All those good, old saws about the right and best way to live -- "Waste not want not," "Necessity is the mother of invention," "You reap what you sow," etc. -- might have sprouted from the earth of the family farm. This week we hear Part 2 of my friend Janice's experiences growing up on a farm in the Connecticut River Valley of Western Massachusetts.

Her story covers much of the arc of food disruption throughout the history of America's food ways. She remembers riding the broad back of her grandfather's plow horse, which drew his hand-guided plow through the rich alluvium he farmed. His ingenuity and deep roots in Polish farming practices (along with his fellow farmer immigrants) helped to replenish thoroughly depleted soil, used up by decades of a mono-crop, broomcorn. (Their town, Hadley, for years reigned as the broom-manufacturing capital of the nation.)

Janice's father, who raised his family on the same farm and lived across the road from his parents, furthered the diversification of their farm, growing seasonal vegetables. Her grandfather tapped maples, as described in last week's episode. He raised honey bees to ensure pollination of the farm crops.

Every family member contributed to farm labor. From her childhood chores, Janice took away the lifelong gifts of valuing hard work, play in the fresh air, and family. She also learned to relish the extraordinary gifts of nature on the beautiful river bank that seasonally flooded the farm meadows and deposited rich nutrients in the soil.

The economic picture is one of classic entrepreneurship -- making something out of whatever one has at hand to work with, plus the talent to recognize a market need, plus the discipline to work hard. Listen to Janice tell of her mother, Natalie's, brilliant, disruptive idea that transformed butternut squash from food waste into the forerunner of  packaged, pre-cut vegetables that are the profit center of every grocery-store produce section today. Natalie built and burnished her marketing network, ran the road-stand sales operation, and managed the farm's distribution relationships that connected them to the big market in Boston.

Nothing on Janice's family farm went to waste. Small potatoes became a profit center (with savvy word-of-mouth marketing). Her grandmother raised chicks, collected eggs, and "processed" non-laying hens. No fuss, no waste. Even the feathers were transformed into treasured, snugly featherbeds for all her children and grandchildren. As Janice puts it, "'Waste' was not in her vocabulary."

Vegetables that were not sold at the farm's roadside stand or to the local market or distributor were preserved, either in a cold storage bin or by canning. The way Janice puts it is, "Modest income, but rich in experience."

The childhood Janice describes sounds idyllic -- the way we wish we could raise our kids now -- with delicious, home-grown, home-preserved food, and nature close at hand. Belying the Rockwell-esque scenes were the hard times -- endless rain that ruined an already contracted-for summer crop; never-ending chores; the blights and brutal winters. Hope and ingenuity won out most of the time, however.

This glimpse of farm life, not even a generation away for many of us, and yet ages away in terms of our food system's evolution, helps us understand why we buy groceries the way we do today, and what it might take to get back into a closer relationship with the farmers struggling to bring us good food.