Seeds, Soil & Sourdough Event - April 18 from 10-12 noon

 

AT LITTLE CITY FARM, 508 dUKE sT w, kITCHENER

Sat, April 18 from 10-12 noon

an earth-day celebration!

 Drop by to find:

Seedballs: make your own clay seedballs to attract pollinators
Seeds: certified organic non-GMO seeds for sale to get your garden started!
Soil: bags of certified organic potting soil for sale for all your seedlings 
Seedling Tips: helpful advice on starting seedlings, planting charts

Sourdough: fresh sourdough bread, wood-fired baking demos
Soap: natural handmade herbal soaps & salves available
SAVOURY WOOD-FIRED CREPES: UNIQUE VEGGIE CREPES made over a wood fire!

Please try to walk or bike here

More info: www.littlecityfarm.ca

12 Favourite Children's Winter Reads

We love reading, and shorter wintery days give us many more opportunities to cozy up near the fire with a good book.  We have a basket of winter reads nearby, and our daughter can choose books to help us celebrate and enjoy the winter season.  Here are 12 of our favourites.

The Mitten, by Jan Brett (and so many other Jan Brett books!)
Ollie's Ski Trip, by Elsa Beskow
How the Grinch Stole Christmas, by Dr. Seuss
Owl Moon, by Jane Yolen
The Snowy Day, by Ezra Jack Keats
The Tomten and the Fox, by Astrid Lindgren
First Snow in the Woods, by Carl Sams and Jean Stoick
The Story of the Snow Children, by Sibylle von Olfers
Findus at Christmas, by Sven Nordqvist
Over and Under the Snow, by Kate Messner
Snowflake Bentley, by Jacqueline Briggs Martin
The Night Before Christmas, by Barbara Reid
The Elves and the Shoemaker, by Jacob Grimm and Jim Lamarche

and all the lovely winter poems found in
Outside Your Window: A Child's First Book of Nature, by Nicola Davies

There are just so many lovely winter stories.  As an alternative to reading out loud together, we have also been enjoying listening to the audio winter stories by Sparkle Stories.   Sparkle Stories offers inspiring simple beautiful audio books about nature, family, community, celebrations, fairies, and more heartwarming themes, through their website (with lots of free sample stories as well).

Valentines eggs

We enjoy celebrations, but like to keep them simple.  So, for Valentines our daughter thought about what we could do - something simple, handmade, thoughtful.  What could we do that was special, which we had an abundance of to share with friends who would enjoy it... well, why not eggs?  Yes, Valentines eggs!  So this year we decided to gift a few of our friends with the delicious extra eggs that our faithful hens (who we love) have continued to lay for us through this long cold winter! What a treat in mid-February. 

Solstice lanterns

We had a great time hosting a lantern making session with a group of neighbourhood kids here this week.  The kids had fun making water colour lanterns with tissue paper cut-outs, a perfect lantern that all ages can easily complete.  We also made lanterns with tissue paper pasted onto mason jars and paper-mache onto balloons (for lovely simple round lanterns).  In the neighbourhood friends of ours have been organizing an annual Solstice Lantern Walk (postponed this year for Dec 23), with everyone bringing along homemade lanterns of all shapes and sizes, as well as hot drinks and plenty of warm gear for walking through the streets on a cold night.  We come back for a little street party and bonfire, and for this our household also prepared a huge basket of cedar & sage bundles, which participants can toss in the solstice bonfire as we speak of hopes and joys for the coming year.  All are welcome to join the lantern walk coming up this Monday.

A Chicken Celebration

Today, it was decided, was a day that our hens needed a celebration.  More importantly, they needed a cake!  A very special cake.  It's been cold and grey the past few days and today was not exception.  So, our daughter thought the hens needed some cheering up.  Why not call it their birthday - all of them at once?  She decided to create a cake that included all our hens most favourite treats - delicious layers of leftover brown rice, chopped up kale, comfrey & dandelion greens, crushed eggshells, mashed over-ripe pears, sunflower seeds, and shredded carrots, blended together with yogurt, and garnished with raisins, buckwheat, strawberry tops, and a garden slug or two.  Mmmmm.  Our hens were delighted with this treat, served up to them in a fancy old cake pan that they scraped clean by the end of the day.

We were rewarded with fresh eggs to warm our hands on.  Thank you, lovely hens!

If you ever decide to make your own cake for hens, please avoid: avocado (pits can leach toxins into the flesh making hens sick); apple cores (seeds contain cyanide, enough to harm a hen); fruit pits and seeds of other sorts; long grasses (these can case problems in the hen's crop); meat, citrus and onion (all not agreeable to hens).

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.

Summer birthday cake

We've celebrated several birthdays around here in the past little while, and our favourite zucchini chocolate cake always makes an appearance for these occasions.  We usually add 2 eggs to the recipe for a lighter cake that rises well, but this time we modified it with banana in place of eggs for a vegan version.  We've made it with gluten free flour in place of wheat for a GF version, and used chocolate-avocado-maple icing for a sugar-free version.  Any way you make this cake it always turns out perfectly, and uses up a good load of zucchini which is in abundance at this time.

Wind and waves, tents and campfires

Sometimes it's time to put everything on hold and head to the lake...what a rejuvinating get-away.  Windy dunes, warm waves, cool breezes, cozy campfires, long shadows, starry nights, and time for our family to connect together outdoors away from our busy homestead, to-do lists and summer projects.