30th Day of Self-Love Reflections - Worth - Where Now - More from the Farm

Happy Thursday everyone! Running a little late here but reveling in the bright colors of sunshine and of the food around here! After I wrote my post yesterday, I had this for lunch:

They look like olives, but they're purple tomatillos from the farm, with a big tomato, some avo slices, some kimchee I bought at the co-op, and a shaking of oil/vinegar/vegan parmesan from their condiments bar. It was yummy!

Today, my tummy's feeling sick, though. All day. Not sure what it is - I sure miss my green smoothies. I guess tomatoes have been my staple since I got here, and I'm not sure how well I do with them. I didn't eat much today, drank a lot of water. Brought some of these made-at-home-pre-trip no- (or very low) sugar bars with me when I came to town to work - (a picture from home):

I want to share the rest of the filbert-cracking story. Oh, btw, for those who aren't familiar with it: filberts are a cultivated variety of hazelnuts! So it's nothing that exotic really.

First, a few words on Self-Love. This is day 30! I really hope that I'll continue to be able to bring the question "am I being loving to myself?" to mind so fluently for many more days after this. It has felt a bit like a marathon, blogging every single day, sometimes not doing my own writing because I was doing this 30-day commitment, but the 'marathon' has also been a wonderful inculcation. It has definitely encouraged me to keep this at the front of my mind.

During these posts, I have focused on appreciating what I have, how gifted I am, but have also not been able to duck away from acknowledging the ways in which I undermine myself or am not loving toward myself. It's not always a pretty picture, but it certainly repays acknowledgement. I'm especially heartened by how these 30 days of reflections have brought self-love closer to the front of my mind, reminded me to embody it whenever I can, for the best of myself and of everyone else.

Going forth, I can't say it better than Tina: "Live so you may love yourself. And then love yourself more, so you may live more." To which I would add: "And so that you can love others truly and authentically, and as your best self."

More words on this to come in future posts, no doubt.

For now, I'll share some more about the filberts/hazelnuts.

When I got home from town yesterday, I headed out to the filbert orchard:

There are filberts all over the ground, making the gray jays and raccoons very happy!

I picked a bucketful (which doesn't happen as fast as you can say that! It's quite time-consuming and back-breaking) and took it into the basement, where the next stage of processing takes place.  You can see uncracked filberts on the left, and a box of cracked-open filberts on the ground:

You fill the hopper with filberts, plug it into the electricity...

and the roller in the cracker squashes them as they come out the other end. Sometimes it gets a bit slow, and then you can adjust it with a wrench (tricky, turn off first!) or just tamp with an old drumstick

And then, you take them all upstairs and sit around picking the nuts out of the shells, rejecting the worm-eaten ones, setting the worms to race, etc...