Once Upon a Time…

Once upon a time (isn’t that how all fairy tales start?), a long, long time ago (last summer), I was asked to speak at a local conference on self sufficiency in hard times.  I gave presentations on water bath canning, pressure canning and “dry canning” also known as vacuum sealing. Once those were out of the way, I gave another presentation on herbal medicine. I explained why I thought it was so important to have this knowledge, did a wee bit of teaching and offered a class sign up. I was part of the speaker’s panel at the end for questions.  There are always many of those.

It was a long day.

After the program, when I was packing up all of my demonstration gear, many people came to speak to me, ask me to help them with this or that and to ask about my classes.  There was a gentleman hanging in the background as this was going on…not unusual when I speak.  There are often many people waiting in line to ask me questions. This gentleman waited until everyone else was gone to approach me.

He introduced himself, told me he had a hundred questions but knew that this was not the time or place.  He expressed that it had been a long day and he knew that I was tired.  He asked permission to call me about herbs or to visit my farm.

Now…this is not unusual….many people want to call me and I probably handed out 200 business cards that day.  It is not unusual for people to request to visit my farm.  In fact, one year after speaking at a state fair, someone followed me home to the farm…that was a little scary!  But, they have since become wonderful friends.

I didn’t think too much about this gentleman’s request…like I said it wasn’t unusual…

But what happened next certainly was….