Piedmont Farm Tour

Last weekend we visited a few of the farms that sell at the Durham and Carrboro Farmer's markets. There were 40 farms that participated in the  Piedmont Farm Tour  but we only got to three: Chapel Hill Creamery (farmhouse cheeses), Fickle Creek Farm (pasture raised beef, lamb and pork, free range chickens and eggs, pigs and vegetables), and Maple View Farm (heavenly ice cream). It was really hot and that was about all the troops could handle without naps. My dad was in town and had ambitions to see all 40...in the end he was satisfied with 3 but wished that one of them had been Celebrity Dairy, the goat-cheese maker in Silk Hope, NC. Well, there's always next year.

It was interesting to learn what these farmers are doing to raise healthy animals and crops without artificial inputs like chemical fertilizers, pesticides, hormones and routine antibiotics. Specifically the process of rotational grazing is absolutely fascinating. The ruminants (cows/sheep/goats) go and graze a pasture for a few days and leave behind their cow pies, etc. When they have eaten down that pasture they move out and on to "greener pastures" (either to those green pastures in the sky or to actual greener pastures). The chickens move in next in their mobile chicken coops. They eat the grubs and scratch around in the cow pies, thereby spreading that stuff around and helping work it back into the soil. The chickens poop out awesome nitrogen-rich fertilizer, too, so that when the farmer goes to replant that pasture the soil is good and ready to grow more grass for the cows to eat. Cows/sheep/goats were designed to eat grass, not grain, so they stay healthy and don't need the routine antibiotics that cows that are fattened on grain in crowded feedlots are given. Pretty cool stuff.

It was fun to see where our food comes from and meet the people who are running these farms. It makes me even more committed to trying to eat locally. Ryan is pretty skeptical about the whole "locavore" thing...he reminds me frequently that if we were to eat locally sourced food exclusively that would mean no more mangoes or pineapples. That's a tough reality. I don't think I could do that. Also, really, I don't think Diet Coke grows too well in this climate. So, I will make some small changes and try to support these local farmers but I don't think I can go all the way. 

 

I love this picture of Oliver and Ryan in Carrboro. Ollie is such a Daddy's boy. He is the first one he calls out for when he gets hurt or is scared in the middle of the night. Ryan points out that it may have something to do with my typical response time (can I help that I am a sound sleeper?) but I think that Ollie knows that his dad would leap tall buildings for him. What lucky kids!

We actually went to Maple View Farm the weekend before with our good friends Ali and Mitch. Here are some pictures of that outing.