This Week's Featured Market Vendor

From a family that has farmed for seven generations, Joan Potter knows the story of the continued progress which has led to the supermarket availability of most any food regardless of season. However, she welcomes a new "progress" which is moving us back to our agricultural roots. As her website attests: "People are learning that growing and buying food produced locally is far superior and more ecologically wise than buying food grown thousands of miles away."

Her family has been raising beef for over a hundred years. Choosing only the best of their calves, the Potters hand-feed and care for them in small groups, so as to observe each animal's health and performance. Raised on grass for most of their lives, they are moved to a large clean barn and barnyard for finishing. There, they are free to move from the barn to barnyard at will. Their finishing feed is a fresh and tasty custom mix of farm-grown silage, brewers' grain (hops and other byproducts of beer production) and pelleted corn.

Recently invited to the Botetourt Farmers' Market by market vendor and friend Amy Fenster, Joan has sold a wide variety of beef the last few Saturdays. More information is available at the farm website: http://www.buffalocreekbeef.com/. She can also be contacted at http://www.blogger.com/buffalocreekbeef@gmail.com.