Summer bounty

Last week I took a few days off and we visited the prettiest most pristine dairy farm you could imagine. We met some cows, and chatted with the former dairy princess who now makes award winning cheese and runs a nifty restaurant and farm tour business to keep the farm afloat. Dairy farming has never been easy, but these days drinking milk is sadly out of fashion. We city folk can be quite judgemental about farming even though we have absolutely no idea what it takes to actually farm. Alise's words are swirling in my head: she explained the number one misconception people have about farming is that farmers don't treat their animals or land well. In fact, it wouldn't benefit anyone if a farmer mistreated her property. An unhappy cow doesn't produce milk. Unhealthy soil doesn't produce healthy crops.

Sunday morning at the St. Paul Farmer's Market I chatted with an organic farmer I know from my work with the Immigrant and Minority Farmers Conference. She told me that the hail storms that rolled through last Friday bruised her beautiful cucumbers. This unpredictable global warming-induced bad weather has not made things easy for farmers like her who work on small patches of land to provide produce to us at ridiculously low prices.

I reap the benefits from so many who work hard and then gift me with precious foods. My buddy Neil harvested the first apples of the season last night and now I've got about forty pounds of apples to process. We will have apple sauce, apple pie, apple cake, apple mostarda, and apples for days. I will pair the mostarda with cheese from the Redhead Creamery and give thanks to the farmers who keep me well nourished. Have you hugged your farmer today?