Document 6595413

From Thanksgiving To Gift-giving
After Halloween passes, we turn
the calendar page and suddenly it’s
November and the holiday season has
begun. Every year it seems to arrive
sooner than the year before, so before
I get too involved in all the holiday
activity, let’s take a moment to reflect
and give thanks for being able to meet
some of our most basic needs.
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with Phyllis Shemchuk
During this past year’s storm season,
much of the northeast was thankfully
spared the harsh weather experienced
by other parts of the country. While others were experiencing floods, drought,
and major fires, we were blessed with
a longer than usual growing season
which allowed more time for produce
to be used directly from the gardens or
to be put away for the coming winter.
According to the Old Farmers’ Almanac
(which is traditionally 80 percent accurate in its weather forecasts), “Winter
will bring a frosty bite and next summer
will be its mirror opposite, so get ready
for a one-two punch. Be prepared.”
That sounds pretty scary for next year,
but for the present we are thankful to
have plenty of food in a world where
starvation also exists.
During the winter months when
many suffer from the cold, let’s be
thankful we have warm clothing to
wear and sufficient fuel to heat our
homes.
We not only have enough resources
to meet our own basic needs, we have
enough to share. With this in mind,
perhaps we should start off the holiday
season by finding ways to help those
less fortunate than ourselves. One way
to do this is by making a donation in the
name of a friend or relative (or yourself)
to a project that helps fight hunger at
home or abroad. The help is given by
providing farm animals and teaching
sustainable agricultural practices that
help those who receive these gifts become more self-reliant.
The trickle of holiday gift catalogs
that began to arrive at our house a short
time ago has now turned into a daily
avalanche at the mailbox. We use the
catalogues, along with the Internet, to
help us come up with gift ideas without having to fight the shopping mall
crowds.
For instance, one catalog offers
mushroom lovers a very interesting
selection of all things related to identifying, growing, harvesting, and cooking
mushrooms.
In one of several catalogs focused
on gifts for children, I spotted a book
that included posters and games to
help identify different animals. This gift
and a fresh snowfall could help young
trackers discover which
nighttime creatures are
visiting their neighborhood.
Speaking of those
wintry nights and days
soon to come, everyone
will need warm jackets,
hats, mittens, etc. There
are plenty of choices of
cold weather clothing that
will keep the whole family warm on an
outdoor adventure.
Looking for an indoor way to pass
the dreary hours of winter? Do you
or someone you know have a small
or large apple orchard? From a file he
started in 1983, Dan Bussey has compiled a manuscript for a seven-volume
(that’s almost 3000 pages) encyclopedia
called, The Illustrated History of Apples in
North America. The project includes all
17,000 apple varieties known to have
been grown between the years 1623
and 2000. The first book is due out in
January.
Another way to come up with some
unique gifts and avoid the malls is to
make them yourself. Some of the dried
herbs and flowers from last summer’s
gardens could be used to make cooking
oils, sachets, or herbal teas. For home
knitters, there’s still time to knit a hat, a
scarf, or a couple of pairs of warm mittens for someone you love. Homemade
gifts are the best!
If you’d rather put winter thoughts
aside and think ahead to next spring,
check out a locally owned bookshop
for butterfly or bird guidebooks. A nature guidebook can be used by all ages
to help identify next spring’s garden
visitors.
If you still need help, one interesting Web site boasts “40 great gifts for
gardeners.” It includes a wide range of
suggestions from Monticello’s Favorite
Flowers Sampler (seeds) to brightly colored garden hoses or instructions for
building sheds.
If you were wondering what to do
after the big Thanksgiving meal, when
you are stuffed full of grandma’s turkey
and pies, maybe my hints can help you
get started in the right direction for this
year’s gift-giving.
Phyllis Shemchuk has gardened in
Athol, MA for more than 30 years.
This Holiday Season, Don’t Forget Your ELF
Confused? That’s “Elderly, Local, Free Trade”
Let’s start off this week’s column
with a little scenario I have cooked up.
You are you. Today is today. Everything
is going along normally until you inexplicably lose consciousness. You wake
up completely disoriented, unsure
where you are and what the date is. As
you look around you realize you are in
the middle of a department store, and
it soon becomes obvious what the date
is. It must be Christmas Eve or maybe
a few days earlier at the most, because
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with Richard Popovic
you are surrounded by decorations and
hear familiar holiday tunes playing
incessantly through a tinny speaker in
the ceiling. Sure, it’s a bit warm, but you
are smart enough to believe that climate
change is not a huge hoax cooked up
by thousands of scientists in order to
push a rational agenda of conservation
and common sense, so you chalk it up
to an unseasonably warm December. It
all makes sense. Or does it?
Could it be that in actuality, all that
happened was you took a little nap and
somehow managed to sleepwalk your
way to the store? That it is indeed the
same day you last remember it being,
and that you have not spent the last six
weeks on a magical island somewhere
with a bunch of lost airline passengers
only to be inexplicably deposited in a
greeting card aisle, confused and with
a case of amnesia? That makes more
sense. Or does it?
There is always the chance that you
have traveled back in time through
some tear in the space-time continuum,
and that it is actually the day after Halloween. Unlikely, but
who knows? It is hard to
tell, because these days
the holiday season starts
before the candles in the
jack-o-lanterns have been
blown out. Yeah, I could
waste time complaining
about it, but instead I
have opted to embrace the
early season and give the gift of a few
guidelines for smarter shopping.
In my last column I talked about
Guilt over Autumn CHorEs (GAUCHE)
Syndrome. This week I will hit you with
another acronym, one slightly less awkward but certainly of more importance.
This year, as you get your shopping
done, keep one word in the forefront
of your brain: ELF. It stands for Elderly,
Local, and Free trade (I told you it was
only slightly less awkward). Let’s take
it apart letter by letter.
Green, page 4
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