A New Path

I never know what I’m going to get when I see the name “Bethany Home” appear on my caller ID. Sometimes it’s just a hello-how-are-you, or a Steph-is-making-pizza-come-gorge-yourselves. But sometimes it’s more of a life-changing-event call – we’ve had several of those and pretty much everything in-between in the last 7 months or so since we’ve become close.

So you would think I wouldn’t be surprised when she called about a week and a half ago to tell me she was going to see a man about a cow. I think my exact response was, “oookaaaay?” And then she invited me to go with. After a little questioning I got the gist of the trip – there’s a Mennonite farmer who lives a bit West of us that will sell you an entire cow if you want – grass fed, humanely killed cows that are then butchered and packaged. All you have to do is pick up the meat and have the freezer to store it all. I think my response was something in the line of, “uh…sure – why not?”

Later that morning, we pulled up to a bit of a ramshackle-looking house. Bethany went in search of the proprietor and I tried to look around without being completely nosy.  The first thing I noticed was a cow, hanging out in the yard, just chillin’ cow-style. I thought she looked pretty happy so I figured that at the very least, happy cows make happy cheese, right? And I wasn’t leaving without some cheese.

A few minutes later we met the farmer and started a conversation that lasted for over an hour. Bethany was awesome. She asked question after question and he happily answered and expounded. We talked about the meat, how it was raised, how it was fed, the butchering process, the pricing – everything. We also had quite the discussion about raw milk, and raw milk products, which led to an explanation of the story Bethany had heard about his battles with the local government. That, in turn, led to stories of fear-based lies and how the dairy industry is backed by the greed of wanting to make more and more money. He is now operating off-radar and completely by word-of-mouth. (This, of course, has spawned the joke between Bethany and I that all of his products are black-market.)

I know – it may sound a little crazy or paranoid, but trust me, it wasn’t. I came away from it all with a lot of knowledge, lots to process, and some new goals for my family’s health and the way we buy our food. I also came away with an order for a cow, lamb, and pig – which would be butchered in the appropriate season and split between our family and Bethany’s. And if that wasn’t enough, I took the immediate reward of bringing home some black-market raw milk, cheese, yogurt, and cream cheese, as well as some organic honey to top it off(did you know that commercial honey producers feed bees WHITE SUGAR to get them to produce more honey?! So incredibly WRONG.)

The next day Tom went to Costco and purchased a small chest freezer that we now have set up in our laundry room, waiting for the lamb that will be ready next month. And I’ve moved my grocery shopping to the West shore of the river, where I can make a stop at the Healthy Grocer for raw milk.

This is the first step onto what I hope is a path to less dependence on the grocery store and a healthier, happier life. I’m so happy that we have the opportunity to support a local farmer, eat better in the process, and even save money ($2.90/lb for the beef!). Yet another reason I’m thrilled to be living in Central PA (the farmer AND Bethany, who has changed my life definitely for the better).