I Have THE Best Neighbors 

Don't these fresh picked onions look beautiful to you? They do to me.

I have THE BEST neighbors that anyone could ever ask for. Do you recall me writing about Randy who loves to garden? Randy is a hard working auto mechanic who loves to garden. He keeps up a large garden plot right behind his auto shop, along with fruit trees around the perimeter of his backyard. He and his wife, May, are the friendliest, laid back folks you would ever want for neighbors.

The other day, around lunch time, I heard a knock on my front door. When I opened it, there was Randy holding up these onions like they were a bouquet of roses. Fresh with dirt still clinging to the roots and warm from just being picked out of the earth.

I felt so blessed that he thinks to share the fruits of his garden with my family. Of course, I did reciprocate immediately with a jar of fresh apple butter I picked up from Ruth Macy at the folk festival last week. I'll tell ya about her later.

I used these onions to make Maggie's favorite pasta dinner, layered them on pizza, Charlie's favorite lunch soup, and finally my favorite pasta dish.

We are full into the season of fresh foods from the farmer's markets. If you don't have a gardener as a neighbor, I HIGHLY recommend exploring your local market. The best resource on the internet for finding farms, community supported agriculture (CSA), Co-op, and farmer's markets is LocalHarvest.org.

After exploring the LocalHarvest.org database, I learned my area had lots of family farms where I can buy fresh herbs, vegetables, fruits, goat cheese, butter, milk, fresh eggs from free range chickens, and grass fed meats. I'm just thrilled about all the opportunities around me.

Yes, I'm most likely going to pay more than I would at the large chain grocery store. However, I'll be helping to immediately support family farming, while serving up the freshest, healthiest foods to my family. That's worth it to me, don't you agree?