My family and I celebrated Mother’s Day on our family farm yesterday.
This is the house where I grew up. My great grandparents, grandparents, parents, sister and I have all lived here. This house is over 80 years old and it’s where my parents still live today.
This is our barn, the FN stands for Fritz Niemeyer. Fritz was my great great grandfather, he homesteaded our family farm in 1888.
My sister and I are the fifth generation to be born and raised on these 260 acres in Northeastern Colorado.
After 120 years our farm is still operating. This is a picture of my dad chopping forage last summer.
And here’s yours truly in the pig pen on Easter morning. No, these pigs are not cooped up and factory farmed, in case you saw Food Inc. They are let out daily and roam freely around the barn yard in the bright sunlight and fresh air.
Yesterday, on Mother’s Day, I made a pork tenderloin for dinner. It’s one of our family favorites.
I don’t like most grocery store pork tenderloin because they add sodium, MSG and goodness knows what else. Even though my family has raised sheep, cattle, chickens, and dairy cows over the years, along with planting a garden each summer; I don’t have the opportunity to eat farm fresh food every day. And no, the pork tenderloin we ate yesterday did not come from the above picture!
A couple weeks ago I heard about a new market in the Highlands District of Denver.
It’s called, In Season Local Market.
Their mantra: “if it’s not from here, it’s not in here.” They are dedicated to providing local food (within a 250 mile radius) that is naturally and ethically grown, raised, harvested and processed. In Season Local Market is about re-evaluating the way we eat and shop for groceries. By buying and eating locally, we can eat fresher, better food and support our own community.
Since this is the way I was raised and how my grandfathers and father always farmed, I was very excited to find “clean” pork tenderloins at In Season Local Market in Denver. They also have things like; cheese, beef, bison, chicken, eggs, vegetables, fruits and honey Click here to view the full grocery selection.
I was telling my sister about my latest Healthy Discovery and she told me about something she recently signed up for.
It’s called Door To Door Organics
They deliver a variety of fruit and veggie boxes straight to your door. The contents change every week based on the freshest arrivals from Colorado organic farms.
Now I’m following my sister’s lead and signing up for this. I can’t wait to get my first box of fresh Colorado fruits and veggies! Both my sister and I travel a lot for our jobs so Door To Door Organics allows you to put a week(s) on hold if you’re out of town.
If you don’t live in Colorado and can’t take advantage of these Healthy Discoveries look around your own area for locally grown farm fresh food.
A great place to start is Farmer’s Markets.
In the age of movies like Food Inc, and Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution people are remembering the benefits of the back-to-the-basics-farm-fresh-food.
Fritz, my great great grandfather (who spent cold winters in the late 1890′s building our farm house). Archie, my great grandfather (who plowed the fields 14-hours a day with mules) and James, my grandfather (who milked cows by hand twice a day) would all be proud, yet probably chuckle a bit at this “modern day trend”!
