Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

My partner works hard and sometimes long hours, so on a Saturday I like to leave her sleeping so she can really stretch out in the bed, and I take care of the animals and normally blog, watch TV, do a bit of housework or just have a shower and a coffee. Today is no exception. Although I am writing a to-do list because there’s a lot to do before my mum arrives for tea. Not least a bit of housework! (What is it about parents visiting that inspires such domestic endeavours!?) Of course, there’s a large part of me that thinks it would be sensible to go back to bed and drift back to sleep…

I’ve decided I want to photograph vegetables. Not as a career choice – I don’t want to be known forever more as the veg snapper – just as a slightly different and unusual assignment. I think vegetables look interesting (look only; I don’t eat a lot of vegetables. I leave that to my partner and the dogs).

I’m reading Barbara Kingsolver’s book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and cannot recommend it highly enough. You might recognise the name in association with the best seller, The Poisonwood Bible. My partner read that and another of her books (name escapes me) and became an instant fan. I saw this new book at the Eden Project gift shop and picked up a copy. Her and her family decided to live for a whole year only eating seasonally and if at all possible only what they could grow or rear. At the same time they (her daughter and husband also write in the book) decided to investigate the state of food and food practices – predominantly in the USA.

(Incidentally she is a big fan of farmers and understands many are working under difficult conditions and are having to farm, not in tune with nature, but in tune with massive corporations where the quality of the bottom line is far more important than the quality of the soil.)

This book works because she’s not preachy; but she is a very good writer and also warm and funny so you find yourself digesting (no pun intended) some seriously shocking information on intensive farming, food miles or pesticides without images of your slightly psychotic school science teacher throwing complex and boring facts at you like spears, or some crusty hippy entreating you to just, like, be kinder to the earth. (Not that I have anything against crusty hippies. Many great things have been achieved by hippies crusty or otherwise.) In other words, she doesn’t tell you that you must change what you eat and how, she writes about what she chose to do and if you want to do the same or similar, congratulations, but really, it’s nothing to do with her…

It really is a remarkable book and already I have plans to purchase a second copy as a Christmas present. As loyal readers know (both of you) we plan to become small-scale farmers in the near future and hold dear the principles of organic farming and having the utmost care and respect for the environment and our animals: be they pet or livestock.

Anyway, back to the point. I’ve started looking at vegetables in a whole new light (she’s slightly evangelical about veg, which is no bad thing I guess, I’m certainly only ever going to buy heritage seeds from now on) and so I thought with my new camera lenses I might try some shots. We certainly get some strange stuff sent to us in our organic veg box each week, and in our own very small-scale - some would say tiny - growing operation, we've grown some very odd looking marrows.

It could work or it could turn into the most boring series of photos since I got the camera last year and in my excitement took lots of pictures of our legs…