Picking Up Chicks

Once or twice a year, I write the following on our calendar: "Pick Up Chicks". This evokes a smile every time I see it. This year, I worked on chick-picking-up day, so my dad was delighted to fetch that little cardboard box full of peeping creatures.

He was even more delighted to see his grandchildren's delight as they met our new pullets. They'll be ready to lay in 20 weeks (or so)...they hatched yesterday. This is our first batch of laying birds (we've had meat birds before), and to say we're smitten would be an understatement.

Rules are established to protect the chicks from excited little hands. After Jude tries to balance one on top of the waterer, I ask him to step away from the chicks. After a few remorseful tears, he creates this sign:

"Sometimes you can hold the chicks. You must be gentle".

This little girl will grow into a beautiful black sex-link hen (glossy black with russet feathers around her neck, and bits of iridescent green and purple throughout).

And these little Happy Feet lookalikes will grow into Barred Plymouth Rocks.

These little peepers will join the song-frogs that serenade us to sleep each night.

Art Matters.

There is an artist that resides in all of us. There is also a loud-mouthed critic. Sometimes the voice of the critic shouts down your desire to create. It tells you your art is dumb. It whispers that you should give up, that no one wants to see your art, that you might as well just buy some mass-produced print at Walmart rather than hanging something YOU made on your wall.

I'm close neighbours with my inner critic. But as I get older, I am learning to ignore that voice. I don't intend to sell my art. I don't foist it on friends as gifts that they'll feel obligated to display. I might make a wee picture on a card to be mailed, and am not concerned with what becomes of it once viewed by the recipient.

I used to have lots of fun with watercolours, when I was single and had the time. I painted little things like this:

Thistle-down fairies at play...

This is delightfully tiny, created specifically for this yard-sale frame.

At a recent artistic retreat, I attended a workshop called "Knocking on Hidden Doors". We discussed the images that arise from our subconscious, and the practice of meditating before creating in order to tap into that deep inner stillness for inspiration.

I spent the first hour of the workshop trying to shush my critic. I found myself searching desperately for that deep, symbolic image I would paint. Finally, in surrender, I just started to create. This is what came out:

Each item on the clothesline represents one member of my family (the red Y-fronts are my husband's). Interestingly enough, I realised afterwards that I had SIX items of clothing on there, instead of five...

Art does not always need to represent something. And sometimes, when you think it doesn't, it does. These two images represent what is most important in my life: my home (gardens and animals), and my family. They are simplistic and whimsical, and bring me pride and delight each time I look at them. I may see about getting them printed on notecards, I like them so much!

Hush up, inner critic. I'm going to create in spite of you.

Dust of Snow

Dust of Snow

The way a crow

Shook down on me

The dust of snow

From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart

A change of mood

And saved some part

Of a day I had rued.

~Robert Frost

The Homestead, Winter 2009-2010

I like to think I'm outdoorsy, when in reality, I am the one knitting by the fire, sipping coffee laced with something boozy, napping and hoping the real outdoorsy folk are enjoying the snowy weather. I imagine the future, when my husband will take the kids out skiing or skating, leaving me at home to read and knit in peace and warmth. I want them to be outdoorsy..."do as I say, not as I do", indeed!

In spite of the momentous task of dressing three little ones in snowsuits, I always say "Yes", when my kids ask to play out in the snow. I squeeze myself into my snow pants (pre-children snow pants, hence the squeezing!) and venture out. Inevitably, I enjoy myself. I slide down the hill. I make a snow angel. I lie down on my back and imagine the drifting flakes are tiny fairies, just as I used to when I was a little girl. My mood is invariably lifted by the simplicity of playing in the snow with my kids.

Looking at these faces always cheers me up, too!

We've been blessed with a mild winter so far, and have only had to have our lane way plowed three or four times. We've been able to keep the chicken coop door open during the day, and are managing to collect both chicken and duck eggs daily without them freezing first. The mild weather also means that their water doesn't freeze every night.

I always dread the idea of the birds being locked up tight all winter (being mildly claustrophobic), so seeing them emerging gingerly to peck around in the snow has done my heart good! It looks like our wood is going to last us through till Spring; only 10 weeks to go till the Equinox! It's likely that we'll still be using the wood stove well into April, to ward off those chilly Spring evenings.

For now we're hunkering down, and making the best of being Canadian in the wintertime. It is almost unimaginable that in 6 months we'll be outside in bare feet, surrounded by green and growing things, heading to the beach, getting sunburns and bug bites, and enjoying campfires well into the evening. I've always loved the wonderful variety of seasons we have in Ontario; just when you think you can't bear another moment of one season, the next is upon us.

For now, I'll settle in with some hot chocolate and my seed catalogues, knit a few more cozy items, and enjoy the rest of the winter.

What's Going on in Your World?

It's November 16. It's sunny and cool outside, with a huge downpour in the forecast...must remember to clear basement floor in anticipation of the inevitable inches of water that will accumulate there.

I'm at the local library and my kids are playing happily for perhaps the first time today. Love the smell of this place...cleaning products and books...lots of them. I'm surrounded! Alternative medicine behind me, DVDs to my left, Automechanics and Farming to my right. The comfy easy chair by the fireplace is taken (boo!) so I'm sitting on a hard plastic chair.

I still haven't settled on what to have for dinner. We're completely and utterly broke (you know, when the mortgage comes out Friday, you don't get paid for another week, the needle on the fuel gauge is flirting with the "E", and you're out of milk, fruit, and bread?). Time to visit a financial advisor. What to do? Remortgage house to pay off all other little loans, then pay one big, predictable payment each month? Sell the homestead, move to the Arctic (the pay is great! isolation...not so much), and start anew? Continue living month to month in complete denial that being broke is actually the norm? So maybe just spaghetti for dinner, since I have all I need for this standby.

I'm excited that the library has Season 5 of Grey's Anatomy on DVD. I foresee an evening of finishing up my Advent crafts (exchange is on Thursday!), eating popcorn, and ogling Dr. Owen Hunt. Yes, he's my favourite. Dr. Sloan is just too...perfect, and slutty. And Dr. Shepherd? I can't forget him in "Can't Buy Me Love"...that, and he looks like a bad kisser (I don't give a damn how nice his hair is)!

My chickens are moulting. They look so pathetic and ugly! The number of eggs we're getting has dropped dramatically. Robin has renovated the duck barn to house both the ducks and the hens to save on heat in the winter...hopefully the number of bodies in there will keep them warm enough, in addition to a couple of heat lamps! Now we're trying to figure out how to round up the ducks, which are decidedly feral, aside from their hilarious sneak attacks on the hens' food. Ducks act subtle by waddling in an awkward herd, quacking in absolute terror. This happens daily.

That's today's update. I know your life isn't as thrilling as mine.

Thanks to the world wide web for the photos!

Full Circle

*Warning/Disclaimer: This blogpost contains photos of the chicken-killing process. If you are vegan/vegetarian, extra-sensitive about animals, or just easily grossed out, please stop now! If you still insist on reading on, you are welcome to do so, but consider yourself warned. My intent is not to inflame, but to inform and share about a matter-of-fact event in the lives of many rural people.

Back in August, we picked up 32 day-old chicks at the local feed store. 15 of them went to our friends at the Toadstool, and we kept 17. For 9 weeks, we have kept their coop clean, fed them high-quality organic chick "grower", and ensured that they always had fresh air and a generous supply of clean water to drink. They had freedom to wander outside, and a heat lamp to keep them warm at night.

White Plymouth Rocks at 9 weeks.

Today was Chicken Killing day at the Knitty Gritty Homestead. Now, to clarify, I was a very sensitive and picky eater as a child/teenager. One of my sisters, who shall remain unnamed, used to cluck quietly when we had chicken for dinner, and I would inevitably cry and push my plate away. I didn't want to think of the meat on my plate as an animal.

As an adult, my thinking has changed. With increased exposure of conditions in factory farms through books like "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and movies like "The Future of Food", "Food Inc.", "Fast Food Nation", etc., I decided I want to have more of a hand in how my food is raised. The image of "clean, healthy, organic" food that we get from those who market it is usually an illusion, and mass-produced animals are generally treated inhumanely.

For this reason, I have gotten over my squeamishness when it comes to meat. I was surprised to find that it wasn't all that hard to kill our chickens today. Of course, we weren't doing the killing ourselves; we called in the professionals! Ward and his staff are local guys who do most of the chicken processing in our area. They are quick, clean, and professional. They processed about 30 chickens in less than an hour.

Ward can carry 5 chickens in each hand!

I only managed one per hand.

First, the chickens were carried to the processing truck, and suspended by their feet. As strange as it sounds, this seemed to calm them; there was no squawking or flapping going on. .

One of Ward's men used an electrified knife to first electrocute the chicken, then pierce a hole in its neck; within seconds, the chickens were dead. They were then doused in boiling water to clean them and loosen their feathers.

The plucker is an amazing invention; it is a drum that rotates quickly, with rubber "fingers" on the inside that pluck chickens at astounding rates. It's that big contraption you see in the left of the above photo. Imagine what our pioneering foremothers would have thought of it! I've plucked a goose by hand and it is hard and messy work.

Ward uses pliers to remove any remaining feathers, then the rest of the processing is completed: removing the head and feet, and washing and gutting the chicken. Ward was impressed with how healthy our chickens looked, commenting on their beautiful skin. Chickens that are fed corn tend to be very yellow. If you intend to raise your own meat chickens, it is worth it to invest in the more costly, but better quality organic feed. We figured that if we were going to the work of raising our own meat, we should feed them the best food possible.

 

The chickens are then soaked in lightly salted ice water for a few hours, before being bagged and frozen.

How did I feel? Did I have even a twinge of sadness/regret? I'll be honest. I do love my laying hens. They range freely, and behave as chickens should: roosting up high at night, giving themselves dust baths to keep themselves cool and free of ticks, and laying their eggs in cozy little nest boxes.

Meat birds, on the other hand, have been bred to gain weight quickly. They eat (and therefore poop) almost constantly, and spend much of their time sitting on the ground. Yes, I know this is because they are too heavy to fly up to roost. You'll notice in one photo, the chicken's breasts were bare of feathers. This is because they sit around most of the time.

In the worst case scenario (i.e. factory farms) meat chickens are force-fed to the point that they have heart attacks, or their legs break under the unnatural weight of their breast, or they walk backwards because if they walk forwards they fall onto their breast. These are horror stories, and being aware of them, we took the precaution of killing our birds earlier than normal. If we'd gone another 4 weeks, we may have gotten much larger chickens, but at the cost of their health. So our chickens range between 5-8 pounds, processed. I don't mean to turn anyone off their gigantic Thanksgiving or Christmas turkey, but before you say "Ewww!" to this post, think about what it really costs to eat the biggest bird in the grocery store. Consider seeking out a local farmer who raises animals with respect. Here in the Valley, a local source of free-range turkeys, chickens, and pigs is Tickle Island Farm.

I whispered my gratitude to the chickens in their last moments, aware that in order for me to feed meat to my family, I must take the lives of other living things. I felt peaceful knowing that they'd been gently and humanely raised, enjoyed fresh air, warmth, sunlight, and the freedom to move around as they wished, and that, in the end, they were killed quickly and humanely.

Welcome Back, to Me!

After a few weeks' holiday, I'm back, with a bit more balance. It's one of life's lessons that I have to keep learning over and over again...never quite enough to say I've achieved it, but I'm getting better at it! Highlights of my time "away":

*adopting two kittens, one lovebug and one wild thing. Doolin allows the kids to manhandle her. Camino is chocolate brown, fuzzy, and took a bit of taming. But she's getting there. We all have fine scratches on hands, arms, and legs to prove our love for these new kitties.

*picking up 17 chicks to raise for this year's meat! When they were new and fluffy, I felt a bit sad about the thought of eating them. However, after 2 weeks, they're ungainly and awkward, and their legs are getting bigger, and now I think: Yum.

*happily preparing my classroom. I'm new to Kindergarten, and have spent about 15 hours cleaning, sorting, organizing, and purging. The space is now bright, clean, cheery, warm, open, and alive with colour and plants. I feel wonderful about welcoming my new little students into such a lovely room!

*discovering, in Flavia DeLuce, a new literary heroine. The book is The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley, and if you haven't read it: do! Flavia is a brilliant, salty, quirky poison-and-chemistry genius and amateur sleuth, and she's only 11! A really great read, and, OH JOY: the first in  a SERIES!

Ooh, this is small and blurry! Pretend you have tears of joy in your eyes and are standing far away.

(photo by AnnaKarolina Conroy)

*celebrating our 6th wedding anniversary by partying in a local barn with friends, performing a few songs together, and spending the night in the most charming cabin...this is where I dressed for our wedding, peeked down at my groom, where we wed in the garden, danced on the lawn to bluegrass music, and spent our wedding night. Lots of reminiscing and planning for the future.

*A second kick-at-the-can summer heat wave, at the very end of August...after some cool weeks it felt like fall was here, but the kids have enjoyed a few more beach days this past week.

So, I'm glad to be back; I missed this space, appreciated all your loving comments, and am grateful to have had a wee break. Watch for a giveaway (to be announced when I get my 100th Follower!), and a peek at the handmades I'm crafting for Christmas!

Ramblings of a Sleep-Deprived Mother

A self-portrait taken in the wee hours of a Spring morning, with a wakeful and annoyingly cheerful Margot.

What parent doesn't like to get sympathy for how tired they are? When our kids were smaller and my husband would follow my declarations of fatigue with "I know, I'm really tired, too", I'd always reply, "Babe, it's not a competition, but if it were...I'd win every time". I know some dads like to be involved with breastfeeding by bringing baby to mama, changing the diaper, burping, etc. but in our house, I always felt that one rested parent was better than none...I figured if I had to be up anyway, I might as well do it all and let him sleep, so that he could attend to the kids in the morning.

We're well-pleased that our three kids mostly sleep through the night these days, all in one room. After a busy weekend of camping and late nights, we were feeling pretty confident that we'd get some good nights in this week.

On Monday we attended a birthday party where Jude experienced an emotional upset (i.e. a gaggle of girls telling him he was cute and that they wanted to kiss/marry him...J is excessively shy in new social settings, so this, in addition to the giggling that he perceived as the girls laughing at him, reduced him to tears out behind our van while everyone else had birthday cake)...we left early and quietly, but Jude was visibly upset throughout the rest of the day.

So, Monday night, he woke up weeping, having wet the bed, and ended up crawling in with us. This is rare but not wholly unexpected behaviour when his feeling have been hurt. My husband is a tall drink of water, and Jude is the 5-year-old version...so needless to say, being in bed with 2 pairs of long legs didn't make for a great sleep.

So, LAST night, I was here alone. We'd had an incredibly busy day: we attended another birthday party (all had a wonderful time...homemade pizza, fresh-picked corn cooked over a campfire, organized games supervised by the neighbour's wonderful 11-year-old daughter...), then raced out to pick up 30 chicks at the local farm supply store. I know we're late. But we should be able to get them in the freezer by late October.

Raced home, got the chicks set up in the summer kitchen, then welcomed a high school friend, his wife, and their twin 9-month-old boys. Lovely visit! Quick supper of sliced tomatoes with basil, zucchini/carrot/potato/onion latkes, and scrambled eggs. I suspected that all three of my kids would be ready for bed by 7, due to busyness, late nights, missed naps...

Just as I was reaching to pluck Margot from their pre-sleep tumble/cuddle in Jude and Violet's bed, Jude and Margot whacked their heads with that sickening coconuts-bumping sound. Sigh. Comforted them both, brought Margot back downstairs for a little rub of arnica on her goose egg, and a bit of Tylenol just in case.

A half hour later, I was settled in with a cup of tea, my knitting, and the movie "Date Night" (cute and funny)...only to hear Jude get up, ramble down the hall to the bathroom...then back to bed. I decided I was chilly, so headed up to put on pjs...and had a shock when a dark-haired man sat up in my bed. Jude, apparently, had decided that our bed is his bed. Sigh. After a few more forays to the washroom for various vague 5-year-old reasons, he settled in.

Violet joined us at 4:30. Violet is not just a casual thumb-sucker. She takes it very seriously, and makes the same sound that Maggie Simpson does with her soother. That sound, close up and in my ear, is not conducive to sleep. At 6:30, my husband (God bless him) came in to tell me it was time to get up for my run. Not today, dear, I have a headache...

I crept up to the attic. You know when you've had one of those nights, and you're willing to sleep anywhere as long as you're left alone? On a couch cushion on your living room floor with a cardigan tossed over you? Well, that was me. On a mattress in the attic with a baby-quilt barely covering my shoulders, the sun glaring into my eyes.

Enter Doolin, our latest addition. Doolin is a charming little village on the west coast of Ireland. She is also a tiny grey and white kitten that joined our family this week. She began that full-body rubbing that begins at your feet, winds up the back of your legs, around your bum, up your spine, and ending in your hair, all accompanied by that quick kittenish "purr, inhale, purr, inhale" that increases in volume as she approaches your ear. Then that baby-sucking around the ear, paws kneading my hair, rubbing her whole tiny loving self over my face...you get the picture.

At this point I gave up. And there you have it. Another Mother's Tale of Lost Sleep. I think of Tennyson's Ulysses, following knowledge like a sinking star beyond the utmost bound of human thought...and wonder if there is anything more desired, or more elusive than sleep.

5 Ways to Love a Zucchini

Don't you just love zucchinis? The plant has leaves like an elephant's ear, tropical blossoms, and the ability to hide what's really happening under there. You'll check daily, and see nothing, nothing, then one day...kapow!

Zucchinis as big as a toddler!

1. Mmm...one of my favourite way to dispose of zucchinis is to slice them into rounds, dredge them in flour, then beaten egg, then either bread or cracker crumbs...fry them in butter and devour. Yes, if you cook them this way you'll be negating any health benefits of this lovely vegetable. And you won't regret it. This also works with green tomatoes, fresh pickerel or rainbow trout fillets, chicken strips..you name it. This is not something we eat on a weekly basis, so it's a real treat at zucchini time.

2. Grating them finely into spaghetti sauce or casserole is also a good way of using them up.

3. And then there's always:

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 3/4 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup buttermilk (I use rice or soya milk)

Cream above ingredients together in a large bowl.

Then sift together:
2 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp EACH cinnamon and ground cloves

Combine wet and dry, then stir in 2 cups grated zucchini and 1/4 cup chocolate chips.

Bake at 325 Degrees F (160 Degrees C) in a greased and floured 9"x13" pan for 45 minutes.
(I grate and store zucchini in 2 cup bags for winter baking).

4. As a treat for the chickens, I'll slice a zuke lengthwise, and they pick it clean leaving only a thin green rind.

5. Finally, the most popular way for a zucchini gardener to use up zucchini: shower your friends and acquaintances with "gifts"...leave one on their car seat when they're about to leave your house, bring them as hostess gifts to August parties, hand them to the lady who delivers your mail, the man who cleans your chimneys (yes, we get this done in August), and the guy on the street. Most people are too polite to refuse homegrown vegetables. One day we came home to find a BASKET of zucchinis left anonymously on our doorstep. I laughed and laughed at how karma works (I'd been dumping zukes on everyone I'd met for a week)...

Resisting zucchini love is futile. Surrender to the zucchini. Make friends with it. And let me know if you come up with any other ways to use the bloody things up!

The Comedy/Tragedy of Rural Life

Lady Cluck, our favourite hen, survived the attack.

Last night as we were watching a movie at about 11:00 p.m., we heard terrified chicken-shrieks outside. My husband threw his size 11 (men's) feet into my mom's size 8 (ladies') Crocs, grabbed the axe, and tore outside. I followed in my red plaid rubber boots, and an apron that I hadn't removed after dinner, wondering what he planned to do with the axe...chop up a raccoon?

Because our children dismantle/wear out the batteries of every flashlight that crosses the threshold, we had to rely on the motion-sensitive porch light to guide us. We saw loads of reddish feathers at the barn door, then saw that the door of the coop had blown shut which meant that the hens weren't able to get into it at dusk.

We quickly found several hens, who seemed to instinctively stay very still, pressing their bodies as close to the ground as possible. We were still short a few, plus the roosters, so continued wandering around our small farm in search of the traumatized birds. Chickens are just so darn vulnerable.

The young rooster (Big Boy) was up by the firepit. I didn't know how fast roosters can run until last night. They run REALLY fast. His instinct was to lure us AWAY from the coop, so try as we might, we couldn't corral him towards a place of safety.

Such a handsome devil, isn't he?

I don't suppose it helped that my husband was chasing him, axe in hand, loudly cursing the hen that laid him. I knew I shouldn't be laughing at this dramatic moment, but I couldn't help myself. Just when we'd creep up to the rooster, he'd tear off in a crazy zigzag. At one point, Big Boy disappeared into the chest-high grass around our pond...imagine my long-legged husband, high-stepping through the foliage, trying to track the intermittent waving and rustling that traced our fugitive's cunning path...

We finally gave up on the roosters, trusting them to fend for themselves for the night.

The "boys" alerted us that they had survived the night with a 5:30 a.m. crowing contest loud enough to wake the dead. So, out I went in my nightgown and rubber boots, and tried to chase the bugger into the coop. I managed to entice "The Boss" with some kitchen scraps, but Big Boy was having none of it. I went back to bed, closed the windows and turned the fan up a notch, praying that my neighbours wouldn't complain...

It looks like we're down three hens, although we haven't found any corpses. Lesson learned: no more leaving the lock up till after dusk.

PS...I've never considered myself a violent person. But if I had had a gun last night, I would have shot that predator if we'd seen him. Alas, if I had a gun, my roosters, too, would now be dead, shot in mid-crow.

Ottawa Valley Organic Farm Tour

We are delighted to find ourselves amongst a community of local farmers, quite inadvertently...when we took on our flock of hens, it was as a favour to a friend who had to pass them on. Now, the eggs they lay are traded for vegetables and raw milk, and we're in conversation with friends at Earth Rocks...looks like we may barter eggs for "green" dishsoap, toothpaste, laundry detergent, etc.! It's a wonderful circle of community trading. We used to keep our "egg money" in a large Mason jar and use it for buying more chicken feed. However, food in the fridge is a much better deal.

On that note, we've decided to make the shift to feeding our chickens 100% organic food from Homestead Organics. At the moment, we've been mixing a bag of organic lay mash with one of non-organic to make it go further. We sell them as "mostly organic eggs from free-range chickens". We have a faithful, small customer base. Once, when I thought we'd have to ditch the organic feed altogether because of the cost, these friends protested. They WANT organic eggs and are willing to pay more for them! Other neighbours, hardcore "locals" who are used to paying $2.50 at the grocery store and at other farm gates for non-organic eggs have dug their heels in and refuse to buy our eggs. It's really interesting to see how food quality can be such a divisive issue. People pay lots of money to buy good quality shoes, barbeques, lawn-mowers, motor boats...but they'll be damned if they'll pay $1.50 more for highest-quality eggs. And they appear to think that we're scamming people by charging what we do, when the money we "make" from our eggs doesn't even cover the cost of feeding them, let alone the work of keeping them fed and watered, and their coop clean. I just feel that if I'm going to go to the work of raising chickens to have home-grown eggs for my children, I want them to be as far from mass-produced, industrial grocery store eggs as possible.

Which brings me to today's topic: The Ottawa Valley Organic Farm Tour! We attended the kick-off on Saturday night, at Donegal Heritage Farm, which is about a 10-minute drive from here. At the end of a narrow, gravel road, we came to a gate; the kids were delighted to see me get out of the van, open the gate, drive through, get out, and close the gate before we drove up to the farm! Tom McCullough and Joanne Zomers are the happy farmers who raise organic eggs, chicken, pork, lambs, and so on, in the most beautiful of settings. They are also the owners of The Red Canoe Cafe in Wilno, which features locally-grown food.

The evening included:

.:baby animals!

.:live local musicians! (shown here: Ish Theilheimer and Barney McCaffery)

.:a tour of the farm!

.:an amazing array of mostly-local, home-cooked fare

.:and a tree swing!

What more could one ask of a rural Saturday evening? The sky was clear, the kids ran off with other stranger-friends as only kids can do, and I sat around on the grass eating rhubarb crumble with strawberry puree, chatting with Kylah of Rainbow Heritage Gardens and her lovely friend Juniper. We almost got our fill of chubby-baby snuggles with her darling Dayvah...because how could you ever get enough of that?

In the beautiful evening sunshine, Dayvah had her own local, organic meal (courtesy of her mama), and I just had to get a pic of those gorgeous, healthy legs, curled up in nursey-bliss.

The Sunday portion of the tour includes visits to two local farms that focus on raising food organically. Thanks to Michael Ilgert (the farmer who provides raw milk to local foodies) for organizing such a wonderful event, and to Joanne and Tom for opening their doors and feeding all the visitors!

.:handmade thank you cards are always appreciated!

These will go into the mailbox today.

I realise in writing this that some of you may be wishing you'd known about this event in advance! Next year, I'll be sure to give advance notice, with a link to this year's pictures, so that maybe we can meet and dine together on the grass at a local farm!

Local Eating, Part 2: Gorgeous Greens

Let me introduce you to Kylah and Zach, a husband-and-wife team of organic farmers that is now providing lucky locals with gorgeous heritage produce! I don't have a picture of them to share, as they were off selling at a local market when I went to collect my veggies today. You can visit their website, as well as Kylah's blog to learn more about what they're doing!

We weren't able to afford a full share in the CSA this spring, but we've worked out a deal: I provide them with our free-range, organic eggs in exchange for a weekly basket of organically grown, heritage vegetables. I want to thank Kylah and Zach for the many, many hours of planning, work, and care, as well as heart and soul they put into their veggie-growing, because it saves me that work. I want to thank our beautiful hens for faithfully producing stunning eggs in exchange for water, food, and space to roam.

I just have to say that I feel overwhelmed with local bounty. A few years ago, "locavore" was an unknown concept. A few books were published, my favourite being Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, and many of our conversations with friends revolved around how we could make local eating more of a reality. I remember getting into a heated discussion about it with my dad, who felt local eating was completely unrealistic (even though 50 years ago, people were still mostly eating food that was produced nearby!).

Today, we are members of the Ottawa Valley Food Co-op, where we order local beef, pork, and vegetables. We will be getting our meat birds next week, along with a few more laying hens. We pick and freeze as many berries as we can manage. Now, thanks to Mike and Kylah and Zach, we have fresh, organic milk and produce to enjoy.

Aside from making economical and environmental sense, and the fact that everything just tastes so much BETTER when it's fresh, this food just feels...right. Check out http://www.csafarms.ca/ to find a CSA farm near you. The connections you make there might just lead you to raw milk, locally and ethically produced meat, and ties that will bind you to your food and this earth.

(See the remnants of fresh peas on her chest? They didn't last the drive home!)