When we don’t see the sun for weeks and it is cold and wet and the winter looks like lasting forEVER and we have moaned our arses off about it in every available social media, we might realise we are actually craving Vitamin C as well as Vitamin D but we can actually do something about the Vitamin C. And the first thing we think of when we think of Vitamin C is bright yellow lemons.
When we were children at the beach we had lemon trees and if we ever visited my grandmother who lived in Christchurch way down in the South Island of New Zealand we took lemons. They could not grow lemons down there so when we visited and we visited often, Mum always packed a few lemons into the folds of our clothes for Grandma. Lemons were gold.
So when a friend sent me lemons saved from her mothers tree in Galveston, Texas I made sure to use them well. Lemons are a precious gift out here on the cold prairies.
Lemons and Olives and Avocados are the three fruits I really, really miss growing.
Here is my mother’s recipe for lemon honey. When I went to find it so I could link back to it for you, I discovered that I had written the original Lemon Honey post in January 23 2012. A colder season than this one for sure and still I had cycled back to lemon curd or lemon honey as my Mum used to call it.
I yearn for the bright yellow tanginess of lemon honey today.
To yearn for something then act on that need is so satisfying. What if the struggle stopped and we no longer yearned to improve. What would happen to the human race if we were all encouraged to be content and satisfied. If we accepted the assurances that all is well, move along, nothing to see here. What if calm, complacent, quiet, gently fattened, slow moving herds of people is their goal. Directed by soft music and changing screens of calm colours. So much information and data thrown at our heads that our heads Zone right OUT. Mired in inertia. An endless scroll downwards.
If we were content and satisfied all the time there would be no inventions, no improvements, no struggle. We would all fall into a sublime apathy. Imagine how dull it would be. If we stopped worrying at problem knots, untangling thoughts, pushing at boundaries, poking at norms with a long stick, dreaming then doing. Our vehicles would even stop, we would be looking out the wrong window, or at a little screen, or at a big screen, idling idly at life’s green lights. What if we conceded to what made us happy and took that happy drug, then sat down in our chairs and proceeded with our lives motion after slow motion in that happy haze staring at that happy thing. Ah well we would think – whats done is done, it is all a mess, nothing I can do about it. Would happy and content make us run and strive, find new music, search for that perfect well made coat you could wear until you are dead or stay up all night with charts and writings, scribbling notes, design and build new ways to clean water and improve our air, design houses adapted to flood or famine with store rooms for plenty, look towards the changing landscape and create the inventions to adapt to it, work on new ways to teach large numbers of people to feed themselves, enable plans to create community on your street or in your village. Where is the plan for the changes that are coming? Or are we all content just to complain about it. Would content allow us to climb right up out of the box and think about things over there? Or would being satisfied and content encourage us to simply Stop, murmur a few protests then go back to sleep. We could stand for hours in a little patch of sunshine and become cows waiting to be fattened, talking and moo-aning gently about the state of it all.
Content will close your eyes. Moaning about it is just another form of accepting it. Moaning breeds content. Content is screen after screen without any action, without decision. Just pretty lights with words. Empty.
Real Happy comes in glorious moments. Yearning is the same. And often both appear in the muck of hard work. It is that smallest shaft of sun that you can easily miss if your eyes are not open to it if you are looking out the inertia window. To be truly wide awake and taking the turns necessary we need to be on the watch for our happy moment or that moment of clear longing and see it and say to ourselves “There’s One. I got happy” then turn that corner and look for more. And collect happy moments like pebbles in your pocket. Collect those goals like safety pins. So you can take that stone out later in your life or even later in the week and remember that tack.
Then with your hand in one pocket smoothing your happy beads, reach out for that next goal. Turn the corner. Get your head in order and your work clothes on and get back to work improving your patch of the planet. The world is changing – ADAPT!
Embrace the struggle. There is work to be done.
I hope you have a lovely day. I am off, back out into the dark muck where my work is.
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
87 responses to “Moaning breeds Content”
I am intrigued… what do you use lemon honey for?
Lemon curd makes the best lemon tarts, pies, puddings, cake topping etc. It is also delicious on hot toast with butter or pancakes or scones. I must go make a nice lemon sponge pudding right now. Luckily, I made some lemon curd last week.
Ooo, Nadia- your lemon sponge pudding sounds lovely. Could you post the recipe on your blog? I’m running to town today and can put lemons on the list! Yay!
I will be making the Jamie Oliver recipe today. It is called “lovely lemon curry pud” from his Happy Days cookbook
Yum! I’ll have to take a look at that. Thanks!
nice
It is versatile!
Thank you for the information. I had never heard of it before. Looks like I will need to try it out sometime.
This one I am making into my mint and lemon honey cheese cake for a birthday in Feb. It is in the freezer now waiting for part two.
Well that sounds amazing. I hope we get a little insight to that yummy dessert.
Lemon honey sounds wonderful right about now!
Yes!! c
I think of all the marvelous flavors in this world, lemon is my most favorite. I squeeze lemon juice & zest the aromatic skins into most things I eat. Lemons certainly brighten dull winter days & our senses & lift our moods & benefit our well being. Hurrah for lemons!
Made me feel better yesterday that is for sure! c
I have read and enjoyed your blog every day since the beginning, but this, this one stands out, reaches out and grabs me by the coattails. What a good reminder to dream and work toward something, that the dreary mundane moments exist to remind us that life is “chop wood, carry water,” and the sublime moments are all the more sublime for their fleetingness.
Yes – you are adapting to the changes – your microgreens for instance – a huge nutrient punch in a tiny plant – the salad of the future!
Read this over twice … and will read it again. Wise words that reach far into the mire of life. Thank you my farming philosopher friend!
You are very welcome Mouse – thank you for reading!
Reblogged this on The New Renaissance Mindset and commented:
Awesome advice to get past the winter doldrums!
Thank you!
my great pleasure, Cecillia
Love the yellow, the lemons and the musings. All good tonics.
I remembered that you liked yellow and thought of you when I was looking at the lemons..
I love lemon curd – it’s been quite a while since I ate it.
I saw a quirky film last night about a man looking for a good home for his boar, Howard. If Sheila and Poppy see this they will want a road trip in a Winnebago, twin beds in a motel and a colour TV!
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/mr-pig-sundance-review-860465
Great! I will pop over for a look
The reviewer’s comment on the gargantuan hog is quite ridiculous – he’s barely the size of your big babies. What would he make of Sheila?
Well said, Celi! I read it twice too & will save it to read again. Inspiring & challenging words! Lemon curd looks wonderful too!
Blessings ~~
Thank you Betsy, yes i think it is time to create a world that will live with the damage already done that we cannot change. We will have to live differently from now on.
Your wisdom brightened my day and reminded me why I work so hard to take in interns into my demonstration garden, work long hours and teach them as much as we have time for. We’re in our 6th year here at Hillside Gardens in Auburn, Ga., and today I graduate another bright eyed intern to go out into the world and change things just as you say. That’s a happy for me. I have a wall getting covered up with internship completion certificates. Another went up today.
You’re sure doing your part to make the world a better place Diann – kudos!!
Just wonderful
I read this blog every morning right after I email a morning message to my daughters. Sometimes I email them again and tell them to go read what you had to say today. This is one of those blogs. Thank you for your inspirational wisdom.
How lovely of you to email your daughters every morning – I bet they just love that.. c
Reblogged this on Just another Day on the Farm and commented:
this post is worth the read.. read it slow.. its a thinker.. and today, like all days, I will grab it with teeth, worry it a bit, give it the eye and figure out how to get that stone into my pocket 🙂
had to reblog this one, hope you don’t mind.. well said Miss C, well said… my mom called last night, sad a friend had died and she said, i only have ten or 15 years left, so much to do yet, i listened an listened, and listened some more and then i said softly.. mom.. write it down, figure it out an do it.. make it happen.. make it happen. better to find a way then to live with a “wish i had”
It must be so sad for her to lose her friend – what a good daughter you are.
And just like that you took me right back to my childhood Christmasses. My Mom used to make a lemon sauce very similar to this which she used to serve warm over the kids portions of the steamed Christmas pudding. I was quite happy to eat spoonfuls of the sauce without the pudding 🙂 I am now going back to read the serious part of your post again. Laura
It is great hot – I ate it by the spoonful before popping it in the jar to cool. (Then freeze for a cheesecake when my daughter visits!) c
That is so true. Content, perhaps a pleasant temporary feeling at the end of a day well spent, or a project first finished, is not a feeling that involves you in life. It’s a feeling that stops life for a moment so you can just bath in the feeling rather than the living.
I always say that the goal of a life well lived should not be happiness. It should be caring. Caring is what makes life matter. Caring is what gives our lives meaning. And caring happens even when life is terrible and hard. But it is also what makes you try hard, makes you do the things you are proudest of, makes the moments that stick in your memory. Happiness is just an ephemeral emotion that happens without our intention.
Sorry. It’s something of a soapbox issue for me. 🙂
Well said! Caring about others, about animals, about our planet – gives us joy and spreads the joy, and knowledge, to others. ; o )
Caring and Kindness – I completely agree! c