Random thoughts while waiting for a cow to get “in the mood”….

We’re keeping a close eye on the eastern pasture today, watching for three cows to demonstrate they’re ready to be bred.  (They mount each other and everything in site; have to be careful in our Gator)  Once we note the time, we count forward six to eight days to transplant more embryos.

We’re also playing another game of “who’s the smartest” with our pigs, trying to lure them into the trailer for the trip to the butcher.  So far, it’s no contest, which is why we’re still playing the game two weeks after it began.

But in between, I’ve been reading a magazine I was unfamiliar with until I spotted it at the counter of the Town Duck in Warrenton the other day.  It’s called “flavor” (sic) and it’s all about the food scene, from farm to table, in northern Virginia.  Perhaps it’s because the magazine is headquartered in Sperryville, but among the stories and ads from Richmond up to DC, there was heavy coverage of Rappahannock county and it occurred to me again how the sustainable, natural farm movement has taken hold in that area.  The cover features about two dozen very attractive young men and women, most of whom left the city behind to farm, and invariably they talk about the importance of what they’re doing, as much for others as for themselves.

We’re fairly familiar with “the scene”; crossing the Rappahannock River at least once a week to pick up raw milk and eggs at Reality Farm (Teri and John Guevremont) and in season belonging to the Waterpenny Farm CSA (Rachel Bynum and Eric Plaskin).  And as part of that errand we often stop at a wonderful, little informal restaurant called Cafe Indigo.  Not only is the food great but there are artisanal products for sale, and a number of local artists have set up their studios right in the same, renovated building.  It’s something like The Old Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, but with better atmosphere and better parking.  And all this is within a mile or two of Sperryville.

But back to the magazine, it concludes with a quote from M.F.K. Fisher’s “The Gastronomical Me”:

“That night I not only saw my Father for the first time as a person.  I saw the golden hills and the live oaks as clearly as I have eveer seen them since…and I saw food as something beautiful to be shared with people instead of as a thrice-daily necessity.”

It is that spirit of dedication, the feeling that they are “doing something” for their community, that motivates the young farmers of Rappahannock county, the Guevremonts and all the people we know in the natural food movement.