A Confession of Sorts

Hello!

Dave from McElhoes Family Farm/Belmont here.

Maybe it is how dreary it looks out across the pasture right now, but I thought I'd get something off my chest. I am not a particularly good cook. Not tremendously successful as a farmer - at least in the modern sense. I am not even sure I qualify as a "homesteader" which seems to be the current terminology.

I am just a dad. A husband. Not glamorous, not professional, I don't have all the answers. I don't even know many of the questions.

I am, however, "a man of a certain age". I grew up in a rural, working class environment where raising your own food was just called living. Nearly everyone around me had a larger garden, and canning, freezing or otherwise preserving the various harvests was the norm. If you didn't have chickens, you traded for eggs. We didn't have space for cattle, but in the fall we put a local beef in the freezer.

We ate with the seasons. We gathered mushrooms each spring, berries all summer, various nuts in the fall. And it was a family affair. Everyone worked, everyone ate. And we ate well. Healthy, tasty, filling food that, I suppose nowadays would be called "hyperlocal."

After leaving home and tasting "store bought" jelly, I determined to make my own. I continued to garden, even in a less than "ag friendly" suburbia. As I grew older and had a few late in life kiddos, I wanted them to eat as well I had growing up.

Trying to shorten a long story... That's why we are here. That's why we farm.

I grow a lot of our food (not nearly enough yet though admittedly). I cook from scratch, bake our bread, and just generally do things that I guess look kind of old fashioned.

And yet, no matter how humble the dish or how unskilled my preparation, I can take comfort in knowing just what is in what we have eaten. Our family has always used a saying "Food is Love." I guess that is why we do these things even though they are often difficult.

We believe in that axiom that "cheap food isn't good, and good food isn't cheap." There is a lot of time, effort and yes love that you put into the meals you make for your family. And while we all need to watch our pennies, we shouldn't shortchange the most important thing - our family.

If there is something we can do to help you raise some of your own food, or some question we might help with, please, feel free to drop us an email. I know the internet is full of advice, and some of it is actually useful, but occasionally an old guy might have an answer for you.

If not, I reckon we can google it together! :)

Dave