Some years ago, 500 miles to the north, I belonged to a little mission church, located by the intersection of County Road A and County Road H, in northern Wisconsin, about 40 miles west of Hayward, 40 miles north of Rice 1ake, and 60 miles south of Superior.

There was no town. “A and H” marked the center of activity for miles around: The Catholic and Lutheran churches, a small grocery store, an old-fashioned restaurant, where the town news is served with a farmer’s breakfast. And there is a social hall that majors in Bingo, county meetings, bridge and pinochle games, with the winners and losers mentioned in the town paper the following week.

Let’s not leave out the sports goods store, where fishermen, small and tall, carefully choose their bait with high hopes for a muskie or, at least, a northern. Most settle for a mess of crappies, or sun fish, which make for suppers fit for kings, queens and all other gentry.

Now, you may ask: What has this got to do with the morning’s news? Well, sort of everything, and nothing. There I was, sharing my coffee with the front page of The New York Times, when I came upon an article by Susan Saulny, telling that in Campton Township, Illinois, “people are skipping out on grocery stores, and even farmers markets and instead going right to the source by buying shares of farms.” It’s just like what Wisconsin gardeners do, but we’ll get to that later.

On one farm, the writer reports, about 35 miles west of Chicago, Steve Trisko was weeding beets the other day and cutting back a shade tree, so baby tomatoes could get sunlight. He is a retired computer consultant, who owns shares in the four-acre Erehwon Farm.

This movement, Saulny tells us, is called community supported agriculture, turning the old notion of share-croppping on its head. The concept was imported from Europe and Asia, in the 1980s, as an alternative marketing and financing arrangement to help combat the often prohibitive costs of small-scale farming. In the early 1990s, there were fewer than 100 such farms, now there are more than 1,500.

Saulny explains that the shareholders may visit the farms, but are not required to work. They are guaranteed a percentage of the season’s harvest of fruit and vegetables for packages that range from about $300 to $900. Also, they can arrange for fresh-cut flowers twice a month for an extra $l20 or $220 “to feed the soul.”

Many shareholders say they like to help the farmers. Mr. Trisko said that without such help, the small organic farm might go under. His entire family helps out with harvesting, watering, pulling weeds, whatever they need doing.

Farmers are paid an agreed-amount at the beginning of the season. The average share price is $500 to $800 a season. The states with the most farms are: New York, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and California. Some farmers are beginning to invest in raising organic beef, and their customers are growing.

With the 1,017 reported salmonella-related illnesses, organic farming assumes a new importance, a life-saving one, perhaps.

Around A and H, you will find garden plots, large and small. One morning, I began to muse about what they meant to us in our small community, and jotted down some ideas that morphed into an article: “Gardens for the Body and the spirit.” If you missed it the first time around, here it is again:

In the stillness of morning, we might stop by garden plots, be they large enough to demand a tractor’s work, or small enough for a simple hoeing job. There, we can throw off worries and find peace in the natural order of things.

With the proper sunshine, water and care, there will be radishes, lettuce, corn, potatoes, and tomatoes.

Children will walk through berry patches and come out with almost-empty bowls and purple lips. Their eyes will dance with delight at capturing fruit with their hands and tasting the sweetness in the sun’s gentle warmth.

Not a hint of anarchy pervades the garden. Docile carrots do not rise up and declare that they would much prefer to be growing above ground like the peppers, where they can watch the goings-on in the neighborhood.

And the patient peas humbly refrain from running across three rows to hob-nob with those juicy tomatoes.

The lowly onions don’t demand that they smell like Channel No. Five, nor that their futures would see more smiles than tears.

Be they Republicans or Democrats, Catholics or Baptists, sporting Gucci loafers or scruffy tennis shoes – all experience an immediate bond of friendship when discussing such crucial topics as rainfall, frost or fertilizer.

Did the couple down the road have trouble with their onions? Herman Brown can’t wait to get home to pull up a generous supply from his patch to share with them.

And did the deer rob Widow Lewis of her bean crop? Betty and John Smith will just happen to stop by with a bushel in their pick-up truck.

After Masses on Thursdays and Sundays, the parishoners set up tables outside church, where the congregation swells on weekends from the winter season’s 150 to summer’s 1,000. Here, they find a farmer’s market with a twist; the produce is free, offered with the light-hearted joy of sharing with friends and strangers alike.

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