Why Grow Your Own?
The ancient tenants of whole-animal utilization have always resonated with me, even in my childhood. For the past decade, I have been on a widely varied life and health journey, always with the underlying determination to live the healthiest, strongest, most resilient life I could. In the last several years, consuming the whole animal has been my mission, and I’ve developed a specific appreciation for the fats of animals, specifically when pasture-raised.
With a deep independent, do-it-yourself drive, I taught myself how to render these fats into some of the most precious resources of this planet, and developed non-toxic products with them. Then, wanting to take my knowledge a few steps further, I was graciously given the opportunity to work with the wonderful folks of Heartquist Hollow Farm, learning key components of slaughter and butchery to become capable of producing food for myself. With this grew passions for agriculture, connection with Southern Arizona farmers and ranchers contributing community and ecosystem, and educating on the delicate nuances of our food systems.
And so, Grow Your Own Lemons was born - an homage to the resiliency which can only come from putting in the hard work, overcoming obstacles, and, with enough blood, sweat, and tears, reaping the fruits of your labor. I hope you will join me in my mission to help re-build our appreciation for the utility of plants and animals, and the incredible stewards who dedicate their lives to raising and harvesting them.
“Then an old man, a keeper of an inn, said, Speak to us of Eating and Drinking.
And he said:
Would that you could live on the fragrance of the earth, and like an air plant be sustained by the light.
But since you must kill to eat, and rob the newly born of its mother’s milk to quench your thirst, let it then be an act of worship(…)
When you kill a beast say to him in your heart,
‘By the same power that slays you, I too am slain; and I too shall be consumed. For the law that delivered you into my hand shall deliver me into a mightier hand.
Your blood and my blood is naught but the sap that feeds the tree of heaven.’”
Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet