You Don't Know How Good Ya Have it, Until Ya Don't

Dear friends,

Many of you know by now, that our family moved back to California after an eight year hiatus in Central Virgina with a short stint living in the upper amazon of Brazil. What most of you don't know is that we lived approximately 40 minutes from "the most sought after farm" in America, Polyface, Inc. While Matthew and I were reading Omnivore's Dilemma, we realized that we lived very close to the "beyond organic" farm portrayed in Michael Pollan's book. In the fall of 2008 we started our quarterly treks out to Polyface. Once there, the girls could run around at will, feeding the hundreds of baby chickens, or walking around the egg mobiles, or hiking out to the pigs in the forested area of the 550 acre spread. It became a wonderful ritual that afforded us a refrigerator full of humanely raised chickens, grass-fed "happy meat", as Grace calls it, and amazing eggs! I didn't realize how good we had it until we moved back to California in the mountains where access to fresh meat is tough to come by.

Since our arrival here at the feet of Mount Lassen, we have become semi-vegetarians. We didn't plan to become veggies, its a natural consequence to limited access. Okay, surely we could go up to the Reeds market at the end of the drive way and get what ever we desired. However, I have seen and read too much about industrial farming that I dare not eat anything that is not humanely raised. Shoot, after the egg scare that is happing right now, can you blame me. Like Matt says, "What in the world are people in California doing eating eggs from Ohio?" Something is wrong with the picture.

I have really been missing the drive out to Joel Salatin's farm and a freezer full of his meats. He and his Son Daniel are the most unassuming, nicest people you could meet. After walking around the farm with the girls, we would hit the shopping list. A double-sided piece of paper, with all the selections and prices printed on it. With our pen, we'd try to figure out how many broilers, ground beef patties, eggs and hotdogs would last us for another 4 months. Joel and Matthew would have long conversations about how to raise cows, hogs, and chickens sustain-ably. You would think that the Salatin's might get a cynical view toward city folks coming down to their farm, (3,000 just last year ) but no. They welcome anyone interested in how to make farming sustainable.

I just finished reading an article about the Salatin's in Ode magazine. The author, Diane Daniel, conveys the sense of owe and humbleness you get from touring the farm. However, her last comment really struck me. She writes, "Finally, we head into town. After all this talk about farming and food, it is time to eat." Often this was a dilemma for our family. The closest town to Polyface is Scottsville, which doesn't have a lot of options for eating local, humanely grown food. I always felt like I was betraying Joel & Daniel, by stopping at the Five Guys on the way home for lunch. Eventually, we just couldn't do it any longer and we started packing bigger snacks for the trip back home.

So, we've been looking into options here and have found the Lazy 69 Ranch which is about an hour and half from here. BUT, as far as I can tell they don't have public hours--which really bites, since being on the farm is such a great experience for the girls. Well, at least they sell their meat locally down in Redding. Its chicken for dinner tonight!