The Sky is Gray

The sky is gray, with tinges of smokey black and off-white. Wind gusts, bending bendable plants nearly to the ground, spraying falling leaves like missles released from fighter jets. Rain comes in splatters and squalls, slinging cold, wet needles of water everywhere.

I am at my sister's place in the pretty town of St. Marys. She is away on volunteer duties, with a paid staff member. The house hums with life support to run the heat, humidifer, refridgerator, stove clock....all things that operate via electricity, which is pumped without interruption into each and every home.

Earlier we walked to the Community Center to swim in a bromide salt pool to the tune of $4.75 a pop. How do people with less disposable income access these facilities? Apparently they can go to whomever is in charge of such things, cap in hand, to say they want to have their children/family/themselves enrolled in an aquatics program. Imagine, if you will, just what it would be like to have to beg to swim in the local pool ~ the pool that your taxes help to maintain. Yes, you have a job. Yes, you pay rent. Yes, you can cloth and feed your family. But. There is little left over for outside activities. Like swimming.

The sky is gray, as is the day and my thoughts, as they turn to the many people who scud across the vast sky of indifference to those who struggle, daily, to make ends meet.

Thursday Farmer's Market

Yup, I am selling freshly harvested mixed salad greens, grown by a local farmer, as well as cherries I picked myself from a colourful character who has offered (for the first time) a 'Pick-Your-Own' option in his orchard. It is lovely to wander through these well pruned trees in the middle of the day and fill a few flats with tree ripened cherries. I sold five pounds to friends and bagged the rest in one pound lots to offer to patrons of the newly formed Thursday Farmer's Market in the small community of Cobble Hill. I sold out today! All the cherries and the eight bags of salad greens were gone by the end of the afternoon.

I make a little profit, but mostly turn the money back to the grower, where it rightly belongs. The women and men farmers who are earnest and hardworking deserve the monetary reward. For myself, I enjoy the interaction with the people who arrive to purchase locally grown organic produce.

If you are fortunate enough to have such a market in your area, I hope you will take the time to support the efforts of those who grow excellent food, as they are doing their bit in offering a healthy, environmentally alternative to the mass marketing you find in grocery stores.