Blog — Farm Life

I remember the first time I set up a farmers' market booth. It was May 2008, and the St. Matthews Farmers' Market at Beargrass Christian Church was in its second season. Looking back, I wasn’t just starting a business; I was beginning to shape my life’s work.

Some stories of stewardship begin with the land. This one begins with a dinner, a chuck roast, and a mother who believed she had found the right woman for her son.

The menacing table grapes depicted on the front of The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan haunted me, yet within the week, I’d read the entire thing. Pouring over its pages, I wondered why I had never thought about where my food comes from. I thought all cows happily ate grass out on a pasture their whole life. It never occurred to me that they were being shipped all over the country, shoved in confined feed lots, and being treated with disgrace so that we could consume endless amounts of hamburgers. 

In 1930, a mosaic of agriculture surrounded the dairy at Foxhollow Farm. Tended by a tenant farming family of the 20th century, their land-management approach was a synergistic one.