“Years ago, when I went out to my new chicken house and found the very first freshly laid egg, I stared at it in awe. “How did that hen DO that?” I wondered. She takes in grain and bugs and kitchen scraps and turns then into an EGG! Shell on the outside, white and yolk on the inside, all proper and perfect. Under the right conditions (or hen) that egg could even become a CHICK! Just amazing!

I still think every egg is a miracle, though they appear on our farm by the dozen every day. Our leading-edge chemists are miles from being able to convert cracked corn and cabbage leaves into an egg, much less a chick. The biotech biz can’t make grass into wool and lambs either, though my sheep, which were not at all smart, used to do it with great reliability.

I shouldn’t have been surprised at how GOOD fresh, sweet, organic milk is. After all, once I tasted fresh organic eggs I never went back to supermarket ones. The same goes for vegetables and fruits out of the garden. But somehow I thought milk was milk was milk. So I have just learned one more time what we give up in taste and quality for the dubious privilege of living far away from the sources of our increasingly industrialized food.

Up to a month ago I had only the vaguest idea how milk becomes cheese—though this age-old art was once practiced in most rural households.

You heat milk gently in a stainless steel vat and stir in a magical lactobacillus that turns the milk sugar lactose into lactic acid. You monitor the acidity of the mix to follow the bugs’ working. At just the right moment you add rennet, which congeals the curds.

For butter, I start with two gallons of milk and scoop off the top layer of wonderful, thick cream. The cream goes into a hand-cranked churn. After 20 minutes of lackadaisical cranking (I read a book while I do it), the paddles hang up on a half pound of golden butter. I pour off three cups of surrounding liquid, which, kids, is called buttermilk. Great for biscuits of pancakes.

And, with the whey from the cheesemaking, our refrigerator is well stocked. (Lasagna, blintzes, cheesecake!) I take leftover whey out to the chickens, who slurp it up contentedly. It’s full of nutrients that flow into the eggs. The composted chicken and cow manure go to the garden to flow into the vegetables.

Simple miracles. Satisfying work, like baking bread or building a shelf. Fresh, delicious food. Nutrient cycles closed right at hand. Health for land and people. Sometimes I wonder, with all our supposed progress, what we’re rushing toward and what we’re leaving behind.

 –Excerpt from The Global Citizen, January 25, 2001