The Farmer

Small farms are to you what Wal-Mart and Whole Foods are not; small farms raise the produce they sell. This small farm raises sheep; and you can be this shepherd's confidante. A shepherd knows when his sheep were born, what they ate and where they lived their lives.

And what I assume you shall assume —Walt Whitman

The assumption you share with your farmer is a provenance. Neither supermarket labeling nor government certification can better assure you about how the sheep were raised than by asking the shepherd who raised them.

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Once upon a time, I owned a gallery in San Francisco selling works by Picasso, later I lived in Paris eating well and drinking good wine, then I settled in New York with a flock of sheep to be outstanding in my field with Poem and live happily ever after.