Locally Grown

There is corn growing in the employee garden at the VA Hospital. Corn! My own sad little garden,  which I spent the cold, long winter planning, researching and dreaming about has barely a rambling pole bean to show for all my trouble.  Across the pavilion stands another planter with mouth-watering raspberries which seem to have ripened overnight and effortlessly with the June rain. Which just reinforces my belief that Midwesterners generally, and Yoopers especially, have some magical  ability to coax plants to flourish in the unlikeliest climate and the shortest possible growing season. For a transplant like me, it is a skill I will most likely devote a lifetime trying to acquire.

God forbid some natural disaster or internal breakdown of national services made it necessary for me to sustain my family from the fruits of my garden- I'm certain we'd starve. In the couple years I have maintained my own garden I've yielded a couple small victories- green beans out my ears one season, grape tomatoes the next- to which I credit not my own skill but dumb luck, good weather and prayer. I am shocked that anything grows at all, and when it actually produces something that resembles an edible plant - elated! Even if I don't know exactly what I've grown ( imagine my surprise when my beautiful pumpkin plants yielded cucumbers) or how to maintain it ("weeding" two-thirds of my strawberry box before remembering I'd planted  perennials ) nevertheless, I try and try again every year hoping next time I'll have a bounty worth boasting about.

And so it is with great humility and wonder, I pack up the kids most Saturday mornings, our empty egg cartons in hand, and drive from Spread Eagle, WI across the Michigan border to the Iron Mountain farmers' market. 
We've been attending the market for a few years now and have gotten to know some of the merchants and watched their tents grow season after season. What started out as a small group vendors,  dedicated and shivering in the June cold behind BK Enterprises selling potted herbs and syrups off the beds of pickups has grown into a bustling micro-economy downtown on A street. Since my daughter has outgrown the 
Snugly - which enabled me to simultaneously make cash exchanges while holding my 4 year old by the shirt collar- our visits are less frequent as they once were. When I return after missing a week it seems the market has doubled in size and the produce as well. After gathering my few jams, meat and a cookie for my son I head off to the local supermarket for the rest of the shopping.  

Now, I aabsolutely love the people who work at my local grocery store. The store is clean, people are friendly and helpful and a joy to be around. It's the food I have problems with.  Despite every imaginable option for dining, shopping at the store feels like an ongoing compromise of values. Unlike the market, I can't ask the Dole or Tyson or Johnsonville "what's in that?" All I have to go off is product labeling and whatever morsel of latest media coverage I can remember. Which brand just had the recall? Do I get the organic raspberries from Brazil or the chemical laden domestic ones? Do I opt for the  organic spinach in the monstrous plastic packaging or this sad little waterlogged mushy thing in the produce aisle? This meat says all-natural but is it really worth the price? And how is it that three different local vendors sell eggs at the market, but every grocery store trucks them in from Iowa?

Two Saturday's ago I saw a little girl selling stone ground flour and I thought "Wow, you almost wouldn't have to shop anywhere else for food!" Nah. That would never work. Maybe in New York or California with their blocks long farmers' markets and 8 month growing season. But like a seed, the idea began to grow as I  as I mentally checked off a list of what is available locally. Meat- beef, chicken, lamb- not that I've ever had lamb but its available. Dairy- I live within 80 miles of two dairies. Flour-well,that's got to cover alot. Potatoes, tomatoes, veggiesberrieswhythereareberriesinmybackyardandapplesandthismightjustactuallywork!

So the time has come to see how this will work. For the  month of August I am eating only what has been produced locally within a 100 mile radius of Spread Eagle. No coffee. No bananas. And-gulp- Hershey, Pennsylvania is not within a hundred miles. What's within a hundred miles? Good people who take pride in producing good food to share with more good people. It doesn't matter if I can't grow corn, because my neighbor can. Local food relies on the community, just as the community relies on the local farmers. 
So here we go!