I participated in the viral 30 Days of Thanks that people were doing on Facebook.  I liked the inspiration of seeing what my friends were thankful for and the challenge to find something every single day in my own life to be thankful.  Of course we are all thankful for our families and our health, but the 30 days let us get a little silly.  “I’m thankful for owning a vineyard….for the obvious reasons,” one friend wrote.  Or even my own “I’m thankful for pony noses” while I was spending some time in the barn.  We also were serious:  “I’m thankful for the power of prayer.”  “I’m thankful for the right to vote.”  “I’m thankful for all who serve.”  It was when I wrote my own “I’m thankful for my husband who goes to work EARLY in the morning so we can have good health insurance,” that I realized we were maybe missing the boat a bit on the thankfulness.  I realized, after I posted, that I hadn’t actually said those words to HIM.   In fact, I should say it every day. 

I’m hoping that our 30 Days of Thanks has put us in a habit of thinking about what we are thankful for every day, and now let’s go out and be ACTUALLY thankful instead of VIRTUALLY thankful.  Tell people every day:  your family, your friends, strangers.  Do something nice to show your thanks.  And that will put us all in the holiday spirit more than any shopping trip or holiday party ever could.

Hopefully your CSA deliveries have started (or will start soon), or you’ve committed to heading to one of the local Farmer’s Markets this growing season (now that there’s one in Simsbury, Granby and East Granby).   You’ll walk around and look over whose produce looks the best, decide which cut of meat you’d like to cook and make your decisions about what to buy based on looks, mostly.  But what do you know about the farm you’re buying from?  What are their farming practices?  Being right there at the Farmer’s Market or CSA pickup gives you access to the farmer that you can never get in the grocery store.  Take advantage of that!  Get to know your farmer for your benefit and for theirs.  Farmers love to talk “shop” and are usually happy to answer your questions.  When I see someone at our farm store, I’m happy to take a couple of minutes to show them around so they can see how our animals live and what they eat.   You may want to know, how do they grow their vegetables?  What kind of herbicides or pesticides do they use, if any?  How many of their fields do they rest in a year?  How do they care for their animals?  What do they get fed?  Find out from the farmer, are there items that don’t sell as well as others?  How can I cook something I’m not sure about?  Click here for more questions to ask.  Get a dialog going!  And then spread the information you learned to help other people decide to shop for locally grown, nutritious, well-produced food that’s grown right here, by your neighbors.