My son is the father of two boys, and he shops at Costco for their food. A few food items that he buys lean toward being organic, but generally he purchases big boxes of non-organic stuff because the food is cheap.

I love my son and even understand where he is coming from, but I argue with him over how he feeds my grandsons. What are you really saving, I often ask him, if the food you are feeding your sons is not providing them with optimum nutrition?

I wasn't always as fully organic as I have become in the past few years. I knew there were certain foods, such as spinach, strawberries, apples, and raisins, that were subjected to heavy chemical abuse, so I selectively chose some organic produce over others. For instance, I didn't think it was as imperative to buy organic eggs or beef. But that was before my daughter moved back home and educated me. Now we are a totally organic home, down to our soaps and bathroom tissues. And yes, our food budget reflects the change as the amount of money that we spend moves skyward. So we eat less. But we eat very well. And as a side benefit, we've lost those extra pounds that were also unhealthy. Our food is so tasty, we no longer crave going out to eat. We've given in a few times, thinking we wanted someone else to cook for us, but we've come home terribly disappointed. Our food, because it's not only organic but also farm fresh, tastes so much better.

If, like my son, you think buying local organic produce is too expensive, maybe you're not looking at the whole picture. Maybe you need to consider the hidden costs of the cheap food you find in your favorite supermarket. I've already mentioned the obvious first cost—your health. But what about the health of the environment? Think about all the chemicals that have been poured into the ground to artificially augment the soil and the subsequent vegetables and fruits that are grown. Those chemicals will eventually deplete the soil, turning America's farmland into a desert. Then the chemical residue will make its way to our rivers and wells, spoiling our water supply.

But you already know this. You've read about it or heard about it before. This is not news, my son's rolling eyes tell me when I begin to spew. And besides, there remains the problem of the tight budget.  But is that budget really as tight as you think? I know that my son believes that his budget is too tight to afford an all organic diet.  And yet he takes his boys to restaurants when he is too pressed for time to fix dinner. I also know that twice a month, he takes them out for movies and popcorn at about $45 a pop. He buys his sons expensive items such iPod Touches and Kindle Fires and $150 Lego kits, not to mention the many $50 Wii and Xbox video games. So it's not really an issue of budget, is it. It's more an issue of priorities.

We are creatures of habit. But we are also creatures who know how to adjust. Once priorities are established, we get used to the higher food bill and make sacrifices in other areas of our lives. And I've found, after changing my food purchasing priorities, that I have not really sacrificed much that really mattered. I'm healthier now. I enjoy life more than I used to because I have greater energy and more peace of mind. Now, if I could only convince my son to adjust.

If you want to learn more about the hidden costs of cheap food, here are some interesting articles you might want to read: 1) from Huffington Post  2) from YES! Magazine.  And if you see my son, could you suggest that he read them, too?

This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar.

Guess most of you have heard of the tale of the farmer and the huge turnip. How he plants his turnip and it grows so well that when it comes time to harvest, he cannot get it out of the earth no matter how hard he tries. So he enlists his wife, who wraps her arms around his waist and together they pull. No success yet. So they call their son, and that doesn't work. Next his daughters join them and still the turnip does not budge. The story goes on down the line and includes neighbors, their goats, dogs, and geese. But not until a tiny little mouse joins the end of the line and they all give the final tug does the enormous turnip appear. And that's when they all join in and enjoy the feast. The silly mouse, of course, takes all the credit.

Well our story is starting to sound like this.

The HFP group has planted the seed, and the concept of the farm has started to grow. It's growing fast and it's growing big. Too big for the initial members to handle all by themselves. So it's time for this all important message:  We need your help!

In the next two weeks, we will be sending out our second newsletter. In the newsletter we will detail the type of help we need. We'll also list everything we have accomplished so far, what the status on the farm project is, and where we see the project heading.

If you received our first newsletter, it means you're on our mailing list. If you didn't receive the first one, all you have to do is sign up. Click here and you'll be taken to a sign-up sheet. Do this as soon as you can, so we can add you to our list.

This is an exciting time for the project. It's time to harvest the "big turnip." There's still a lot of work to do.  We have a lot of decisions still to make. And by working together, we should be able to pull the bounty out of the ground and eventually reap our own feast.

But as we've been saying: We can't do this by ourselves. All along, the idea has been that this is a community project.  Now it's time for the community to become involved.  So don't forget to sign up!

There's a lone coyote that I've seen on the farm during the day. A beautiful animal with a thick, dark, healthy coat and a bushy tail. It's unusual to actually see a coyote, though they're often heard howling at night. In the six years I've lived here, I've enjoyed only five sightings. All during the day. Always just a loner.

Last Thursday, some of us from the Hansville Farm Project met with a group of Kitsap County officials. They came to tour the farm, to see the property we've been talking about. As we walked to an open field where the pump house for a water well was located, I pointed out to one of the commissioners that I'd seen a lone coyote in this spot not too long ago.

"Probably a scout," she said.

Then I told her about how busy some of the nights have been--busy with the howls of the pack. There have been times when it sounds like twenty coyotes are up all night singing.

"They might be calling out," the commissioner said, "announcing something like 'Dinner's ready! Come and get it!"

This morning I was thinking about those comments about the coyotes and relating to the actions of the pack--sending out scouts and later celebrating and sharing the bounty. In some ways, that's what we're doing too.

We're in the scouting phase for now. We've got "loners" out in the field, testing the soil, researching water rights, getting the word out, collecting responses, and gathering ideas and support. Like the coyote scouts, we're going through these motions alone but our minds are focused on the needs of the pack, or in our vernacular, the needs of the community.

But also like the coyotes, soon we hope to be calling out, singing our howls of celebration, once we see those crops come in, the full bounty of our community efforts. We'll be standing in the fields, broad smiles on our faces, throwing our heads back and howling out, "The strawberries are ready! Come and get them!"

There are several ways to teach respect.

We can talk about it, like when my eight-year-old grandson first learned, the other day, that one way to fend off slugs was to sprinkle salt on them. "It's cool," he told me, after first doing this. I forgot to ask him where he'd learned to do this, but I did remind him that a slug was a living creature. I also told him that although it might have fascinated him to watch the slug "melt" through the chemical reaction between the salt crystals and the slug's water-bound body, it wasn't "cool" to kill something just for the fun of it. 

I'm not sure if I convinced him or not.

Another way to teach respect is to demonstrate superior strength or power over someone or something. This works, sometimes. Until you turn your back. Or until the other person returns with a more powerful weapon. My dog has been swiped a time or two with cat nails, but, as yet, this hasn't stopped my dog from chasing my son's cat whenever she gets the chance. She doesn't have nails as sharp as the cat, but she figures her teeth are bigger and her bark is scary. And if the cat makes the mistake of turning tail and trying to run away, that cat better be fast.

But we all know that the way to teach real, long-lasting respect is to demonstrate it. To respect one another. To respect all life. 

And to respect the property of others.

I walked the farmland this past Tuesday afternoon, a day when the air was warm, the skies were clear, and the fields were finally responding to both. Where brown had been the dominant color all winter and most of the spring, tones of yellows, blues, reds, and a hundred shades of green had been added to the pallet. 

So had some other colors been added, but these colors had not been added by nature. Well not the same kind of nature. No, these other colors had been added out of mischief, at best. Out of disrespect, at the other end of the spectrum. These other colors had come from cans of spray paint, spread on the sides of all the buildings on the farm.

I have to admit that in my youth, I turned over a few garbage cans. So I understand the need to sometimes work out one's emotions at someone else's expense. I now regret what I did as a child. Those trash cans belonged to my neighbors--people I had to see every day. Someone had to clean up the mess, and it wasn't me.  

But now it hurts to see the expression of emotions worked out through mischief, especially on the farmland. I'm older and look at things differently. But it's more than that. Here is a piece of land upon which we're trying to build a community dream. A place for us to come together, to learn more about one another, to help others in need. To heal ourselves. Nourish our families. To learn. I guess the pain comes from seeing that someone doesn't understand that. That someone doesn't respect that underlying dream.

When I walk the land, besides enjoying the scenery and quiet, I imagine the good that can come from the farm. That image was tarnished a bit on Tuesday. I have to admit the graffiti made me angry. I wanted to catch the kids who did it. I wanted to yell at them. Shame them. Call the cops on them. I was feeling a bit like the cat in battle with the dog.

After I calmed down, I acknowledged that wouldn't help them learn. That wouldn't make them understand what it means to respect the things around them, the people they live with in the community, the world that nurtures them. My yelling wouldn't help bring about the dream.

But help me, neighbors. How will they learn? And who's going to teach them?