September 21, 2008
Farm Lands
I grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles and led a fairly urban life except for our camping vacations every summer. Anyway, my favorite high school date was born in Nebraska. On a farm. “On a farm!” I replied, “do they still have farms?” The answer was “Yes, of course, where do you think your food comes from?” Me: “It comes from the grocery store!” He: “and where does the store get it from?” Very naive me: “On the trucks from the store warehouse!” Needless to say, he set me straight about where my food really comes from.
I tell this story, because something interesting occurred to me today on the way to church. As I looked over to my right I could enjoy the symmetry of a newly cleared field — this just a few blocks from my home. The area south and west of me is largely beautiful, fertile, Oregon land with many vineyards interspersed among the produce farms. It was then I realized that for the entire time that I lived in the Midwest, I lived near farmland– so near that I had farm dust in my houses… no matter which mid-western state I lived in.
For a young girl who thought that farms were obsolete, I have spent most of my life making up for that mistake by dusting rich delicious farm dust off my tables and vacuuming it up from my carpets and floors!
