Connecting with your food

It has been awhile since my last post. The reason for this - that day, the other cow in the pictures (from the post below) suffered and died too. After a full afternoon of watching the other cow suffer, we later found that they both died of grass tetani. The vet informed us this was caused by someone spraying their lawn, likely to control dandelions. Yes, two pregnant cows died because someone wanted their grass to resemble that of a golf course. To get to the point, I was very upset about these cows' deaths. I couldn't even understand why I was tears, but I was. To me, this overly emotional response must have meant something...

So...as time went on, I read more about the treatment of animals on a mass produced scale and I finally decided I had to do something. But first, I had to know what I was talking about if I plan to take big agriculture down. I quit my full-time job in my field of journalism and got a couple freelancing gigs, kept a part-time position in my field and got two part-time jobs on farms. One is sustainable, one is certified organic.

It has been about month and besides constantly sore muscles, early mornings and some sunburn I am learning so much and loving every minute I am in the dirt. At this point, there are too many stories to recap and if I try to quickly go over them, it won't do the situations any justice...like when I battled a pygmy goat on my first day at the organic farm or when about five Amish boys completely cleared a greenhouse of weeds in five minutes when I had been in there picking for over an hour.

Really, this post is an intro to what's to come in my journey to become a farmer. Everyday I work, I come home with a new love for nature and its bounty. Most people don't understand how liberating it is to sit down to a meal and know exactly where everything on your plate came from. When I am forced to go to the grocery store, I later find myself washing the California cherries I bought, with my imagination running rampant. The whole time I am trying to imagine their journey from the Cali fields, to a store in Ohio, to my sink. Were they sprayed? Are they genetically modified in any way? Were they picked before they were ripe and gassed to give them that deep red color? How much life energy is really in this aesthetically pleasing cherry? These questions also probably explain why absolutely no mass produced meat has found its way to my plate in months and why I am teetering on vegetarianism.

Since I got sick of "waiting for life to happen," I have completely immersed myself in farming - trying to expose myself to as much as possible (including going to a slaughterhouse kill floor that looked like I had walked into the wrong room in the movie Hostel). My goal is to learn as much as I can and pass it on to you. I also hope as I make this move away from the corporate slop we have become accustomed to eating, that others will follow and also connect with their food. So...if you want to feel the liberation I have found - keep reading and join this cause for healthier, natural food.