Benjamin  Franklin

      "Be joyful because it is humanly possible"

                                  Wendell Berry

   One of the delights of life is eating with friends, second to that is talking about eating. And, for an unsurpassed double whammy, there is talking about eating while you are eating with friends.

                                       Laurie Colwin

    "Arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning can give a sense of quite in a crowded day - like writing a poem, or saying a prayer"

                        Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift From the Sea

We may live without friends; we may live without books

But civilized men cannot live without cooks.

Owen Meredith

The world is so empty if one

thinks only of mountains, rivers, and cities;

but to know someone here and there who thinks

and feels with us, and though distant, is close to us in spirit-

this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.

-Goethe-

 If you want to be healthier, get off the salmonella, e-coli, mad cow assembly-line hell train! God I love that statement. What did I just say?

Ted Nugent

You can bury a lot of troubles digging in the dirt.

Author Unknown

There is, a politics of food that, like any politics, involves our freedom. We still (sometimes) remember that we cannot be free if our minds and voices are controlled by someone else. But we have neglected to understand that we cannot be free if our food and its sources are controlled by someone else...One reason to eat responsibly is to live free.  

Wendell Berry    "The Pleasures of Eating" 1989

Without power over our food any notion of democracy is empty.

Frances Moore Lappe 

  God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.

                  Martin Luther 

 ...I wake up each day torn between a desire to save the world and a desire to savor the world. This makes it very hard to plan the day."

E.B. White

"Then summer fades and passes and October comes. We'll smell smoke then, and feel an unexpected sharpness, a thrill of nervousness, swift elation, a sense of sadness and departure."

             Thomas Wolfe

September 2010

As far as butter versus margarine, I trust cows more than chemists.

 Joan Gussow

JULY 2010

"Land really is the best art"

Andy Warhol, 1985

MAY 2010

"To forget how to dig the earth and tend the soil is to forget ourseleves."

                                                                 Mahatma Gandhi    

April 2010

The trees are whispering to me,

reminding me of my roots, and my reach

.....shhhhhh.....

can you hear them?

Selflessly,sharing their subtle song.

                Jeb Dickerson

March 2010

"When we tug at a single thing in nature, we

  Find it attached to the rest of the world"

                                       John Muir

February 2010

Winter

is the time for comfort, for good

       food and warmth, for a touch of a

   friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire:

      it is the time for home.

-Edith Sitwell

January 2010

"The color of springtime is in the flowers, the color of winter is in the imagination".  Ward Elliot Hour

Quotes from 2009

" So I saw there is nothing better than a man should enjoy his work, for that is his lot."     Ecclesiastes  3:22

" A life removed from the soil is one that quickly loses touch with reality.  And a culture with no agrarian context becomes arrogant in its cleverness, and loses its humility."        Joel Salatin

"There can be no doubt that a society rooted in the soil is more stable than one rooted in pavements."       Aldo Leopold

" I view the farmer who wants to leave the land in better shape when he leaves it to the next generation as the role model for civilization."   Charles Walters Jr.

" A hundred years after we are gone and forgotten, those who never heard of us will be living with the results of our actions."   Oliver Wendell Holmes 

New Location-4188 Irwin Simpson Rd, Mason

Saturdays, May-October

9:00am-Noon

Lebanon Farmer's Market

On St. Rt. 63. 1 block behind the Golden Lamb.

Thursdays, May-October

New Hours 3:00pm - 7:00pm

 Wyoming Farmer's Market

On Wyoming Avenue.

Tuesdays, May-October

3:00pm-7:00pm

 Madiera Farmers Market

Downtown Madiera

Thursday, May - October

3:00pm - 7:00pm

Click here to read or print  2011 Annual Newsletter

 The paperwork consists of documenting all purchased inputs, such as seeds sources, fertilizers, crop protection products, etc.  But, also going over planting dates, harvesting dates, yield records, receipts, sales records, and crop rotions to name a few.

 So after the inspector left and all paper work was put back, we sat and talked about the inspection. The question came up (again), why have we been certified for the past 11 years?  Why do we pay $600.00 dollars for an annual application fee?  Spend countless hours on applications and paper work?  Why do we search for products that are organically approved?  Is it for prestiege?  Bigger market share?  Precieved premium on price?  To save the planet?  And it seems this question is on our minds with the market season just ending.

 Since begining the market season in May, we have been asked this question by new and interested customers and potential new farmers. Why be certified? We have heard a similar question asked and answered repeatedly by other farmers selling at markets over the past 13 years. And that question is: Are you organic.?

 We can answer that question almost as well as the farmer who was asked the question " Are you organic? The answers are many: I only spray when needed, I was/or would be but the Goverment got involved, I only grow using organic methods, I only use a little bit of..., I don't want to do the paper work, My customers know how I farm so I don't need to, et. etc. etc.. Now there is an upscale newer market in Cincinnati where market managers claim their farmers use organic methods. What does that mean? If you plant a fungicidal treated GMO seed in soil is that considered an organic method?

 Please don't get us wrong, we know of friends and neighbors that are dedicated to growing organically and are not certified for their own reasons and we commend them for growing organically.  But why are we certified organic?

 We were organically growing for years before we became certified.  One day a certified organic friend of ours from Greene county asked us why don't you get certified?  Before we could answer he stated that he didn't make anymore money being certified, his customers already knew how he farmed and  he felt it was the right thing to do.

 We feel it is the right thing to do also.  We feel it has made us better farmers. We feel it encourages and supports other certified farmers to be it and not just claim it. It let's are children, neighbors, customers, and friends know that these are the standards we agree to follow and hopefully surpass. The rules are not perfect, but we feel only by being involved can we make them better..

 We enjoy answering the question "Why are you certified organic", better than the question "Are you organic"?