Longest Night Celebration & Neighbourhood Lantern Walk this weekend

Happy solstice!  For the longest night of the year we love to gather outdoors with friends, with candles, lanterns, a bonfire to warm ourselves, and some wood-fired baking from the cob oven.  How will you celebrate the longest night? 

For anyone here in town, don't forget about the annual  neighbourhood Lantern Walk on Dec 21.  Anyone is welcome!  Bring a lantern, and join a slow wintery walk around the snowy streets.  What a lovely idea!  Here are some beautiful ideas for making your own lanterns.  And 10 more ideas for making your own simple lanterns from jars, coloured paper, brown paper bags, paper mache, and more recycled materials.

Wood-fired baking!

Each week during the summer months we have a CSA (community supported agriculture) food pick-up here.  Our friend, Angie from Fertile Ground CSA, brings her gorgeous organic produce and her members pick up their bounty.  We offer fresh bread and baked goods, made in our wood-fired oven.  It allows us the joy of baking for a crowd each week, with freedom to experiment and try new recipes out, as well as many favourite repeats that members ask for.  The favourite breads include: Superseed Bread; Walnut-Raisin; and Potato-Roasted Garlic-Rosemary Bread; and treats such as Vegan Pesto Rolls; Gluten-free Brownies (made with quinoa); White-Chocolate Roasted Almond Cookies; and Whole Wheat Sticky Buns.  All our baking is made with organic flour, organic seeds, and healthful whole ingredients (including basil, zucchini, beets and other veggies as they come into season), with our grains mainly sourced from the local organic flour mill at Oak Manor Farms.  Best of all, we get to bake in our outdoor wood-fired cob oven.  We love so many elements of this oven - it was made by us with the help of family; is made of natural materials; it's fun to play around with the wood-firing learning to heat the oven just right for long enough baking time; we often eat a garden-fresh lunch while baking; and we get to be outdoors while we work.  Here are some photos of this week's baking day.

Seedling Sale!

We have another exciting seedling sale this past weekend!  This was our 11th annual sale, held on the Saturday of the May long weekend each year.  Thanks to everyone who helped out - without all the great volunteers, vendors and musicians this day would not have been possible.  And what a wonderful crowd who attended - everywhere we looked people were enjoying themselves, meeting old friends, talking gardening, planning other community get-togethers.  It's inspiring to us to see such enthusiasm for gardening, homesteading and community each year when we hold this event. 

Here are a few photos taken of the day (taken by friends Jenn, Angie and Brenda)...

Great Food Swap!

We held our 2nd annual Great Food Swap today - what a glorious array of homemade and homegrown foods filled the tables.  It was hard to decide what to bid on as everything was so beautiful.  There were salsas and "fireside tomato sauce", jams and chutneys, preserved peaches and pears, lemon and lime butters, hot chili pickle, artisan breads, lacto-fermented beans and root vegetable kraut, pickled beets, "nightshade curry", organic sourdough starter, "first honey" from a new beekeeper, kale chips, raw fruit and nut biscotti, homemade crackers and double chocolate raw truffle balls, dandelion syrup, spelt banana bread, and herbal tinctures, plus garden goodies like the hottest peppers, baskets of tomatillos, fresh stevia, dried herbs, wild grape leaves, heirloom tomatoes, bunches of chard, elderberries, and rhubarb...

The way the food swap works: participants display their items, then place "bids" on items they wish to take home, and finally work out a barter among themselves for what seems a fair value to swap (e.g. my jar of kimchi for your jar of salsa).  A nice way to share foods you love (and may have too much of), and stock your pantry with preserves you did not have time to make.

Thanks to everyone who took part!  We are honoured to share the bounty of this year's harvest with all of you.  Happy harvest season.