Around 100 people joined us for a sunny day of touring the farm, listening to music, taste testing our lamb and turkey, cider pressing, and most importantly hearing from our three speakers all talking about the the local food movement, and government crackdowns on buying clubs and raw milk, food choice and food sovereignty. The farm store was open and customers were able to purchase our full range of fiber products and produce.
Our first speaker at our Open Farm Day was David Gumpert . . . I am so honored that he was a guest on our farm. I discovered David's blog: The Complete Patient . .http://www.thecompletepatient.com., over five years ago. I wanted to know what the big deal was about drinking raw milk since we had just started drinking raw milk from a nearby farm. Our son was thriving on it and I just loved the taste . . . so much different from pasteurized milk. Our family has enjoyed very good health from drinking raw milk . . .I began posting on David's blog a few years ago and promised him a lamb dinner if he ever decided to visit our farm . . . as it turned out this year I was planning on having our open farm day the weekend of his visit so I asked him to speak at our event. Here is David's Bio:
"David E. Gumpert reports and writes about health and food issues. He writes for a number of online publications, including Grist.org and Huffington Post. He is the author of The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America’s Emerging Battle Over Food Rights, which includes a preface by Joel Salatin. His popular blog, The Complete Patient (www.thecompletepatient.com), has over the last five years aggressively covered a number of health and food rights issues, focusing heavily on regulatory excesses involving raw milk and food safety. It has been instrumental in launching a national discussion about restrictions on the availability of unpasteurized dairy products, and in highlighting an emerging debate over food rights."
David's speech was the highlight of our day . . .
Next up as speaker was Scott D'Amboise who is running for US Senate against Olympia Snowe. Scott and his wife have become very good friends. We gave them some of our chicks to start their own backyard flock a few months ago . . . Scott comes from a farm background and I know that he will be the next US Senator for Maine:) All of us farmers and independent minded Mainers must get behind his campaign . . .he is a real person . . . we know that all his hard work will pay off and that Scott will be the first US Senator with a backyard flock of chickens for many generations . . .
Bob St. Peter was our final speaker . . he is the head of "Food for Maine's Future". . . . and is a leader of the food sovereignty movement in Maine. Bob and other farmers were instrumental in the passing of Local Food Ordinances in Hancock County. I am hoping that this movement will take off . . . if we get over 50% of Maine towns adopting this ordinance . . . the state will have to listen to us! Bob is a small sustainable farmer like we are and Mark and I hope to visit Hancock county soon for a promised Farm Tour.
A Maine Seafood Paella dinner rounded out our day. We hope to do our Open Farm Day again next year. . . .
Buy local . . . eat well . . . .
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