REALLY Know Your Farmer

For the last couple of years, we've been getting goat's milk from a local couple who live in the farmland around town and keep a few goats. With our kids both allergic to cow's milk, and a belief that raw milk is much healthier than the pasteurized, homogenized stuff in grocery stores, we've been really grateful to have a weekly supply of fresh and tasty real milk straight from the goat!

Two weeks ago Asa asked if she could start learning how to milk the goats, so Wayne has taken her out to their farm on the last couple of Saturday mornings and she's been doing some milking. This Saturday they got one whole goat milked between the two of them. Wayne had a head start being as he worked on a cow dairy in his teenage years, but Asa has the advantage of being a quick learner and absolutely adoring every animal she meets.

I think it's awesome that they took the time to show her how to do this - talk about knowing where your food comes from! And also that in case they ever need to leave town, they've got one more backup milker they can call on to cover the goats. And Asa has a head start on the skills she'll need when she eventually lives on the farm/menagerie of her dreams that she's planning.

To me, it's one more reason to build those vital connections between the food on your table and the places it comes from - whether its your own garden, a CSA box from a local farm, going out to pick berries locally and chatting with the owners, or milking a goat. Making those connections brings our world a little closer, let's us understand the food web that we are a part of and how our actions relate to the availability of fresh and wholesome food. Also, it's nice to make new friends and bridge the gap between the towns we may live in and the countryside around us.

Connecting the Dots

The people we buy our goat's milk from let us come out for a visit since the baby goats have been arriving. Of course, the kids jumped at the chance to go out and see the little goats, and it was great to have the opportunity to meet the goats who supply our wonderful milk. I feel so lucky that we made this connection, more or less by an accidental encounter of a friend of ours. The milk from these goats is really a huge step above what we can get in the store, the taste is really amazing and also it's raw and not homogenized and all of that, and to have a connection directly between what you're eating and the people and animals who produce it is something that's somehow greater than I can express. It's such a simple thing, a pattern of connectedness that's much older than our present society, which is perhaps why it feels so right.

The little kids (of the goat variety, not human) ran around and played king of the haystack, and Miss A. had a great time picking up each and every one of them. The farm is at a beautiful place on the river, so peaceful and lovely in the spring sunshine. The kids (human, not goat) engaged in that timeless activity: throwing rocks in the water while I soaked up the late afternoon light. As the day drew to a close and we headed home, I mused that at least for our kids (the human ones, not the goats), food is not an abstraction. We grow it, we buy it from the farmers and beekeepers at the farmer's market, we pick the eggs up from our chickens, and now we get to see and appreciate the goats whose milk graces our table. Food, animals, human connections, it's all a part of re-connecting the dots of an integrated community food web. Just as a side bonus, it's more sustainable and a healthy way to eat and live as well.