One of the best parts of this process is the re-learning of good, healthy eating habits, and acquainting myself again with all the abundant locally grown, fresh vegetables and fruits I have to choose from right now.

It is SO easy to eat well in the summer… especially if you have the choice of visiting local farmstands or shopping at your local farmer’s market – which I do.

My refrigerator is bursting with fresh lettuce, baby spinach, sweet little carrots, beets, onions, fresh basil, new potatoes (I know.  They “aren’t supposed to be on the Paleo diet,” but they are too enticing to pass up.  I’ll eat them sparingly.), cucumbers, radishes, baby zucchini, and artichokes!

Yep. Artichokes.  I live on an island in Maine, and thanks to Eliot Coleman and his crew at Four Season Farm, we have young artichokes, fresh from the field in early July!

I also still have fresh local strawberries in there, although I think they are the end of the crop for this year.  Ive heard rumors that wild Maine blueberries are ripe in the fields, as well as raspberries, so I don’t feel too bad about the end of strawberry season…

I’m able to purchase locally raised, hormone free, pastured chicken, beef, pork, and lamb, as well as amazing eggs from a number of small farms.

Last night’s dinner was grilled, locally raised hamburg, grilled zucchini, steamed new potatoes with a drizzle of olive oil cracked black pepper and sea salt.  And this was breakfast – with some of the leftover potatoes, fresh scrambled eggs…

“I am suffering from an elegant sufficiency,” as a friend sometimes says…

Speaking of locally-raised meats, last week my dad came up for a few days and helped me seed some oats and peas for our pigs to graze on later this season and set up the pig pen that we’ll put them in when they arrive, possibly later this month. We also hauled compost from our neighbors’ cattle farm (Randy & Kathi Wolf) and spread it on the fields where our early crops will be, then disked it in.

Until the pigs are relocated, my mom has been staying home to take care of them when my dad comes up to help and she took these videos last week; I just haven’t gotten around to posting them until now. The piglets were weaned this weekend and are doing well, my parents reported. They’re probably much bigger already than they were when these videos were taken. My parents said the pigs want to be outside all the time, so they’ll probably be very happy on pasture at Stone’s Throw Farm . . . assuming these freezing nights end soon!