Growing our own food is not optional. We will do it no matter what. It does not matter the cost, the time it takes nor the workload.
We chose to move to a place where we could afford land. A place where there is a growing season of 190 days a year. We choose to build infrastructures for our animals before we fix the sagging floor or leaking plumbing in our home. We choose to spend our money on animal feed that is non-GMO, no soy and something we can trust in order to know that the food we put into our body is free of contaminates that will damage us. We spend our time digging gardens, building fences, raising chickens for eggs and meat.
When we first talk to people there is sticker price shock when they find out the true cost of one of our pasture-raised broiler chickens. Yet the people that understand, fork over the money without a blink. In Oregon we had two customers that begged us to raise chickens for them because they understood the value of what they were getting.
We will continue to add animals that feed us, give us milk, eggs and meat. We cannot afford to have animals that are cute and novel without giving back.
We are the only ones who determine what goes in our mouth. We are the ones who benefit or pay the consequences for the way we eat. The thought of putting the contaminates in our body is visualized by us now if we eat something we should not.
Growing food is work, but eating well is well worth that work.