How much does it cost?

Growing food that feeds your body. An old tradition. But a diminishing one, it seems. In my regular life I often find myself walking around a huge chain grocery store buying my batteries, my bread, and my orange juice all while sipping on a Starbucks coffee just to wind up waiting in a 20 minute line only to deal with a rude teenager behind the cash register who is haphazardly tossing my barcoded items across his zerox-style reader. Here in Greenbrier I find myself turning down onions on the side of the road because they've traveled 15 miles too far to suit my farm diet. I like that. I like knowing my food came directly from a farm instead of directly from a factory or a processing plant where it was cut and seasoned and packaged by industrial machines and the occasional gloved hand. I like using soap that was made in the home of a simple woman I shared some time with over a wooden farmers market table and later a cheese vat (a story for later). I liked running into her accidentally and saying, hi, I met you the other day. I use your soap. How great and how proud that must have made her feel. And how great and proud it made me feel, as well, to be using something someone designed, created, and labored over in their own home. And to have looked that person in the eye and passed some time together. The farmers and I are going over to Tammy Sue's house next week to see how she makes her soaps. She is excited to have us over and show off her handy work. She even said she'd wait to make this week's soaps until we had the time to come watch. There is something indescribably nice about sharing your labors with your neighbors. When we visit Ray he sends us home with butter and cheese; we bring him sunflowers and pickles from our garden. The sharing is the way we exchange our pride and our joy, our gratitude and our delight. It's something that, until now, I have never quite experienced. The closest thing being potluck dinner parties where someone brings a hand made dish and someone else brings a veggie plate they picked up wrapped in cellophane at the Piggly Wiggly. I've always heard "It's the thought that counts," and I agree. Here at the farm when we think about Ray Daley or Aunt Maura we plan out what we will make for them days in advance, gather recipes, search for ingredients, and then put together a cake or a jar of pickles raw piece by raw piece - spending much more time thinking about that friend than I maybe ever have before. Definitely much more time that the person behind the Piggly Wiggly counter spent thinking about my friend while they wrapped my veggie plate in cellophane.