Summer Saturday Mornings

Selfishly I don't want anyone to know where this road is. I want to keep it all to myself on Saturday mornings.

This summer I split a CSA with a neighbor and chose to pick it up from the farm rather than from an in-town location where it could have been dropped. Yes, the price was less because I did the pick up. But that's not why I wanted to do it.

Where I grew up it wasn't really country despite the fact that there was a dairy farm next door and cornfields across the back fence. But it was a place that was open and green and a bit wild and country-like. And for good or ill, it is in me, drawing me to like places. Where I pick up my CSA is such a place.

It is a real farm, farmed by a young couple with two children, lots of energy and even more passion and dreams. They are the future, holding my past in the palms of their hands.  They value many of the same things I was taught to value - hard work, honesty, simplicity and family. And they live out of the way, about 30 minutes from the little town where I now live.

To get there requires a drive in the country and if navigated properly, it can feel like the true middle of nowhere. Wide open spaces, lots of green, no houses and my personal favorite, dirt roads. Not dirt lanes to houses, but dirt roads that must be taken slowly to avoid or stay in the ruts that the rain and wheels create. Dirt roads that spew up dust behind the car when its dry, obliterating everything that has been passed. Dirt roads that take away that last bit of stress that had started oozing away the minute I left "civilization."

Saving money is great, but the real value of picking up my CSA is the opportunity to be in a place where I feel so much at home.