Excited!

I've been doing a lot of thinking about the 1oo mile diet. Eating foods grown within 100 miles of my home. I'm just in the beginning stages of researching our area and came across a dairy farm that is 8 miles from our house. The Hillside Dairy Farm. They apparently have farm fresh milk, organic cheeses, and fresh eggs. Can we say field trip? I might have to sacrifice one of my weekend projects so that we can scoot up there and check it out. I know the kids would be game because they have an ice cream counter with home made ice cream.

As for the other things we eat, that will take more research. I'm not too worried about the veggies because we are growing quite a bit and have our farmer's market that will hopefully yield more as the season continues. Fruit, I'm not so sure about. Although there are a couple of pick your own berry farms around here and in the fall, we'll have access to apples. Not that big on bananas (unless it's made into bread) and I suppose we can find melons as they come into season up here. We are lucky where we live because while we live in the city, 100 miles out each way you can find large farms. I would have to google and see if Amish country comes into our radius or not, but that would be very cool if they did. We scored some Amish baked goods at the market on Thursday. Those folks can bake.

Meat. This is a weird topic in our house. I know that if we continue to eat the scant bit of meat that we do eat, I want to buy organic grass fed meat. I'm sure I can find a local source to get meat, I just haven't gotten to that point yet. I was thinking about our meat eating the other day because I've been really wanting to get a couple of chickens. I would want them only for the eggs and have no intention of killing them for their meat. And then it dawned on me that if I can't bring myself to kill something to eat it, then I shouldn't eat it period. In the Country Wisdom book that I got it showed graphic pictures of the how to kill a chicken and how to cut up a cow or pig. It was disgusting. I don't think I could ever do that. So, it looks like we are going to be making a crawl back to vegetarianism. We were vegan for a year, and I'm not sure if we will go that extreme again. I found it really hard to shop when you have to read every ingredient on every package for the tiniest little thing that might be animal related. It was hard finding personal care products that didn't include animal ingredients or were tested on animals. It was hard traveling and being able to stop and eat anywhere. I'm not the type of person who likes to be a pain in the arse about making my meal special. Plus, the expense. Why does a pair of non-leather shoes cost 150 dollars?! So, I don't think we'll be taking the vegan route again, but we will work more towards being vegetarian again and eating within the 100 mile range. It's one small thing we can do to cut back on the climate crisis.

Now, here's hoping that Tim wakes up not grumpy so we can get our stuff done today. He stayed up until 3 am playing a computer game and then gets all grumpy when the boys wake up all refreshed and LOUD.

I'm sure I'll be back later. Maybe I'll have some pictures of our Dairy farm to post!