I asked for eggs from a supermarket near our vacation cottage in Salisbury Beach, Massachusetts. The brand is Nature’s Promise (Trademark). The carton says, “Grade A. Naturally raised hens - no antibiotics, no synthetic hormones, and no synthetic pesticides.”

“Natures Promise (Trademark) products represent what nature intended — free from artificial ingredients to deliver true flavor, great taste and made with respect for the environment. Products you can trust for your family’s health and well being - naturally. That’s our promise to you.”

Like the eggs in the photo, these are a beautiful rich brown, evenly sized. They came encased in two layers of a fold-out clear plastic case bearing the information that it has been recycled once. And Please Recycle.

Here’s what also caught my eye: “We keep our birds under our wing, making sure they’re fed only natural grains.” That’s where the use of the word “natural” grated a bit too hard.

Chickens’ natural diets include a lot more than grain, and chickens’ natural habits are to roam around a bit, not stay “tucked under our wing,” except as chicks. Recently smart grass farmers have learned how to return chickens to their natural environment — pasture — and still give them places to get out of the weather, places to lay eggs and avoid predators.

The “chicken tractors” grass farmers invented now support the fine hens at my favorite certified organic farm, Elmwood Stock Farm in Scott County, Kentucky. Check out the photo - you’ll see chickens on grass with a small house handy, all enclosed in a sizable fence. The fence moves often, so the chickens get fresh pasture often. I’m no farmer, but I think the chicken tractors are a lot close to what nature intended than feeding hens completely on “natural” grains.

Last year on vacation we found farmers markets, farms, and vineyards all around us in the northeast tip of Massachusetts and nearby New Hampshire communities. We moved up from eating local corn and a few blueberries and tomatoes each summer to buying nearly all fruits and vegetables from local sources. Wonderful for us in both taste and nutrition — and also a small help to local farmers.

This summer we discovered that both Massachusetts and New Hampshire allow legal sales of real (fresh, unpasteurized) milk direct from dairy farms to customers. In situations like this, often each gallon produced already has an intended owner, but with two googling sessions and three emails, I connected to Cyndy Gray, owner of Just Dairy. Cyndy founded Just Dairy to deliver five participating farms’ milk to customer drop-off points in 14 cities and towns in eastern Massachusetts. Cyndy fixed me up with a three week standing order for three gallons of grass-based fresh milk, we worked out the arrangements for the first pick-up — and I have Robinson Farm yogurt underway in a makeshift incubator, right here at the beach, during vacation!

Much happiness. I surely did not want to have to give up my daily delicious low-temp home-cultured grass-fed antibiotic/hormone/chemical-free yogurt for three weeks. New systems like Cyndy’s delivery company are making for wider and more stable distribution of farmers’ wonderful foods to hungry and appreciative people like me.

I have never seen cherries like this year’s cherries. Sour Montmorency cherries, gallons of them even on small trees.

Here’s an experiment: a Flash slide show dedicated to my love of cherries.

In her tribute to Dad during his funeral service on June 16, 2008, my beautiful niece said “Gramps loved by doing.” In the picture at left, Dad is doing one of his favorite loving tasks — arranging flowers for his beloved church.

I took this picture in June, 2007, when Lisle V. Roberts — aka “Dad” or “Gramps” — was 95.5 years old. One year later he died peacefully at home, in a house where had lived for 86 of his 96 years.

I took a break from Savoring Kentucky starting May 29, 2008, because of Dad’s growing weakness. I will never want to take a break from Dad’s way of living, though. He had a wonderful time, right to the end, and that’s at least partly because he chose for his life to be wonderful.

I learned to love home-grown, home-cooked food, small farms, Kentucky’s beauty, and family from Dad and Mother. Dad spent all his life farming, gardening, and teaching others to farm and garden. In addition, he was a master cultivator of warm and loving relationships with his family, friends, work colleagues, and church community.

Known for his stature (short) and his humor (quick), Dad leaves many unforgettable lessons for his family and friends. The most important of those lessons: Love God, love and serve each other, make fun for others as often as possible, and never, ever worry.

I dedicate my ongoing work on Savoring Kentucky to Dad in gratitude for his life lessons, which I intend to keep on trying to learn! For starters, I’ve posted the Molasses Crinkles recipe that Dad made hundreds of times for the delight of grandchildren and other visitors. Mother gets the credit for finding this recipe in the first place, and for baking it often enough for family to fall in love with it. Dad, though, made Molasses Crinkles and Outrageous Chocolate Chip cookies as ongoing assurance that life is sweet. We put the Molasses Crinkles recipe on the little info card at Dad’s visitation, hoping the many visitors who took one of the cards might start Crinkles-as-love traditions of their own.

If you want to read a short version of Dad’s life story… Read the rest of this entry »