Welcome, welcome!
Sometimes our life`s missions start from a single moment of great epiphany... and others start with a small seed and grow into something bigger than itself. That`s how this mission started. With a seed. I can`t tell you exactly which seed, since I was always roaming, building, creating and foraging as a child, but somewhere along the way I got lost and then I was suddenly FOUND! Haha. Let`s elaborate.
A few years ago, while starting to re-learn the basics of canning ( aka preserving), I stumbled upon an article that explained the importance of the quality and origin of the ingredients that go into your canned creations. For a superior, wholesome pickle, one mustn`t be chintzy on vegetable quality! Vegetables coated in commercial waxes, pesticides and residues pretty much undo any attempt at making and providing a healthy, natural preserve: you might as well go buy a processed bottle at the local grocer.
This was my eureka moment.
Although my parents, grandparents and others in my family I had seen preparing food often cooked things from scratch, in thinking back to childhood experiences, it seemed that the art of finding really natural supplies had been a long since abandoned art. Not to their fault; however, most of the world has fallen in the complacency of buying their food from the nearest, cheapest and most convenient source. I needed to re-learn everything I ever thought I knew about food.
In my mission to locate natural, unadulterated food I stumbled upon a local young entrepreneur who had recently purchased a popular rural vegetable stand named Kredls, and was quickly gaining popularity with his weekly vegetable boxes, Daves Produce Packs, and great naturally grown, local and often organic food choices with a quickly expanding assortment in his store. If ever in the Hampton, New Brunswick area this is a MUST stop. I'll blog more about Dave and his mission in future chronicles!
Natural food source found, I started on a mission to learn the lost art of preserving ( I was preserving before preserving was cool!). My love of canning grew, and soon I was also delving into baking and cooking with natural ingredients. Self professed foodie right here, folks!
And let's just say... it just completely snowballed from there.
I have long been a gardener, but I mostly dabbled in flowers. My new found hobby for hunting down fresh food took on a life of its own and quickly became also a mission to grow as much as I could in my small city backyard. One bonus of fenced-in city living is that the deer can't eat your greens; one downfall is that you are somewhat limited in what you can do. My city backyard must wear many hats: Aesthetically pleasing, child play area, family dog run area, back yard deck area and garden area. With a raised bed garden, some large totes of healthy earth, cedar flower boxes on our deck and the help of my husband ( whom I will talk about often as he is my faithful, comedic, not overly critic partner in crime) I set out to learn, grow and take over the world. Ok. Maybe not take over the world, but reclaim some of our yard and master the art of homesteading, with a goal: to someday soon move our two boys, the dog, the cats and our home to the country. In the meantime, I am preparing as much as I can, planning the first year's garden, planting seedlings, learning about plant propagation and trying natural household product recipes as part of a year-resolution with my long time and dear friend, Sarah, to cut out chemicals, toxins and unnatural products while saving money!
Right now, we are in the 'almost launching' stage of our country homestead. We are putting the finishing touches on our city home, with plans to put it for sale in the coming weeks. We have found our new homestead: 5 acres of VERY old farmhouse ( a project in itself), big beautiful old barn, fields of untouched earth and wild apple trees. I could tell you all my plans now, but I'll leave them for future posts! Here's hoping for lots of fun, lessons learned, tutorials, missions, pictures and laughs!
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