Our foray into organic food had become a lifestyle. This is NOT an exaggeration. In our area, to purchase all of the organic food we eat we have to visit: (1) Co-Op, (2) Natural Food Stores, (3) Super Markets, (2) Wal-Marts, (1) Target, and (1) Fresh Market.

It takes 8 hours of shopping to accomplish this. It became such a time burden we knew something had to change.

This was the driving factor behind our property selection.

We sat down and started to identify what we wanted to accomplish and how we would get there. Here's a brief list of those criteria:

1) Food independence. The food system in the US is fragile and dependent on fossil fuel transportation. The average meal travels over 1800 miles before it makes it to your table.

2) Food safety. I can talk for hours about food safety, but for the sake of my sanity suffice to say we don't believe in: GMOs, petrol-chemical fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, irradiation, or preservatives. We also don't believe in processed foods or foods containing artificial flavors, colors, or additives.

3) Water safety. Municipal water supplies are filled with biological waste, FLUORIDE (the Nazi's were the first people to use this as a pacifying agent...), residual chemicals and pharmaceuticals. Think about all of the Round-Up run off that goes into your water system.

4) Financial Freedom. We were down to just our mortgage, but we wanted a smaller house that could be quickly paid of so I could retire earlier (and work on our farm together).

5) Breathing Room. We didn't want noisy neighbors watching everything we did. At our sub-division house it took 2x longer to complete a task because every busy body had to stop and ask why we were planting a Cherry tree.