Archived: Ant and the Grasshopper

Archived post from June 2009

The Ant and the Grasshopper
The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and
laying up supplies for the winter.

The Grasshopper thinks the Ant is a fool and laughs & dances & plays the
summer away.

Come winter, the Ant is warm and well fed. The Grasshopper has no food or
shelter so he dies out in the cold.

So which one are you? Are you an ant or a grasshopper? I am becoming an ant, although I am sad to say I used to be a grasshopper. I used to live day by day or week by week with the knowledge that whenever my food cupboards ran low I could just hop in my gazguzzler and go to the nearest warehouse foodmarket. They always have food and good food too, strawberries in January, apples in July and shelves upon shelves of boxes and cans. Where does food come from? The grocery store of course.

Not exactly...

-excerpt from Food Security for the Faint of Heart by Robin Wheeler

... the reason we get a tug on our hearts when we hear the geese heading out for the winter is that the call pulls on an ancient part of our brains, from a time we understood and paid heed to the messages of fellow beings, that it was time to begin preparations for the cold. The cells in our bodies know what need doing when the geese leave, that we need to find a warm place to prepare for the new season, to either follow our clever goose friends or hoard some food and nestle in for the long haul.

In essence, preparing for winter by stockpiling food is bred into us and can help combat the newly discovered Seasonal Affective Disorder. Without drugs or therapy, people who suffer from the winter blahs can help combat their emotions by being prepared, by living their summer like a ant, not a grasshopper.

I tried that last year on a small scale. I froze some of the bounty from my garden and canned some jam. And it did feel good at the onset of the snowy months to know that we had a small arsenal of edibles ready for us.

This year I am doing more. I will make salsa, jam, pickles, tomatoes, and pizza sauce. I am also continuing my ascent into food utopia by purchasing food as close to it's original source and using to make something at home (ie: flour for bread, not just bread from the bakery section). It takes a while, and it maybe another few years before I am where I would like to be but I realized long ago that hardship was a poor excuse for procrastination.

So what are you an ant or a grasshopper?