As a tax-paying adult, anything that requires my money generally is “too expensive.” Gas. Cell phone plans. Taxes. Insurance. New minivans. Taxes. Our children’s future college education. (Shudder.)

Last week was my reminder that food should NOT be among them. It was Food Checkout Week – the week when an average family of four like mine earned enough money since Jan. 1 to pay for a year’s worth of food. We as Americans spend less of our disposable income on food than any other country in the world. And fewer than 2 percent of Americans produce it!

In other words, our food is the most affordable on earth in part because of the productivity of farmers and ranchers. That puts my grocery bill in perspective.

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I was standing at the Farm King checkout, waiting for my husband to pay for our Plan B attack on a mounding mole problem, when a farm magazine with colorful cauliflower on the cover persuaded me to pick it up. No grocery store tabloid tempts me to the point of touching, but I’m a sucker for anything about farms and gardening.

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Most of my personal belongings have been in a livestock trailer while Grandpa’s cattle were still grazing the back pasture. Our couch, kitchen table, sock drawer and bath linens a couple times traveled in the vented shelter of a trailer designed to haul pigs and cattle.

One of the coolest things about living or working on a farm is access to stuff. A backhoe to plant trees in our yard. A flatbed trailer to haul lumber for a house project. Farmers are known to give equipment multiple roles on the farm. As a child, Mom swam in a large, round livestock water tank, which served the cattle when she and her brothers were done with it. Old tractor tires became sandboxes. The hayrack was a float in the homecoming parade. We even used the machine shed for our wedding reception.
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My 5-year-old daughter couldn’t wait to get off the bus recently and head to the corn field our family was harvesting. In fact, after a quick hug, she asked me to confirm our evening plans in the field and bounced with joy at the affirmative response.

Specifically, she loves to eat supper in the field. It’s her all-around favorite place to dine, trumping Grandma’s house and the nearby sandwich shop with arcade games. In fact, she will have her sixth birthday party in a corn or soybean field this week.

Greetings from west-central Illinois, where we grow corn and soybeans about a three-hour drive from Chicago. Also on some of my family’s farms you’ll find wheat, hay, cattle, pigs, a few barn cats and farm dogs. Corn and soybeans generate our household farm income and makes a living for my parents and brother.
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