Ten years ago we started down the path to provide good meat for our family. We ventured out into the world of land ownership with the desire to learn to be good stewards for our piece of heaven on earth. Never would I have imagined that just ten years later it would be our sole source of income. Never would I have imagined that we would be in a position to help others live the dream by helping create a market for their family farmed products. There is hope for the family farm. Today I did an interview for a PhD student doing a documentary of the food system in America. It is a popular topic now pointing to the distance America has come in it’s awareness of what is good. One question asked during the interview was what I could say to anyone wanting to farm. Is there hope? It was nice to answer that question positively. This is the time to make a difference farming. By far the individuals starting new farms are highly educated individuals wanting to make a difference by providing good, clean, healthy food. There is a growing market place of individuals that desire to have access to good food and are willing to pay what it truley costs to produce good food. This is the time that the two groups can come together and make the family farm live once again. While there are infrastructure challenges that we are working to overcome there is great hope for the future of farming!
Below is an email sent by a customer of ours. It is a nice reminder of just how far we have come to having access to good food while allowing those crazy folks, like myself who want to live close to the land, an opportunity to make a living. Thank you to our many supporters!
Hey Kid
Hope things are well with you and yours. I just read your news letter, my word have you guys grown.It is just too cool to see how things are growing for you two. I hope that it is still rewarding for you and Eric and still fun or at least your combined passions. It sounds like it still is. I know you are very busy, but I would like to give you a snip of the past from two old hippies, here goes
We can both remember when you couldn’t buy whole wheat bread in a store.
We can both remember when you couldn’t buy whole wheat flour in a store, nope just didn’t have it.People won’t buy it.
So the whole earth catalog came out and the back to earth movement started, people started buying 5 acres of land and
trying to HOMESTEAD it. And everyone in the movement was becoming aware of all the crap that gets put in what we eat.
It was a dream of the movement to do what you both are doing today. We were if nothing else a bunch of dreamers we
dreamed of the day when you could by locally grown food, from people we knew and trusted. I mean such a hunger to go
back to the land.But all this was a that time a pipe dream, But then there was a HEALTH FOOD STORE that opened up in
West Lafayette , WHITHERSPOONS HEALTH FOODS. And we just flocked to it and bought all the things that we had
read about. What happened to that movement? well the organic food movement went in and out for decades, but each time
People started to learn more about eating what was good for you and soon main stream America was interested. It was
no longer the realm of those Darn Old Hippies. But most of the farms failed, almost all of the homestead farms went under
Why? well as you well know farming is a boat load of work, and most of the kids were city people who didn’t have a clue.
And then the hippie movement suffered a hard set back, Kent State where they shot down our brothers and sisters in
Cold blood. They broke our hearts and the back of the movement. So you two have taken the dream of our generation
And done what we couldn’t with it. We are so Proud of you both. Just don’t let growth take that passion out of your lives.
YOU GUYS ARE JUST TOO COOL . PEACE, LOVE, DOVE. Michael and Patsy Sue Flowers
Well said Mike and Patsy! I will continue to be passionate about providing healthful food right in your back yard.