The Little Red Hen at Work

Last weekend we harvested one patch of our rye. 

We do things on a fairly small scale so we don't have any fancy equipment. Our method is the same as in many of my versions of "The Little Red Hen."  We use a sickle.  As we work together cutting, carrying, and bundling we talk about why we do some of the things we do here.   

We like the idea of being able to grow things that we will use.  We will save a bit of the rye for our own use in the kitchen and some will be saved for next years seed. The rest will be fed to the chickens.  The straw will go into the chicken barn.  It will all get shoveled out in the early spring and put back onto the garden. 
It is fun to try new things in the garden and research a bit on how things were done in the past. 
For me, the "Little Red Hen" lesson is more than just  "everyone does their share of the work."  It says that it is important to know all of the steps associated in the creation of something.  It is about taking simple steps toward something meaningful.

We think that the actual purchase price on many items that are sold is artificially low because that price does not include the environmental cost associated with their production.  Growing some of our own crops and doing all the steps by hand makes us think more about the things we consume.  We can more easily evaluate the effort put into the production of an item.  We can also see how the mechanization process evolved, because we think of things that would make it easier as we work.