When I was a little girl, my parents would take me outside and show me all the incredible ways that they would take care of our land to produce good food.

And I would begrudgingly follow them out and listen to the stories that they had to say.

And their pieces of advice would range from totally rational and practical to absolutely bizarre.

For example, my grandfather would say, "Hey Louise, if you want to plant good root crops this season, what you should do is plant some rocks underneath your sweet potatoes." And I would look at him and be like, "OK, Grandpa, sure.

I totally believe you." And my grandmother would say, "OK, to have the best harvest of fruits from the fruit-bearing trees this season, you want to be able to plant according to lunar cycles.

You want to plan towards the full moon and never towards a new moon." And I would look at her and say, "What?" And my dad, most bizarrely of all, would say, "If you want to sift rice or cocoa nibs to get rid of all the dust, the best thing that you can do is to whistle a certain tone to harness the wind." And I'd be like, "Dad, like airbending?" (Laughter) "OK, sure." So as I grew up, I would ask them, "Why?

Why do we do all these weird, strange things," right?

And my relatives and my family would come up to me and be like, "Louise, here's the thing.

Your grandparents are kind of crazy.

So this is just traditions.