My daughter and I took a bike ride today, and it occured to me how fortunate we were to be able to take our bikes to local vendors for excellent food. Our first stop was at a local farm that just opened to buy an antibiotic/hormone-free, grain-fed chicken and a dozen brown eggs. On our way home from the farm, we stopped at the orchard and picked a bucket full of montmorency cherries before stopping at the local cheese factory for some fresh cheddar.

Earlier this week I heard a segment on NPR that featured author Barbara Kingsolver speaking about her book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. In it she chronicles the year she and her family spent engaged in subsistence farming. I've been intrigued by this idea for awhile and Kingsolver shared some interesting pieces of information that really stirred something in me.

First, she shared that it cost only fifty cents per person, per meal to grow and raise their own food. I don't know the details behind this figure, but by any measure it's a steal since they raised chickens and turkey and grew virtually every vegetable possible. Second, she also explained that one of their primary goals during that year was to become more aware of what they were consuming, what fossil fuels were required to provide them, etc. As an example, she shared that she gave up bananas because the cost--the environmental cost--of consuming bananas was too great. What do I eat, without thinking, that has to be shipped to me from across the country--or an ocean? Finally, she shared that their approach to meal planning became, "What do we have in abundance?" rather than, "What do we want or feel like?"

I love this idea of providing for oneself, even though it's not something my family is in a position to do. (But here's a guy I respect a great deal who is attempting to do just that with his family of four--and not at the suggestion of Ms. Kingsolver, either.) True, we have a garden, but that hardly qualifies as sustaining ourselves. However, we can buy our food from local farmers' markets in an attempt to "keep it local" and conserve resources. So it was especially rewarding today to travel just over a mile round trip and come home with the majority of our evening meal.
It also motivated me to give our garden a little TLC. The girls helped me pull weeds and were quite excited to see some small green tomatoes hanging on the vines. I also have some elaborate plans for next year's garden. Perhaps I'll have to come back to this entry to remind myself of my current passion in this area.