Apparently I'm into books about struggle. I blogged about a Depression Era book the last time. My next book was on the Dust Bowl which was Depression Times as well. The book was "The Worst Hard Time" and it was based on interviews of people who lived during the Depression and a bit of their lives before and then during and a little after the Dust Bowl. I have a lot of respect for these people for not giving up although they sufferered considerable losses and I look at our drought brown grass realizing how fortunate we are to have what we have, even if we haven't had much rain. 

Another book I read was "The Kitchen Front" and it is fiction, but based on true events in England during WWII. I had watched a series a year or so ago where two archeologists and a historian go to a farm that was operational during WWII and explain what England had to do to try and raise food since before the war, they imported so much. The premise of the story for the book was the rations and how 4 cooks vied in a contest using rations and what they could grow or forage in order to win the contest, but also provide recipes for other people in England. It was an interesting book and I really enjoyed reading it. Again, I feel so fortunate that I am not living under those conditions. A friend of mine was teasing me that I was trying to get in the mindset since some of the farmers interviewed around here are predicting food shortages this fall. I don't know if I am or not. I hope we don't have food shortages, but ever since the Pandemic, who knows what can happen. I never would have thought we would have had all the problems that came about with Covid. 

We had the first of our homegrown tomatoes. Mostly cherry ones, but one larger one and another one is almost ready. I've been using herbs and we've had two purple bell peppers as well as some green onions. I am frustrated because I have planted lettuce 3 times and it has not even tried to come up. DH had some problems with carrots. Some came up and others did not. I'm wondering if the quality of seed might be a factor; they were not cheap seeds so who knows. I may be writing the company to complain. It won't give us lettuce or carrots, but maybe they had an issue and can resolve it. 

Anyway, going back to the books I've read, although many may think we have hard times, I'm thankful our times are not as difficult as during the Depression or Dust Bowl or World War II.