The Market is Open

Check out the new produce this week! The market is open.

“Near the end of March, 1845, I borrowed an axe and went down to the woods by Walden Pond. . . It is difficult to begin without borrowing.” (Thoreau)

Try to think of one action, thought, or opportunity from this week that was utterly, completely, purely original. The proverbial Newtonian apple that falls out of nowhere and inspires an original thought is rare. . . it may even be impossible. Our ideas, our skills, our jobs, our wisdom are rooted in other people, other historical ideas, and other skills from mentors. We stand on the shoulders of others, and others stand on the shoulders of an infinite regression. The roots of our knowledge, our success, our lives, and our happiness stretch down toward eternity. From the genes that cover our mortal lives to the jeans that cover our naked legs, we depend on a great common sharing and exchange.

This may to be too cosmic in tone for a market blog, but it relates to even our food. Our tables hold borrowed life. Swiping a credit card or exchanging green paper may obfuscate the true nature of food. Eating is fundamentally borrowing. When we eat, we borrow the energy produced from a grower’s sweat, the life of plant and animal, and the fertility cultivated by billions of microorganisms resident in soil. All life falls back to this soil, and all life eats from this soil.

Give thanks to our local growers and the countless creatures that intersect to form our food ecology. Like Thoreau who attempted to participate fully in life, but couldn’t begin without borrowing an axe, we eat, drink and make merry in a local food web that is rooted deep below the modern age.

Sincerely,

Kyle Holton
Program and Market Manager