food

I'm sensing a shift in food consciousness.  It seems like there are more organic groceries available in mainstream shopping centers, and at least here in the country, many people I know have food shares from local farms and/or get produce and fruit from farmers markets or vegetable stands on the side of the road.  There's a strawberry farm up the mountain from us, aside from the small crop growing in our yard.  There's an apple orchard up the road where every year we gorge on fresh picked apples and blueberries.
I've been frequenting food co-ops and farmers markets for years, and it's good to see, in general, people shopping the parameters of the grocery store, making better choices about what to eat.  

I suppose one of the advantages of living in a rural town is the proximity of the good stuff.  It's a drive, but a few times a month I drive 30 minutes or so first to a phenomenal bakery in an otherwise sleepy town just for their bread.  All organic or locally hulled wheat and spelt, it is so worth the drive.  Just up the road from there is a family owned cow farm that sells their own cheeses, yogurts and milk as well as any cut of grass fed beef from couldn't get any more local cattle. There I sample cheeses, buy locally made yogurt flavored by locally made maple syrup.  I don't have to buy any beef, because we already have a freezer full from our own little bull.


We bought a cow some months ago.  It wasn't a very big one and older than would be considered veal, but we went in on it with our neighbor friend who volunteered to feed it organic corn the last couple months of his otherwise grass fed life.  It grew up just down the road from us.  I deliberately never went to meet it for fear my heart would hurt when it was slaughtered.  Now that it's meat from my freezer, I savor him with gratitude when we have a meal of the Best Beef I Have Ever Tasted.  Not only that, but the cost of him works out to about three dollars a pound.


My husband is upping the ante.  He'd been talking about getting pigs for a long time, despite my protests: But aren't pigs really smart and cool?  What if I love the pigs, how can I eat them?  How can I not get attached to animals living on our land that I am feeding and caring for?
Guess we'll find out the answers.  I reluctantly gave him my blessing, and it seemed like minutes later he had ordered a couple black baby pigs that were born in upstate New York.  They're still too young to leave their mama, but he and the same cow friend are going to pick them up in three weeks, one pig each, that will grow up in a pen out back.


On one hand, I'm really excited.  Cassidy is going to be in her glory with baby pigs to help care for and watch grow.  It will be a great lesson in feed and care, as she watches her father and I feed Hammy and Bacon.  On the other hand... then we'll eat them.  Hmph.  Even though I'll be keeping that in mind for the six months they'll be living here, I'm betting that I'll probably cry when they're on their way to the slaughter farm.  And I'm not sure how I'll explain it to Cassidy, their absence or the freezer suddenly full of pork, though she might not register the difference.


I'm hoping that next will come a few hens.  We'll have all the eggs we could ever want fresh from the back yard, and nobody gets hurt.