We're moving along with life. It's not easy, but it's life. The sight of the Kilby Cream Ice Cream delivery via the "freezer truck" helps. And what great ice cream - wait 'til you try "Mudslide" - cappuccino ice cream with fudge swirls and toffee pieces. Please keep it away from me...
Kilby Cream is one of those success stories that we hope to be reading more and more about - small farmers who are proactive in turning their family farm into a profitable enterprise while keeping it a real farm. We'd love to see more of that here in Kent County. Chesapeake Fields is a huge step in the right direction - and there are a few others making headway in the upper shore - but there's plenty of demand for more. While the cost of food makes big headlines - including the higher price of organic food sending customers toward conventional food - dealing locally helps more than that farmer you are buying from. It helps that farmer employ the neighborhood boy to mow the grass; it sends the farmer to the local feedstore (which employs the local father/wife/son/sister); the local feedstore buys hay from the nearby farm to sell to the dairy which produces cheese which is sold locally at the farmer's market where the stall is run by the daughter who uses the money to buy her grandmother a birthday gift at the local gift shoppe. It's an economic circle.
We have all been reading about the question of what should people spend their "tax rebate" on - should they save it, should they spend it? How can it be used as an "economic stimulus", which was the intent? May I suggest that the best use of that tax refund is to spend it locally - take it into your neighborhood and spend it where it stays put, where it will help your own community, not Annapolis or Dover or Washingon DC but locally owned businesses in Kent County Maryland. (am I on a soapbox here or what?) But truly, eating/shopping local is more than about food, it's about the economy itself. Now of course this leads to spending that tax relief at Brooks Tavern...hey, now there's a great idea!! Haven't I been saying, keep it local?
Kilby Cream is one of those success stories that we hope to be reading more and more about - small farmers who are proactive in turning their family farm into a profitable enterprise while keeping it a real farm. We'd love to see more of that here in Kent County. Chesapeake Fields is a huge step in the right direction - and there are a few others making headway in the upper shore - but there's plenty of demand for more. While the cost of food makes big headlines - including the higher price of organic food sending customers toward conventional food - dealing locally helps more than that farmer you are buying from. It helps that farmer employ the neighborhood boy to mow the grass; it sends the farmer to the local feedstore (which employs the local father/wife/son/sister); the local feedstore buys hay from the nearby farm to sell to the dairy which produces cheese which is sold locally at the farmer's market where the stall is run by the daughter who uses the money to buy her grandmother a birthday gift at the local gift shoppe. It's an economic circle.
We have all been reading about the question of what should people spend their "tax rebate" on - should they save it, should they spend it? How can it be used as an "economic stimulus", which was the intent? May I suggest that the best use of that tax refund is to spend it locally - take it into your neighborhood and spend it where it stays put, where it will help your own community, not Annapolis or Dover or Washingon DC but locally owned businesses in Kent County Maryland. (am I on a soapbox here or what?) But truly, eating/shopping local is more than about food, it's about the economy itself. Now of course this leads to spending that tax relief at Brooks Tavern...hey, now there's a great idea!! Haven't I been saying, keep it local?
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