This morning I read another very thoughtful piece on the individual decision we all make, to support what we believe to be the best food. The author is a constant inspiration to me: her farm is incredible and she works very hard to provide for her family for much the same reasons as myself. We made a choice to "walk swiftly" away from industrialized "pharming".
Of course, this inaugural year of me being a farmer is not even close to providing enough food for us to turn our back of Big Agribiz, but it is a bumper crop of knowledge. I think I have finally become a gardener when, in mid July, I am already looking forward to next year's garden. I have learned so much from doing (it wrong), that I wish I could start over. And the nice thing about gardening is there is always next spring.
Even though we are not in a position to grow all our own food, we do make our choice with the people that can. We attend one, sometimes two farmer's markets a week. There are some things, like milk, honey, and syrup, that I will never buy in a store. All our meat for next year will come from local farmers. We will provide the majority of chickens, we will soon take delivery of a local lamb, and we take delivery of a local, apple-finished pig in the fall. Yummy. Aside from the occasional farmer's market ground or steak, we are cutting out beef entirely. I would like everyone to appreciate the boldness of that statement, coming from a Native Texan.
No comments:
Post a Comment