Do you adore and preserve your nutriments?

Do you buy your food from a store, or do you grow (some of) it?

Nature photo of the day: 7 kilogram pumpkin waiting to be eaten.

there is a pumpkin
somewhere in a village
far away from you
where the only disturbances are
the sound of chainsaws
the cawing of crows
and the sound of the potato truck honking on the gravel road
it resides in a dark cellar
patiently sitting
waiting for the day
when it will be eaten
now, it was not always alone
but all the other pumpkins
have gone steaming
into the light 
at the end of the tunnel
to put it poetically
and it seems
the day has come 
when this pumpkin 
will be cut open, baked, boiled and steamed
this is the simple dream of a pumpkin
to be of service
and become what it was intended to be
what more could you demand of a splendid life?

- Csermely 

As you can see, pumpkins have a big role in our life. In one way or another, to be sure, for they always seem to find a way into our cooking and baking. This particularly beautiful pumpkin has been sitting in our cellar for about four months - since late October when we harvested it. It’s taken awhile to get around to eating it, since there were 9 more before it. That is, until yesterday, March 1st, when we prepared our last pumpkin of the season.

Studies show that the average family has less than a weeks worth of food in their home. That means they must go shopping at least once a week for basic food supplies. Let’s not even talk about food waste!

This pumpkin, once cooked, will fill our bellies for several days, combined with rice, eggs, bacon and other pantry staples. We wouldn’t even need to leave the home for additional ingredients.

The pumpkin, cut open.

We have had a relatively small no-dig garden, yet we still have fresh pumpkins/squashes/apples up until March or sometimes even April, when the gardening season begins again. And we have multitudinous jars of preserves, (mostly) sweetener-free jams, pickles and relishes.

Gardening and knowing how to preserve food for the future is a more special - meaning important & rare - skill than ever, which happens to be lacking in today’s generations.

Pumpkins (or tomatoes) are often the first step into the world of gardening, and I would happily write you a long list of all the plants that can grow in your garden. However, the point is that self-reliance is not only about growing food, but also saving seeds for the future, being off-grid, at least to some extent, & also preserving food in jars. Self-reliance is becoming more and more important with each passing year.

Therefore, saving food for the future is not only beneficial, but necessary for us, and for the earth.

It isn’t only food that can be procured, but also nature herself. You must be present in the now, but also ready for future, whatever it may throw at you… Saving nature is the best thing you can do with the minutes in the day, by saving your own food, gardening, keeping animals, or cultivating something even bigger.

We created the Daily Dose of Nature to bring back some of the magical aspects of living on Earth to you, therefore reopening your eyes to the wonderfulness of nature, and in turn we continue to rewild and preserve nature for the entire world.

If you would like to support us, you can here:

As for the journal prompt of the day:

In what ways am I already self-reliant? How could I become more self-reliant in this coming year?

Raise chickens or ducks, start a small garden, make homemade applesauce or pumpkin pie, write instead of read, spend more time outside and less on your phone… Spend two hours outside a week, or twenty, but be sure to get out into nature as much and as often as you can which on its own is a gentle act of wild rebellion.

With gratitude,

Csermely