A Farm Visit with Friends!

Visiting the turkeys! "Bock bock bock bock!" (They all go bock, apparently!)

This weekend we made a day trip to a farm. Not just any farm, but the burgeoning homestead of Kevin, Sarah, and their two young children. The last time we visited (in June of this year), the only structure—other than a shelter for the baby chicks, turkeys, and pigs, was a screened tent looking out over the pasture. Now, their modern, earth friendly farmhouse is up, with its energy saving features beautifully combined with tasteful design that supports family comfort and provides for the needs of traditional farm living. And, this time when we pulled up, the chickens and turkeys were big enough for Mia to spot them from a distance, “Bock, bock, bock, bock,” she cried gleefully from the backseat. And, as soon as her feet hit the new gravel drive, Mia took off across the field to go check out her beaked friends.

I admire so much about what Kevin and Sarah are doing with their fifteen acres of earth. In the relatively short time they’ve held their property, they’ve acquired cows (for milking and raising beef), pigs, turkeys, and chickens. My family is hoping to make another trip out to visit in time to help raise the barn before the sheep arrive. A huge vegetable garden sits very near the new house. The tops of Sarah’s kitchen cabinets are lined with large glass jars of staples like grain, beans, and rice. This is a family that has gone to a lot of effort to make sure they have a close relationship with the earth that sustains them. I admire their life choices (and the little piece of heaven they call home) and am resolved to think of their progress in bringing food production home anytime I start to feel that my recent changes are extreme.

A table set for a brunch feast!

Sarah, who grinds her own grain when her grain mill is working (it is currently in need of a repair), served us a wonderful home cooked meal of whole grain waffles, blueberry sauce, fruit, sausages, and an out-of-this-world quiche that she says has no recipe. Kevin revealed that it’s Sarah’s mother’s recipe—and Sarah (who has not written it down) calls her mother each time she makes it. Sarah says her mother gives her a new combination of ingredients each time! We contributed homemade bread and sweetened cream cheese. Brian had made blueberry limeade, but in our rush to make it out the door 20 minutes later than planned, we left it sitting in our refrigerator.

After breakfast, we flew kites in the field. I am an avid  power kite flyer*, who loves to fly huge power kites that can power a three-wheeled buggy. I brought one of my big kites and flew it for the first time since before I was pregnant! It was a low wind day, so I only got in about five minutes of good wind (though I flew in less than ideal wind for much longer) but I was amazed at how much easier it is to resist the pull of the kite now that I am stronger, leaner, and better nourished. I still have plenty of distance to go repairing the damage of an eating disorder and losing the weight gained by years of poor diet, but I will take every chance I get to celebrate and enjoy how far I’ve come! While I played with my three and a half meter kite, Brian helped the kids fly one of our smaller kites and though the breeze was lumpy and short lived, it went up a few times, to their delight and ours.

Delicious fruit!

For people who live in the city, in a single family home on a lot that is neither small nor large, it is something strange and wonderful to watch Mia run around nakey-bottomed, up and downhill, across fields, from fence to fence and animal to animal, and back again, without the need to run after her or worry that we will lose her or that someone will snatch her or run over her. (Yes, she got a little poison ivy on her tush, but that's what Tecnu is for--we caught it just in time later that evening!) Growing up in this natural setting with loving, attentive, and conscientious parents is one of the great gifts Kevin and Sarah are giving their children. Though we don’t have plans for a farm of our own, Brian and I, too, are striving to give Mia as much of that existence as possible. It is the most important thing we can do for her lifelong wellbeing.

Mmm! Potatoes!

Sarah and I are both still nursing our children, and I think this gives us a similar perspective. It is my firm belief, though I can’t prove it with scientific evidence, that in order to be healthy, we need a close relationship with our food. It starts when we are born and we require skin to skin contact with our mother in order for her body to continue to produce nourishing milk to sustain us through those early years. In that same way, as we grow and even after we are grown, we need to have our hands in the cultivating, harvesting, storing and cooking of our meals. When we do so, we no longer just eat, we experience a deep relationship with our food and our earth. This is something I’ve experienced firsthand, as I have slowly immersed myself in a whole, traditional, food lifestyle.

Our haul from the country vegetable stand!

When I think of Sarah and Kevin on their farm, I think of my pregnant friend, close to term and still carrying buckets of food and water to her animals, while tending her first born child and telling me of her plans for growing her food, raising her animals, building her house, and having her baby at home. I have great respect for her commitment, in part because over the past few years I’ve realized that food wasn’t meant to be had without work: work I do each week to make our bread and prepare meals days in advance, as well as the kind of work Sarah and Kevin do to raise and prepare their meals (at home) a year or two in advance, and even more.

Blancing tomatoes to remove skins before freezing.

I’m not saying that the sick, poor, and those who don’t work don’t deserve food. What I mean is that food has a context in a community and in the world as a whole. Over indulgence is less likely when your hands are in it and you have a closer relationship to it—when you know the people it comes from and have a sense of harvest and limits. (For example, when you realize that there are no more tomatoes because they have been claimed, eaten or put up for the winter, or when there is no more lamb shank because the slaughter is done for the season and there aren’t 1000 head in a lot somewhere just waiting to be de-shanked.) Much of the food eaten in the United States today—food my family ate at restaurants and out of packages before we began this change—has lost its context. For me personally, eating out of context created a life of illness, obesity, exhaustion, and imbalance. Reclaiming that balance has lead to peaceful days enjoying great food at home and on the farm with friends, reveling in family and indulging my favorite pastimes.

Getting my hands into the tomato! (It's easier than trying to do it with a knife!)

When we pulled away from their home, Sarah and her family were already in their garden, toiling in the (finally cool) summer breeze. Brian and I, gardenless until next spring, stopped at a country vegetable stand on the way home. (This stand happens to be run by the same farm that produces our CSA share.) We bought 30 pounds of tomatoes, and a sampling of zucchini, garlic, onions, corn, and peppers. After a forty-five minute drive home—which gave us plenty of time to marvel over an incredible afternoon as well as talk a little philosophy—we were home in time to make a delicious dinner of leftovers and then to prepare and freeze 11 quarts of crushed tomato for this winter’s soups and chili.

Ready for 11 pots of chili this winter!

*Power kiting is an extreme sport and dangerous. You should learn from someone who knows what they are doing and can give you proper safety instruction. For the curious, here is some power kite stuff I like:
















And, the most important item of all if you are planning on being around poison ivy (or skunks):