brookside farm.  gardiner, new york.

deciding where to start this story is difficult due to the circular workings of the subject.  in the same spirit of holistic medicine, a properly managed farm views problems and solutions as a whole—each element intricately connected to another (sometimes in unknown ways).  one output, or one problem, is another input, or another solution.  there is no start and there is no end—there simply is.

brookside farm near new paltz, ny, is a living example. the question i ask, is where on this whole do i begin?  do i start by praising the thick cut bacon i’ve cooked up not once, not twice, but thrice since i returned from the farm saturday night?  although i’ll admit, this sounds like starting at the end.

do I describe the intensive rotational pasture management which yielded this pork?  cows grazing on fresh pastures followed closely by insect hunting chickens, to spread the manure, and finished by the foragers of the barnyard, hungry piggies searching for hidden gems and roots?

do i describe the egg mobile—the bottomless chicken house on wheels that not only allows the chickens to follow the cows, but constantly provides free fertilizer to the pasture?

in fact, the only thing that does have a finite beginning and end is the sycoff families’ property line.   a nervous i and a trembling her discovered it the hard way when we found ourselves staring down the wrong end of a hunter’s rifle.  woops.  stupid city folk.  move along now, back the way you came.

this farm, as refreshing and brilliant as i find it to be, may sound familiar to you if you have seen food inc or read omnivore’s dilemma lately.  grass guru joel salatin, author of several books i’m currently knee deep in, has been perfecting and preaching the grass gospel for years on years.

the gist?  create designer grade real food in a way that  not only treats the animals humanely by providing a natural life—you never see fifteen hundred wild hogs (in)voluntarily laying down on shit covered slabs of concrete in nature—but nourishes the land, leaving it better off and more fruitful for generations to come.  honor versus disrespect.  enable versus disable.  support versus destroy.

although it sounds like a pipe dream, the best part is that it’s already a reality.