Health, Home, and Happiness

Last weekend we went out to a farm outside of town, Johnson's Pumpkin Farm (off Hwy 212 outside of Laurel if you're in the Billings, Montana area). My friend Rachel got honey from there and posted about it, I totally was intrigued and wanted to get some too.

I love seeing the farm land (clean, well taken care of), meeting the farmer (kind, passionate), seeing the animals (healthy, cared for), and making it a fun weekend outing with the family.

I just now am starting to meet my farmers rather than relying on what's shipped in from afar and lands in my local grocery store. I used to buy local raw milk, but the pickup just didn't work for me (nap time, and you had to be right on time) so we haven't been doing that lately. We're mostly dairy free anyway, other than cheese for hubby. I buy about a gallon of milk a month. Anyway, I recently found a great source of local farm fresh eggs, and she's even bringing them to my door weekly now so I don't have to go out with the little ones (I don't live far away from her 'errand route'). Now I found this farmer who had winter squash, fresh eggs, and best of all, fresh honey!

All at big-box grocery store prices or less expensive, since it doesn't go through a bunch of middle-man markups. This will be my Pennywise Platter Thursday post because it is high-quality food for low cost.


More:

We do things like visiting the farm, grocery shopping, cooking, and other life-related activities as our 'family time'. You can read more about this in my guest post at Keeper of the Home, Waldorf-Inspired Real Play

Just starting out with real foods? I would recommend starting slow, don't burn yourself out trying to find a local resource for everything you eat. That's something that I've just now started doing, and I'm doing it slowly! Switching to using real sea salt is an easy first step, and replacing any artificial cooking products (shortening, margarine, canola oil) with coconut oil and real butter.