Today is always a somber day for me.

For most, it’s just another day as they warm up for Memorial Day.

But for me and my family?

It’s the day the KY HD - most likely under pressure from the feds - raided the buying club I started in Louisville, KY and threatened me with significant fines and jail for… making it so my family and my neighbor’s families could access incredibly “dangerous” things like… eggs and milk straight from local farmers.

It was a day where all I had seen and heard about the government not just harassing, but going after farmers and local foods folks with real teeth begin all too real.

It was one of a handful of days that reshaped not just my life, but myself.

To sit in a room in my house, and hear my wife reading to my at the time three very small children and decide will I run the gambit and risk jail and poverty against the indefatigable might and resources of the state and federal government?

Be separated from my family for an unknown amount of time? Have to hope and rely on others to support us if things go sideways?



Or would I be a hypocrite - all talk about how bad this or that is, how wrong it is, how the government is so out of control and doing so many unconstitutional and immoral things… and then when finally presented the opportunity to right a wrong, balk because it came with risk.

For myself (John) and Joel, moments like these are at the heart of Rogue.

No family should lose a father because they have the audacity to feed their community like folks did for thousands of years until the FDuhA came along.

No farmer should fear a midnight raid or ink poured into their bulk tank because their neighbors want real milk.

No consumer should have to engage in more work than the hunters and foragers of old to access real food directly from farmer's and artisans.

It's why we started Rogue.

Not because we are there today.

But together, one day - and sooner than many think - we can be.

We can do what the Patterson's have done in Utah... or Senator Frank Nicely in Tennessee, or Vernon Hershberger in Wisconsin... or what hundreds of others have done.

Together.

So let's celebrate this weekend... and then, let's get to work.

John

You can snag tickets to our August event at Polyface with Dr. Eric Berg, NFL champion turned farmer and state legislation Hunter Smith, David Stelzer founder of Azure standard, along with four meals this go, including a special Friday night bonfire and hotdog shindig.

Get your tickets to our August Polyface Rogue event here!