In praise of easy abundance

I disdain ease.
I am German, Scottish, and English.
Ease makes me nervous.  
Garrison Keillor did a monologue about this once, live from Germany.  Something about how if Germans were offered a pill to make them perfectly happy, they wouldn't take for fear that they would lose their moral compass.  I laughed so hard I cried.  Only too true.

Yesterday my friend Pastor Kevin from Taylors Falls gave me chives, mint, and walking onions from his garden- some to keep and some to share.  All perennials, all super hardy, all grown beyond their bounds and in need of a new home.  I was happy to oblige.  He also showed me some roses, raspberry canes, and a mulberry tree.  Many of these plants have been in his family for generations and they are full of stories.

Which lead me to do some pondering: Why do I disdain easy abundance?

Why don't I eat chives daily in spring?  They require almost nothing after planting but harvesting.  I love chives.  Somehow, this spring I wound up eating mini peppers from another hemisphere.  They were cute and tasty.  And pricey.  
 
Why have I never grown walking onions?  Heck, why have I never eaten walking onions?  Sure, they're smaller than standard onions and require more chopping time.  But they are perennials which over-winter here without assistance.  They grow bulblets on top of stalks which bend over under their weight.  When they touch down, they root and spread.  Perpetual eating for no cultivation.  

Kefir is a fermented dairy product sort of like liquidy yogurt.  It is tart, sour even.  But it reproduces it's own culture as it makes kefir, pre-digesting milk and turning it into a gut flora powerhouse.  Perpetual food creation coupled with perpetual procreation of the means of production.

Then, there was the mulberry tree.  Granted, the fruits are tiny and it is messy as the fruits fall when they get ripe.  But they were super tasty and would provide steady food over months for livestock without me having to distribute it.  

Is it human nature to despise the simple and easy raspberry in favor of the needy strawberry?  
Or to overlook the effortless honeyberry in favor of the fickle blueberry? 
Or to neglect chives and mint in favor of the diva tomato and fragile basil?

I like peppers and big onions and strawberries and tomatoes.  All of those are fabulous foods which grow easily in their home places.  But not here.  Not in Franconia. 

The garden does not have to be greener somewhere else.  Lots of good stuff will grow here.  Not everything, but not nothing, either.

There is something perverse about my choices to buy expensive foods or use my limited time and energy tending grudging ones when I could share the excess abundance of the easy ones.

Ease and abundance to share.

Just like I'm in training for a 5K, I'm going to discipline my taste buds.  I am going to practice liking easy, abundant foods.  I'm going to choose to embrace what will grow here cheerfully- me cheerfully, plants cheerfully. 
 
Those chives, walking onions, and mint are going into my ground this week, somewhere easy to harvest.  And next year, I'm going to choose to eat a lot of them.  And if you'd like to, too, hopefully I'll have some extras for you.

No, not this week, this morning.  Tim and I are going to change into our grubby clothes and despite the heat, I'm going to put these guys into the ground now.  

That's how hardy stuff gets passed through generations- it starts one inconvenient morning.