Where we live most gardens are done or mostly done. We stuck a fork in our patch in the ground, but for the eggplant, a week ago. Pulled up stakes and harvested the last of the carrots. Rubbed dry dirt off orange roots on a hot day.
Good kitchen garden this year but I've never viewed it as important, just fun. Now, of course, food costs more and it cannot be assumed to be safe. Did I mention fresh eggs?
Between the backyard garden; our laying hens; some local farms pushing out well-raised meat, fruit and vegetables; and a thriving farm market community, it is now possible -- at least here in northern Vermont -- to supply ourselves with a healthy portion of what we eat through the year. By April, true, I will be pretty much sick of parsnips, but overall there is enough of interest to feast on. We are in hearty and interesting meals all winter long.
The laying hens are all proud now because of the bad egg scare chasing the nation. The kids sell what we don't eat, teaching them enterprise if not economics (I am certain my input costs exceed the output value, making the farm more soviet than all-American). We do sell a lot of eggs. Who can turn down two smiling kids selling fresh eggs? So far no one.
We also buy meat-bird futures from a good friend and neighbor. Any day now we'll get a call and will collect twenty frozen local treats. We buy as well local lamb and a share of a cow out of Montpelier -- grazing today but in our freezer tomorrow. We are raising a brood of omnivores and they are comfortable with their food being produced locally.
Our son learned the difference between livestock and pets when he was about 4 years old. He was arguing with me one cold winter afternoon. I was reading the paper after loading a massive roasting hen into the over. I had spackled the bird with olive oil, sea salt, crushed pepper, cumin, and fennel seed. I stuffed her with lemons. She was cooking away in a hot hot oven as I sat, warm, before the wood stove, in the cuddle chair by the window.
Cal walked in. "Dad," he said. "My chickens are my pets."
"No they're not."
"They are."
We vollied back and forth and then I dropped the paper to the side and he plopped into my lap. (How the chair got its name.) "Here's the difference," I said. "Look in the oven."
He turned his head and stared. I could see him thinking.
"What's in it?"
"A chicken," he said.
"That's the difference."
"Oh," he said, and that was that.
I am looking forward to our beef cow coming. This grass-fed, organically fed and lovingly pampered bovine (at least until judgment day) will taste great.
That's the bottom line, really. I wish I could say I am focusing on local because I want to save the planet. I want to live in a community with lots of people working and living good lives in rural communities surrounded by working lands and supplying us with great food. If, as a side-dish, meeting these goals happens to save the planet and our food supply I will not complain.
David Rocchio lives, works and writes in Stowe, Vermont. (c) 2010 David Rocchio
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