Jim and Nancy Gardiner (continued)

Once they got rolling, Jim and Nancy didn't stop. They decided that if they changed the way they ate, they would be even healthier. Naturally, they figured that would work on the cows, too. But in order to raise clean feed for the cows, they'd need healthy soil so the plants could thrive.

Jim turned to Acres Magazine and began learning everything he could about natural farming. From there he learned how to plant pastures that would nourish his cows, and that the cows would in turn work for him by fertilizing the soil while they ate, instead of building up waste in the barn. Now their 50 crossbred Holstein/Shorthorn cows reap the benefits of all the Gardiners have learned—and so do Organic Valley customers.

In the early 90s, Nancy read an article in Farm Journal magazine about a group of farmers "who didn't use antibiotics or hormones or fertilizers or chemicals, and who were setting their own pay price. We thought that was a great way to do business." The young cooperative—now known as Organic Valley—was located in Wisconsin, but she saved the article in hopes that something like that would come to their area. Many years later, the cooperative began to take on farmer-members in the Northeast, and the Gardiners were able to come on the truck in 2000.

These days, Jim tours the country giving seminars on grass-based dairying and organic farming. "When you start your tractor, you make an oil producer very happy," he tells people, "But when you start your cows and put them to work, you make farmers and their customers happy." He teaches organic farmers how to farm better and more efficiently, as well as farmers who are interested in becoming organic. In his travels he also encounters people who think he's a weirdo. "Some folks will say 'You're just a nut!' and I'll thank them, because every nut has the potential to grow into a tree." But basically, he says, people always respond to his bottom line: "It's good for the ground and good for the pocketbook."

And apparently, it's good for kids, too. Jim and Nancy's youngest daughter (now 13) has been managing their heifer calfs on her own since she was 7, and her three old siblings have long been involved in running the family farm. Jake, the oldest, left the farm for 4 years for a different perspective on the world. While working construction in Florida, Jake met his future wife. After having a child, Jake decided to move back to the farm, to help Dad run the dairy, and to raise the next generation of organic farmers. "I want him to have what I had," Jake says of his son.

One of Nancy's favorite biblical adages is the one that goes: me and my house will serve the Lord. "And," she adds, "Be organic." For her, it's a matter of consideration. "When you live with consideration for animals, ground, water, environment, farmer, community, family, and neighbors, the result is harmony, and harmony breeds happiness."