Today I’m proud to introduce MRS, who will be providing regular blog posts on “Gate to Plate” from a rural mother’s perspective. She loves to share stories about “Baby Blue” and is perplexed by the amount of “dirt” that’s out there about food. Let us know what you think! ~ Michele

I started following Michele’s blog a little over a year ago. During the course of that time, the information Michele has presented has challenged my thoughts about how food is grown, harvested and marketed to me, the consumer. So when she asked me if I would be interested in posting regular blogs, from a mom’s perspective, I was very excited, even eager to start.

You see, the topic of food is very important to my family.

My husband grew up on a farm and continues to work for his dad part-time, helping on the farm during planting and harvest. As my father-in-law nears retirement, we have been talking about taking over the family farm. As it currently stands, there isn’t enough ground to support two families full time, so working out the details of taking over the daily operations has been difficult and is not yet ironed out. So someday, we’ll be farmers, I’ll be a farmer’s wife (whoa!) and we’ll have lots of decisions to make regarding how we choose to farm.

Blue Eats Spaghetti!

In addition to that, we have a 10-month-old little boy who loves to eat. In fact, it might be his favorite thing to do! As Blue has learned to crawl and explores our home, he finds new things to eat everywhere he goes. A dead bug on the floor, leftover popcorn from my husband’s snack the night before, dog food at the baby sitter’s, etc. Obviously, it is very important to us that our baby boy eats healthy foods and has a well balanced diet; after all, little boys cannot survive on dirt alone (although they might argue otherwise)! We attempt to balance out the diet of dirt and bugs with plenty of fruits, vegetables and meats as well as continuing to breastfeed him.  Blue has LOVED trying all of the new foods we’ve offered and can sometimes out eat his 5-year-old cousin!

I’m looking forward to using this blog as an opportunity to learn more about where our food comes from, how it’s grown and harvested so I can make informed decisions regarding the foods my family eats. Because my goal, as a mom, is to raise a healthy child and a very important part of that are the foods we eat!

~Guest Post by MRS