Visiting a Family Farm in Rural Nebraska

Going to the source of our food is something I love to do with my kids.  We are blessed to live in a town with an abundance of farmers markets; there we can meet hardworking folks who produce food for our table.  One farming family we've gotten to know sells natural meats, with an emphasis on lamb.  We've ordered half a lamb in autumns past, but we love to eat lamb so much that we ordered a whole lamb this year.

Although we've been wanting to see the farm where our lamb comes from, its location, two hours away from the city where we live, made it hard to get there.  Yet providentially, we were going to be passing near the farm on our way back home from Kansas City this week.    So we called up, got directions, and found ourselves tooling along a dusty gravel road until we reached the farmhouse and neighboring store.  Here is the store:

It's an old country schoolhouse that's been moved and renovated by the owners of the farm.  I found out during our visit that the farmer's grandmother had attended this one-room schoohouse back in her day.

Kittens galore!

A few minutes after we arrived, we were met by a couple of the children.  They were clad in rubber work boots and chatted with us until their father made it up the hill.   The two of them carried our meat out to our minivan and then showed us around the farmyard.

A working pitchfork

My children enjoyed feeding the pet lambs.  The main flock was out in the pasture.

Geese and several other kinds of birds scooted away from us as we approached.

Teaching our children the importance of a good work ethic has been a big focus and challenge in our home lately. While they enjoyed the animals, I think it was even more valuable for them to see kids who were busy with lots of daily chore responsibilities.

We also want our children to understand and appreciate that what we eat takes a quite a bit of work to produce.  It is not just a matter of plopping items into a grocery cart!

While we can't afford to buy the best of everything, certain items, like ethical meats, I believe are worth the extra cost.  Furthermore, getting to see where our food comes from gives us both an education and greater peace of mind as we navigate the many choices involved in raising a family.