Earth Kids

The decline in dinner invitations has been gradual since the Eat Local Challenge and the time I shared a visual of a slaughter house over dessert. I said, I was sorry. But word has gotten out.

I eat local food, barely generate trash and when asked what's new I'm likely to outline a talk I heard about local economies and a sustainable future. That is when I'm not curled in a fetal position under the kitchen table in despair. My friends think it's weird.

But this weekend I got hope. The cute guy's grandkids were here and they could care less what I eat although they know there's something going on. All they cared about was another carrot and to make sure they got their turn carrying the bag of strawberries so they didn't have to reach as far for their eighteenth berry.

They wanted to know what organic is. I sat down and told them, saving the unorganic poisonous scary parts for when they are older.

They didn't like the grass fed hamburger or the goat cheese. They did like the last of the summer corn I took from the freezer and the raspberry ice cream we made. They thought organic sugar was cool. They wondered if brown sugar is already organic.

They washed the shells from the eggs they ate, nuked them until they were crunchy and then ground them, "until they're like powder," I said. And they broadcast them to the flower beds with increasingly grand gestures.

They wanted to know why about everything. And they wanted short answers or sometimes only half an answer.

We visited the worm bin. Found two at home, swatting whole schools of gnats. I'm sure we swallowed a few. We harvested worm tea and then slung it on the backyard. "It's already starting to grow," one of them yelled.

And they gave me an egg they found from their hens. An egg the size of a quarter. In a princess box. "We knew you would like it."

I swear it's gold.

The kids are the ones that will lead us to a sustainable path and it's not going to be weird at all when they do.