I’ve got a sore forearm today. Reflecting back, it’s the rhubarb to blame. Or maybe the size of the knife. My advice is that if you have to spend all morning chopping 5,000 times in rapid succession, then choose a small knife. Better still, build a factory.
So, we need a ton of rhubarb. This is washed, chopped, packaged, weighed, frozen. Then, most is juiced into a vinegar-substitute so that we can have cheese. Today, my arm is questioning the relevance of cheese.
In fact, this project is making me question eating. Sometimes I feel as if more energy is utilized in the gathering and processing of food than what could ever be sequestered from the consumption of that produce. As I shrivel away, with the gnawing background of unrequited hunger always lurking, I feel that this journey is going backwards from what nature intended.
Don’t bears just eat and get fat for winter? You don’t see them chopping rhubarb, thinking this will be really delicious in January. And moose just eat, get fat for winter, deal with whatever as it comes along, tolerate and expect the more lean diet of winter in trade for a delicious Fall of gorging and growing and whatever else moose do in the Fall.
It is a sad day to realize that, in life, we don’t so much emulate the great beasts of this planet, as we do this one pesky critter, as we “squirrel” away food for the winter.