One of Maryhope's "great relationship triumphs" was bringing bacon into Ethan's life. But can she find meat that is sustainably raised in Massachusetts? Join her on a search for local chickens and pigs.

The more time we put into this project, the easier it gets. Ethan and I have had several self-congratulatory moments of realizing that we are actually becoming more conscious of what we're doing, and it's starting to feel less effortful. We notice how much trash we're creating and have managed to cut the volume. We check to make sure our computers and other appliances are unplugged before we leave the house.

One big surprise for me is that I am beginning to think Ethan may actually be more conscientious than I am. He's always hated any "hippie mumbo-jumbo," and I have been the one suggesting that we buy organic milk. Last Thanksgiving, he rolled his eyes at me for ordering our turkey from the food co-op in Minneapolis instead of from the regular old supermarket, calling me a food snob. But now he's the one who refuses to let us take a grocery bag at the register even if we're overloaded with stuff, and I've heard him curse himself in the bathroom for flushing on reflex. I have to admit that I always thought I would be the one leading the eco-crusade.

One activity, though, that continues to makes us feel as though we're swimming against the current is the purchasing of food-or, more specifically, meat. Neither of us is a vegetarian, nor do we have any intention of ever going vegetarian. But meat-locally raised and butchered meat-has been hard to find here. When I lived in Brooklyn, NY, this was not a problem. At the farmers market, there was always an impressive array of various meats, as well as stiff competition to get the cuts you wanted. This is not so in South Dartmouth, MA, and after a little research, I'm beginning to wonder if the only way to truly eat local around here (and possibly in many areas of the country) is to become a vegetarian. Not that there's anything wrong with being a vegetarian; it's just that I'm not one.

First, I looked for chicken. On the website of the Southeastern Massachusetts Agricultural Partnership (SEMAP), I found Forbidden Fruit Farm (sexy!), which claimed to sell poultry. I called and was told that, yes, the farm sells chickens. Whole chickens, available in October. While whole chickens wouldn't be a problem, waiting until October would be. I moved on to the only other nearby poultry-selling establishment on the SEMAP website, Silverbrook Farm, and got the same answer.

Despite my trials with chicken, I was still hopeful. I moved on to bacon. I consider it one of my great relationship triumphs to have brought bacon into Ethan's life. And we hadn't had it once since we started living together. I called Triple S Farm in Westport-the only farm, according to SEMAP, that raises and sells pork in the area. My side of the conversation went something like this: "I'm kind of new to the whole buying local thing, and I'm looking for somewhere to get bacon....Only whole pigs? Available...in two months?!" There was more. It would be $175 for the pig and an extra $100 to slaughter it. As someone who's used to buying her bacon in a neat plastic-wrapped package, I couldn't have been less prepared for this idea, or more surprised.

I asked Darren, the farmer I spoke with, who his usual customers are. "Mainly restaurants, a few 'eat local' folks like yourself, who tend to split it with other people," he said. After the shock of imagining myself walking to the car with a whole hog on my shoulders, I calculated that, based on what the farmer told me, the price was reasonable. A 200-pound pig would yield about fifty pounds of meat, at about $5 per pound. For it to work, however, we'd need a meat locker, $275 for a whole pig, and an insatiable desire for all kinds of pork. Sadly, we really wanted just bacon. Not to mention the fact that we'd have to wait two months for it.

I wasn't ready to give up, though, so I expanded my search radius by another 50 miles. I found Moosup River Farm, which sells beef and pork by the cut for about $4 per pound. Even though the farm is over an hour's drive away-not exactly convenient or good for our carbon footprint-I called. Moosup was out of bacon, too. The person I spoke with explained that there simply isn't that much bacon in a pig, so the limited supply runs out early in the season. (As far as I'm concerned, pigs should be made entirely of bacon.) It was finally sinking in that meat from local farms really isn't available on demand, at any point in the year. Suddenly, those wonderful images of spring-baby lambs frolicking in fields of flowers-made sense to me. If the animals are born in the spring, of course they aren't available for slaughter until months later. It clicked that I had grown used to a way of eating that was incredibly convenient but distinctly out of sync with nature.

During my second phone call for chicken, Andy at Silverbrook Farm had explained that there are two major obstacles facing farmers (and thus consumers) on the hunt for meat. In addition to the seasonal restrictions, the regulations for slaughtering and meatpacking make it prohibitively expensive for most farms to sell cut meat on a small scale. He also said that southeastern New England doesn't yet have the consumer base necessary to make it cost-effective. In other words: If we want to eat truly local, it means no meat. Or, at the very least, it means driving pretty far to get it. We can still go to Whole Foods to buy some organic free-range chicken, but when you consider that 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide is generated by the international meat industry, it makes buying meat from anywhere except a local farm seem like a demoralizing and losing proposition. Plus, the more I read about the nature of the meatpacking industry in books like Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation, the more I understand how being a vegetarian can be not only a dietary choice but also a political one. Does that mean I'm going to stop eating meat? Probably not. But we've pledged to eat less of it and buy local whenever we can. I'm sure our bodies will thank us for cutting back on the bacon.

Even though Ethan and I realize that it's a little late in the game for us to be able to eat local meat reliably this summer, the great news is that it turns out that eating local meat isn't a whole lot more expensive. As with the rest of eating local, it just takes some planning and organization. And we have promised each other that we'll be more prepared next season. We're beginning our search for local meat farmers out in Minneapolis, where we'll be moving together; we're also looking into buying a meat freezer. The more local farmers we meet, the more we're convinced this is all worth the effort.

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