What Is Your Small Farm?

Reader Contribution by Liesl And Myles Petersen
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Picture the little, sweet granny shuffling her feet over to her beloved tomato plants in a city home where she’s lived for many long years. Tended to lovingly, she waits for a tomato to be perfectly ripe, juicy and fragrant. When ready, she happily plucks it, slices it, and hungrily devours it. This is a moment she’s waited for since the day she bought her little seeds at the local hardware. While she tastes it, really savors it, memories are conjured of days gone by– being a little girl, perhaps growing tomatoes on a farm with her folks, or growing them with her husband while raising their children. But in the here and now, this is all she can do.

The land is gone. All that she has now is her small porch among city dwellers with enormous water guzzling lawns, with not a fresh homegrown vegetable in sight. But these are hers! And she knows she doesn’t need anything more than this.

Her homemade cheese, made with goat’s milk from a nearby farm, awaits her in the fridge. It shares the shelf with some apple juice she pressed herself. The bread she baked this morning is cooling on the rack. And as she tastes the tangy freshness of her tomato, the heavenly scent of the perfectly ripe fruit drifts up into her nostrils. It’s all she needs to confirm it. Yep, she farmed this tomato. And it’s, well…perfect.

What is your small farm? Is it the vegetables you grow on your apartment balcony?  How about the cheese you produced in your suburban basement? Do you live in the city, and did you rip out your front lawn, ensuring a steady supply of homegrown veg for you and your family? Do you have a quarter-section and utilize your land to produce all of your families needs? Do you mill the very grain you produce on your land, supplying yourself with flour to bake bread?

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