My sister and I frequently spent weekends at our Aunt Mary and Uncle Art's farm near Mt. Gilead, Ohio.  They had horses, dogs, cats, chickens and one of the meanest roosters in the world.  They had appliances outside on the porch and rusty cars in the yard.  They had bee hives, apple trees and land to roam.  We loved to go there.  We helped in the garden, in the kitchen, in the yard and in the barn.  We always came home with more fresh food than we could eat in a week.

Yesterday I took two of my kids to my sister's farm in north central Ohio.  They played with the dogs and cats, ate fresh-picked corn, roasted hot dogs, helped pick peaches.  We ate under an old maple tree, got to sit on her Harley, went out for ice cream and came home with fresh eggs from her chickens, fresh corn, tomatoes, cucumbers and peaches.  We came home with more than we could eat in a week.  When I got home my daughter and I immediately made peach cobbler.  Today I froze the corn that was left after sharing with friends so we can remember the glory of summer when it's a gray Ohio winter day.  My son made salsa with the tomatoes.

It always makes me feel guilty that I seemingly have nothing to offer and everything to gain from my sister and her farm.  I've ruminated on that a lot today.  I may not have a lot of things to share with my sister and her family but what I can do, what we can all do is know the farmer who grows our food and help support them in their ventures.  I'm very blessed to have a farmer in my family, most Americans don't anymore.  I also know the farmers from Mt. Gilead, Ohio, who grow the food I get each week in my CSA share.  I'm very fortunate to have that resource available.  I live in a community with a very vital farmers' market and I have enough space in my yard to have a small garden of my own.

So, what does all this have to do with being green?  Small scale agriculture is better for the land, produces better and more varied foods and keeps some of the idyllic American landscape alive.  The food from local farmers doesn't travel thousands of miles to get here so it's fresher, riper, more nutritious and doesn't use as much fuel getting to our dinner plates.  Those reasons are enough for me.  I'm having some cobbler.