For some reason I’ve been thinking lately about the character Lenny in Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men.” It was way back in high school that I first read the book (you too?) but my recollection is that Lenny was a simple fellow, a bit of slow of mind, but he had a good, kind heart.
I guess Lenny has been in my head because his dream was to find a place where he and his buddy, George, could settle down and “live off the fat of the land,” something Leah and I seem to be doing quite naturally. Our garden is going gangbusters, producing strawberries and salad greens and amazing fresh herbs, and what we don’t grow ourselves we can often get in trade from our neighbors.
I think Lenny would like it here.
We trade for fresh, raw milk, and Leah has been making cheeses that were SO amazing I just had to photograph them (the cheeses in the picture are smoked, dill, and pepper.) The smoking set-up Leah fashioned using a metal garbage can, wood chips, and a soldering iron as a source of heat, was the epitome of functional simplicity.
A couple of the other personal diary pictures I shot this week also seem to chronicle -- and perhaps even honor -- this Lenny-esque ideal of living off the land: The image I did of a small fence that Leah made from windfall sticks she wove together, the fence protecting one of her flower gardens. And then there was a picture I made of the neighbor horse, Rusty, face-deep in the yellow wildflowers he was munching. Our horse friend too was finding sustenance from the fat of the land.
