An Old Fashioned Modern Life

Our family is a little...well....different.  "You're so cool!", is a common phrase that we hear from our customers at the local farmer's market.  Friends will say, "You have such an interesting life!  I don't know how you do it all!", and several co-workers refer to me as "Betty Crocker".

We really didn't start out to be different.  It's just that once we got outside the box, we realized that we didn't want to get back in.  It all started several years ago with a jar of baby food... 

Our little girl, Elizabeth, was ready for her first jar of baby food.  As a new and overprotective mother, I had made a rule that anything I expected my little girl to eat, I would try myself first.  The jar of creamed bananas didn't look appetizing, but, if I expected her to eat it, I would to.  So, I took a tentative bite.  It was worse than it looked.  My mouth was filled with the full flavor of citric acid with a hint of something that mildly resembled banana.  Thinking maybe it was just the banana that tasted bad, I popped the lids off several other flavors and sampled them.  They were all equally bad and tasted nothing like real food.

Starting at that moment, my husband Joey and I began making our own baby food for our little girl.  As we did, we began reading and learning about our food supply and finding out exactly what was in the food we were eating.

We both came from families that gardened, canned, and preserved food.  We had grown a small garden and canned several jars of green beans, and had made a batch or two of jelly.  After becoming more educated about GMOs, food processing, and chemical ingredients, we realized that we needed to grow more.

That same year, God sent us an amazing blessing.  Joey lost his job.  Now, I know that doesn't sound like much of a blessing.  With a seven month old baby and partial paychecks from maternity leave at my job, we thought it was more of a nightmare.  But, as always, God had a plan for our lives.

Joey began immediately looking for work, which was scarce to be found.  Since he was home, he also watched Elizabeth while I went back to work teaching school.  That Spring, with finances so tight it hurt, and our new knowledge of food, Joey decided to plant a big garden.  That year was a fantastic garden year. 

Elizabeth adored being outside in the bright sunlight and napped in her stroller under the old apple tree while Joey worked the soil and tended the plants. 

Over the next two years, Joey continued to look for work without a job in sight.  The garden grew a little wider and a little longer every year.  Running and playing in the sunshine and fresh air, Elizabeth grew to.  We began having extra vegetables and began to go to our local farmer's market to sell them on Saturdays. 

The next year, we realized that the garden was turning into more than just a garden.  We got chickens, Joey built a little greenhouse using trees from the farm and old glass that people wanted hauled away.  Joey stopped looking for a job because he realized that, somewhere along the way, he had found the perfect job.  Just as his great-great grandfather, and his great-grandfather had done, Joey had turned into a farmer. 

We decided to call our farm "Crossroads Gardens".  The area where we live is an old town called Crossroads.  Starting the farm also was a crossroads in our lives.  It was a point where we decided we wanted to take a different path and turn away from the mainstream food supply, day cares, and values.  We realized that we wanted to have an old fashioned modern life.