Autumn Harvesting

The weather has been so wonderful. After the very difficult weather this year it is all the more enjoyed and appreciated. It is so fun to be outside looking at all of the Fall beauty.
We gathered black walnuts for the hulls (I give the nuts away) and I will strip them off of the shells and dry them. We also located a large maple tree to tap next year (exciting!) and we found wild rose hips. They are so very sweet when ripe and loaded with vitamin C! We also found some persimmons and that was good for a laugh! (As soon as I could use my mouth again!) I tried them once before and my mouth puckered like crazy so I thought maybe they just weren't ripe enough. Well, that's not the case! It was very ripe and it dried up my mouth immediately so that it was hard to swallow. That's the last time I'll try them! (I hope.)
We talked to an Amish man that has a wood cook stove for sale. It is in very good shape and at a reasonable price. It would be good for a summer kitchen because it isn't an airtight one that you would want to also use for heat. Someone with us asked me why I want one. I was kind of caught off-guard because I hadn't thought about "why" in a long time. I gave all of the standard sensible answers (good in power outages for back-up cooking and heating, cheaper to use because you provide your own fuel, food tastes better cooked with wood) but felt like something was missing. When we got home I thought about it and realized that all of those things are very good reasons but there is more:
It takes more time and attention; involving me in the work, and slowing me down. It brings me to a place where simply living life becomes important again. And enjoyable. Living life becomes enough. Again. Does that make sense?
Nancy