A few weeks ago, I attended a “Meet a Farmer” night hosted by South Frontenac Township as part of the Open Farm Days events.
It was a lively, informal and highly illuminating discussion of the trials, tribulations and joys of small-scale farming in eastern Ontario.
I learned I have a lot to learn about the food that goes on my table.
One of the panelists was Sarah Winney from The Rise Farm in Godfrey. Sarah and her partner Rob sell farm fresh ducks, chickens, turkeys, rabbits, and eggs along with bread and kitchen pantry staples, such as seasoning salt, farm fresh garlic, and marinades.
You would think it would be a relatively simple process for small-scale farmers like Sarah and Rob to get meat butchered and prepared, but it’s not. Sarah and Rob have to take their meat to five different abbatoirs, some as far as 300 kms away. That’s because there isn’t enough abbatoirs to meet the demand, and the big ones are dominated by the large meat producers.
They could prepare their birds and rabbits themselves, but they aren’t allowed to. Regulations stipulate the meat needs to be taken to a licensed abbatoir (they can kill their own birds, but only for their own consumption, not for retail).
As a result, it’s very expensive to get their ducks, turkeys and chickens prepped—it can cost them as much as $9 a bird, which leaves very little profit margin.
The cost is even higher if they have the abbatoir label the packages with weight and other information which is a requirement if they want to sell their meat at farmer’s market (which is why it’s rare to see meat farmers in local farmers markets by the way).
Another thing I didn’t know is when you buy a pound of beef, it can actually be parts of 20 different cows in the package, as opposed to just a single cow when you buy beef directly from a farmer.
A few years ago, a local farmer looked into building a new abbatoir to serve small-scale farmers in our area. There was huge interest and he even had the support of local officials, but the costs ballooned past the $5 million mark and they just couldn’t make it work.
I walked away that night with a new, deep-founded respect for farmers and the obstacles they need to overcome to put food on the table for their own families and other families.
Before you pass around the mashed potatoes, turkey, ham and squash this weekend, be sure to thank a farmer.
I always like this time of year. Whether you believe in making New Year’s resolutions or not, it’s a chance to reflect, look forward, set goals, reinvent ourselves if we want to, and redefine our place and contributions in the world.
It’s also interesting to read the year in review articles and columns that come out around this time. As someone who’s interested in writing, I’m fascinated by the “word of the year” choices.
2022 was the first year Oxford allowed members of the public to vote on the word of the year and 93% voted in favour of a phrase I’ve never even heard of before: goblin mode which won out over metaverse” and “#IStandWith. Merriam-Webster chose the word gaslighting.
I googled “goblin mode” and a wide range of definitions came up, none of them complimentary. It means acting in a way that is reckless, self-indulgent, with no consideration for the well-being of others or social norms or expectations. To embrace your inner goblin is to indulge in a type of behaviour that is lazy, slovenly, or greedy, a means of escape, which Oxford says reflects the ethos, mood or preoccupations of the past 12 months in our post-COVID world.
I think it’s sad that these two words are seen to represent the way the world is feeling right now.
I prefer to choose different words for 2023 based on this quote from philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell: wisdom and courage. Russell wrote this passage in 1953 in Human Society and Ethics, but to me, it resonates today more than ever.
“I allow myself to hope that the world will emerge from its present troubles, that it will one day learn to give the direction of its affairs, not to cruel swindlers and scoundrels, but to men possessed of wisdom and courage.
I see before me a shining vision: a world where none are hungry, where few are ill, where work is pleasant and not excessive, where kindly feeling is common, and where minds released from fear create delight for eye, ear and heart.
Do not say this is impossible. It is not impossible. I do not say it can be done tomorrow, but I do say that it could be done within a thousand years, if only men would bend their minds to the achievement of the kind of happiness that should be distinctive of man.”
What’s your word or quote for 2023? Leave a comment.
What better way to kick off a new year than a top ten list? This year I’ve I’ve chosen 11 posts for all you Spinal Tap fans out there that will hopefully inspire you to make a positive change in the year ahead, with a few fun posts thrown in “for shits and giggles”.
Happy reading and may 2023 bring joy, health and happiness.
#2: As a blogger, you always wonder if your posts resonate with people. In June, after I posted this community success story about the Food Redistribution Warehouse in Kingston, a friend reached out to say they started volunteering there after reading my post.
And finally, before you make your New Year’s Resolutions for 2023, be sure to read
Thanks to all my loyal readers who follow this blog and read my posts on Sunday mornings. If you want to subscribe to receive posts by email, just click on the three dots in the upper right-hand corner and enter your email. Here’s to many #HappyActs in the year ahead.
Some people believe there are angels who walk amongst us. I’m not sure if that’s true but it’s comforting to think that when our loved ones pass away, they ascend to a heavenly place, then send guardians to watch over us and be by our side here on earth.
We found this beautiful angel in Dave’s sisters’ Christmas decorations earlier this month.
At first, I put it aside to give away, but as I went through all her pretty trinkets and baubles, many from a trip MaryAnne took to Germany’s Christmas markets several years ago, I found myself drawn to this particular angel.
The detail is exquisite, from her dainty hands holding a long silver horn to the magnificent wings etched in glitter and flowing silver cape. Her porcelain face, with expressive eyes and red, slightly upturned lips exudes calmness, love and peace. She has quickly become my favourite Christmas decoration and watches over us in our sunroom.
I’m not sure if every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings, but at this most joyous time of year, let us believe there are angels amongst us.
The neighbour’s annual Christmas holiday gathering 2021
Last week after I wrote my blog, I went for a nice walk in the snow to look for the eagles that soar over our lake this time of year. I slipped on a slight skiff of snow on ice and fell and broke my ankle. Two trips to the hospital, one surgery, a cast and crutches later, I’m now staring down 6-8 weeks of sitting on my couch with all our holiday plans scuppered.
As the week wore on, we started getting calls and texts from neighbours who said they were planning to pop by with food. Not just food, full meals of pork roast and potatoes, Morroccan chicken with salad, pulled pork, beef brisket, ribs and chicken wings and treats and wine. We have enough food in the fridge now to last until Christmas without having to cook a meal!
We’ve always been blessed with best neighbours. As a kid growing up in Port Credit, our neighbourhood and the people in it were our entire world. All the neighbourhood kids hung out together playing street hockey in the winter and baseball in the summer. The Moms of the Neighbourhood were a powerful posse, watching over and taking care of us. On the one hand, it was great. If you needed help–you could knock on any door, but the downside was there were about 25 other parents watching your every move who could get you in trouble!
I appreciated this amazing group of women even more as a teenager when my Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. For seven years, they visited, brought us food and helped drive my Mom to appointments, and then doing the same for my father after she passed away.
In 1995, Dave and I made a huge leap of faith and moved to a small farmhouse outside of the village of Sydenham where we didn’t know a soul. Our first two sets of neighbours were a family of sheep farmers and a single guy, a military communications officer named Kramer.
Kramer was like the Kramer of Seinfeld fame with a big personality and a big heart, but with a lot less hair. He would show up at our door out of the blue with a whiskey bottle in hand or come for dinner, and stay until the wee hours of the morning. We’d push him out the back door, watching him stumble and weave across the lawn in the moonlight and up the steps until he was home safe.
On the other side of us was a lovely family of five called the Orsers. They too became fast friends and we’d visit back and forth, especially during lambing season when Dave and I would spend hours in their barn, petting and holding the baby lambs. During the ice storm of ’98 when we lost power for two days, Neil and Pat and the kids all bunked down at our house since we had a wood stove.
When Kramer moved to the Wasaga Beach area, we said our sad goodbyes and welcomed new neighbours into our midst: a young couple by the name of Jeff and Karrie. Jeff and Karrie became some of our closest friends. It was Jeff who found our beloved cat Angus dead, hit by a car on the road and gently put him in a box and broke the news to us when we came home from work. It was Jeff and Karrie who babysat Grace for the first time, giving us our first afternoon out as new parents. They live in Edmonton now—our kids are all grown up, but we still keep in touch.
When we made the move from Sydenham to Verona, we thought the same thing: there is no way we’ll ever have such great neighbours, but yet again, we were wrong. Our one neighbour Mark Berry reminded me so much of my Dad who had passed away just after we moved into our beautiful lakefront property.
Mark was the inventor of the “unbirthday party”. He’d putter over to our house on his tractor bearing gifts for us and the kids “just because”. His dog Buddy became best friends with our border collie, even sleeping some nights on our deck in our lawn chairs in the summer. We were very sad when he moved back to Toronto to be closer to his children.
Fast forward to today, when once again we have the best neighbours ever. Through the years, our little tight-knit community has grown even closer. Whether it’s popping by for a drink, getting together to celebrate one of the kids’ birthdays next door, graduation celebrations, Canada Day fireworks, or our Christmas Eve tradition of gathering at one of our houses, our time spent together has become some of my favourite memories here on the lake.
They’ve become extended family, and have been a huge life support for us, especially this year. I honestly don’t know what we would have done without them.
So thanks my dear friends and neighbours, for your love and support, friendship and all the delicious food that is now overspilling from my fridge. I look forward to sharing many more precious memories in the years ahead with my favourite neighbours, the best neighbours in the world!
Clare trick or treating with the neighbours’ kids this year
We finally decorated the house for Christmas this weekend. Twenty minutes in, Clare shook her head in disgust and asked, “Can someone become Jewish?”
You see my family doesn’t approve of my decorating skills which are somewhere between a cross of Clark Griswold and anything on the Worst Tacky Decorated Homes for the Season list. Last year after we were done, and I asked everyone how the house looked, Clare surveyed the room blandly and said, “It looks like Christmas barfed up all over the house.”
So this year I tried to take their criticism to heart and not put out every broken ceramic Santa and faded snowman cushion.
The one area I refuse to scale back on is tree decorations. Every year when we open up the box with the ornaments for the tree, Clare says we have way too much and should throw some of it away. But I can’t. To me, our battered old green box is a treasure trove of memories. Each ornament tells a story of a different period in our lives.
There are ornaments I painted by hand after I finished a term at university when I was in my twenties, ornaments made by the kids out of popsicle sticks when they were toddlers, and decorations from every trip we’ve ever taken as a family.
There are ornaments that reflect every aspect of our lives: birdhouses and kayaks, dogs, bagpipers, skates, hockey, musical instruments, wine glasses, plenty of fish (we have an entire tree of fish ornaments!), even a Grinch one that says “2020: Stink, Stank, Stunk”.
There are scores of snowmen because every year Dave’s sister MaryAnne gave the girls a snowman ornament. When they move out, our tree will become less cluttered. And there are at least half a dozen cardinals in memory of loved ones who can no longer be with us in person, but are always with us in spirit at this time of the year. This year I found a beautiful cardinal ribbon garland we added to the tree in memory of my two sister-in-laws who passed away from cancer.
So I will continue unapologetically to put every ornament in my Christmas memory box on the tree. Tacky be damned.
This week’s #HappyAct is to cherish the memories the holidays bring.
Happy Act 