Part of our motivation for getting out of the city to a rural setting is the desire to connect more strongly to the community we live in. It appears that in smaller, more isolated places those bonds are stronger probably by necessity.
But it's also important in urban settings. It seems absurd, but in densely people places we can often be isolated.
And what brings people together better than food?
Last year a neighbour, an older Vietnamese man, dropped by to pick some of our excess lemons. He noticed the hot peppers growing by our door, and we muddled through what little common language we shared, and he went off to bring us some of the hot peppers he grows. Lots of them. Here are some we still have frozen, they'll eventually be added to a hot sauce.
I gave him a few carolina reapers and some yellow 7-pots in return. He seemed to survive that.
This week he dropped by with some pumpkin seeds, that he described as Japanese red pumpkins, and long white ones.
Now we have to figure out how we're going to fit pumpkins in our tiny patch. Probably we'll get the seedlings up and give them to family and friends, pay it forward.
