbors has helped quite a bit, too.
June
Chris writes: It’s a warm morning, and the nesting phoebes above the balcony door outside of Scott’s room busily gather food for their insatiable clutch. Stepping out the door, thinking that the parents departed for another circuit through the apple trees, I’m greeted by the flutter and wheeling of the returning mother, who was as surprised as I was to cross paths. The luscious sight of mist bathing our garden drew me outside. Such a beautiful view of the garden we have from our bedroom door! Our busy porch mate is waiting with a mouthful on the eaves, content to view the scene as well. It feels as though the garden, the house, and its inhabitants are growing accustomed to us, as we are to them. Having drunk my fill of sweet, wet air, I go back inside, and mama phoebe quickly delivers her gifts and flies out for more. It’s time to feed ourselves and get into the garden.
August
Neha writes: We’re canning tomatoes today. Red, yellow, and green fruit and a food preservation bible in hand. Sweating over the cook stove, I recall Helen and Scott in the first scene of an early 1970s documentary film. Helen squeezed as many whole tomatoes as possible into a quart jar, Scott topped it with boiling water, and the lid was shut. Done. Helen chose to minimize and simplify her time in the kitchen, unlike Chris and me. Though the author of the book we’re using would surely take issue with the Nearings’s canning methods, their technique worked well enough for them if their longevity stands as proof. Scott died at the age of 100, Helen at age 91, and neither died of botulism.