This Quilting Mama: November Gratitude & Roxbury Farm

Our modern lives are so full with obligations including those of family, work, home, career, friends, etc. We often forget to take the time to show gratitude. The way of thank you notes and simple "thinking of you" phone calls seems to have fallen aside in our modern, busy lives.

Two years ago, a friend on Facebook suggested a simple "I am thankful for........." statement to become each person's daily "status update" for the month of November. I participated and can say now that it effected me. To have to set aside time for gratitude in my daily life and then to write about it was not only a good exercise, but did change the way I look at my life and all its "obligations."

So this year, I'm expanding my gratitude to include people, organizations or things for which I am thankful.

Here is today's:

I am grateful for Jean Paul and his team of farmers at Roxbury Farm in Kinderhook, NY (http://roxburyfarm.com/). These veggies were the last in my CSA Farm Share for this season. Participation in the CSA, for the first time this year, has TOTALLY transformed my relationship with food, my thinking about meal planning and our family's health, I'm sure!

The Farmers wrote in their last newsletter, "We lost 50,000-60,000 lbs of produce due to the flooding and excessive rain. We thank you for your support during this difficult and season and we are looking forward to an abundant harvest in 2012."

At the much needed, Roxbury Farm Festival in September 2011, I made a small quilt of gratitude, seen below, for the Farmers to hang in their barn, office or home.

The brown paths were, in my mind, the ways to access the fields. I did simple stitch-in-the-ditch quilting and then some free motion work in the brown outer border.