Good ol'times

I am at my parents' and just before leaving for Saint-Petersburg and probably for Europe I spent this wonderful cold September day in our Dacha where we used to go every weekend during spring-summer-autumn time (hm, Carelian variant is May-September:) when I was little and also spent some summers. 

It was natural and almost obligatory to grow your own tomatoes, pick berries and spend your vacation in the "dachnik" posture - with your booty up working-working-working and then working on your work's results - cooking jams, making pots with tomato sauce and pickles...



And then in late summer and during the whole winter you could enjoy the fruits of you "wonderfully spent summer". When I was a child I used to think this was too much work for too little joy. Then adolescent I became a follower of DIY and was growing my own cucumbers and flowers. Hard work I remember and... it was normal :)

Then several years in Europe made me a real fan of frugality and there I could see how it was becoming pop and expensive and fancy and alternative - really - "ALTERNATIVE", hippy, cool to grow your veggies. 

And now when I came back for the summer I found myself in the middle of jars of strawberries, freshly picked mushrooms, pappa-grown tomatoes and herbs. AMAZING FEELING - so close, every day, NORMAL. 

So I asked myself - why nowadays so many things that used to be logical for our parents, like growing their own stuff, healing sore throat with raspberry jam, drinking chaga, picking herbs for their salad from outside the door, are so abnormal and high-standard?




THAT should be normal, as normal as it is to go and get a double cheeseburger for 1 euro now...