I think the first time I visited a farm I was an adult. Maybe I did as a child but I don’t remember. Like you, I’ve driven by hundreds, maybe thousands of farms. To be on a farm, to walk the lane, talk to the farmer, step inside the barn or barns, to climb up on the equipment, well that’s a very different thing.

Most of us probably don’t think much about where the food comes from. How did that cheese become cheese? Where did the bacon come from? Who grew the corn?

My grandmother in Niagara Falls lived across the street from an orchard. Peaches, apples, pears grew there and I remember with my uncle Jim, climbing the fence to walk through the trees. Sometimes we might pick a pear or peach to enjoy in the warmth of a summer day. Now houses cover that area, and in fact, we visited friends once who lived there and as I got out of the car in front of their house I suddenly said, “I’ve been here before”. I remembered the area, though no trees were left.

I wonder if that’s why I like gardening so much. To see how the land produces food is a wonder to me. In the winter I look forward to the moment that the seeds go into the soil and the miracle begins. In the spring as those young plants go to the garden I anticipate what will become of the plants – not all survive or thrive.

Those long ago days of walking through an orchard across the street from The Eastlands is gone but the joy of watching seed become fruit has not.