I really, really started to hate the word ECONOMY sometime around mid-March. It made me feel all first-trimester kind-of sick every time someone even mentioned it. But recently,I've begun to look at that word-- and what it means to our family-- in a different light. A values re-clarification sort of light. And you know what? It seems to be helping. Part of my re-framing this summer has been to make an effort to get back to the basics-- to use the beauty of our surroundings and the plenty of activities to be found nearby as a way to fill our days with richness....all for free (except Noah and sailing. that one's about bank-breaking, but that's okay).
Anyway, I'm thinking that I'm going to kick off a week of what to do for free with your family kind of stuff, and will choose things that hopefully you can find within a half-hour or hour radius of your own home too.
1) Visit a local farm. Check http://www.pickyourown.org for a listing of farms with a U-Pick feature around the country. We spend at least an hour each week at our local farm of choice, Pond Hill, where we have a CSA share and a community garden plot (which, um, we didn't actually plant this year. But still).
Visiting a farm not only connects you to local growers, it gives you a sense of peace; a deeper understanding of time and nature and how things happen just when they are supposed too, like the birth of these sweet piglets:
(be warned, however: if you are still nursing, this image
will register very quickly in your toddler's mind, and will leave her scrambling up your shirt saying "Num! Num!"
You can visit the vegetables, if there is a market-- even better, because this time of year berries and colors are exploding all over the place and might just entice little hands to pop some new good-for-you-foods into little mouths!
At Pond Hill, there are tons of other things to see, from the livestock
to the tire swing (talk about joy from a day gone-by...)
And if you are really lucky, you might catch kids as cute as these two smooching up a storm near the piglets. Or not, but these pictures just kill me, so they are going in anyway.
