On Tuesday night I left the farm and flew to milder climes. It kind of feels like I’ve run away with the circus - I’m now in an unassuming and laid back coastal city that’s about to be uncorked.

For the past two years I’ve been nursing an elite athlete-driven program called David Suzuki’s Play It Cool.  The program and I moved last spring from the David Suzuki Foundation to it’s partner organization The Climate Project Canada, and together our organizations have been hashing out big plans which culminated in a splashy news conference last Wednesday. We presented the organizers of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics with a bronze medal for their efforts to reduce the event’s climate impact. These are the greenest Games yet, and it’s been a thrilling ride to play a role in pushing the organizers to follow through on their bid promise to make them so.

Canadian Alpine Ski Team member Kelly VanderBeek, who’s tragically been sidelined from the Games due to a knee injury, and retired Canadian Speed Skater Ingrid Liepa (above with David Suzuki) filled out our Play It Cool athlete contingent. I can’t even describe how proud I felt to hear Kelly and Ingrid speak so eloquently and passionately about the visible impact of climate change on winter sports, and what they’re both doing to reduce their carbon footprint. They blew me away with their compelling stories and positive message, and we had excellent national and international media coverage which just fills my heart! It’s wonderful to see this five year campaign build up to such a positive peak.

As I’m sure you’ve guessed (no surprise here) I’m in Vancouver and I’ll be here for a month covering the Games. I have a packed calendar but it includes tickets to six Play It Cool athletes’ events so it’s not all work and no play! I’ll be blogging soon quite regularly here alongside our ‘Green Olympians’ so I’m not sure how focused I’ll be on all things locavore. I’ll post when I catch my breath, how’s that?

Let the Games begin!

:: winter sunsets

:: windows of down time to recoup from a frantic work schedule

:: stimulating Kensington Loft conversations with Tori, Nancy and Roddy of art, architecture and culture spiced up with pop-culture-and-in-stitches YouTube entertainment topped off with homemade French onion soup and wine. The perfect evening really.

:: farm tetris - stacking wood by the fire. The only predicament being that some pieces are just too beautiful to burn

:: Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love (I thought it would be flaky and now I wonder why I waited so long)

:: Nag Champa, bees wax candles and a great reduction in skunk sprayings of late

:: Joseph Campbell and the power of myth - wow, what a brilliant grasp of cultures and the myths that guide them!

:: snow falling in the sunshine

:: a widening circle - a warming Monday night meal with new farmer friends just down the road and Everdale’s new farm manager

:: fireside crop planning and seed shopping

:: the new and the old - the new K-OS album and learning more about Louis Armstrong’s genius

:: hot apple cider with a cinnamon stick

:: my new doctor’s name: Stella Pasion

:: preparations for a warm welcome of farmer friends from Peterborough way for the weekend

Having overcome a major renovation hurdle, Roddy can now shift his focus to the out-of-doors. After a long overdue yoga session this afternoon, I returned home to find him marking garden plots in the field with stakes and outdoor measuring tape. This comes after some initial plotting last autumn and many iterations of the garden plan we’ve been creatively drawing up since Halloween weekend.

Our plans our shaping out like this: in the photo above, one of our small orchards will be planted in the bottom left square (just to the left of where I’m balancing on one foot to knock the snow out of my Blunnie. I need snow boots!). The area I’m standing in, from the barn on the right to the house which this photo is taken from, will be a cascading flower garden with an inviting social space between me and the barn.

Now before I go further here, lets pause for a moment and celebrate our prospective orchard. Imagine with me, if you will, fruit dripping from branches of differing heights. Meandering paths through a meadow of tall grass and delicate wildflowers. The odd black currant or gooseberry bush. A discreet hammock strung between sturdy trunks.

Bliss!

Obviously it will take time to get there but my grandma filled me with optimism a few days ago when she told of the prolific fruit trees she and my grandpa planted in Exeter. With a little care they grew at an alarming rate! The sooner young trees are planted the sooner we’ll be picking from their branches - so this year the orchard plots are a priority.

Moving along then, with slightly soaked foot, above I’m striking off in the direction of this year’s market garden veggie beds - four 50′ x 50′ square plots bisected by 5′ paths. These beds make up about a quarter of an acre. Much of the remaining field will be planted in green manures and wild flowers, and lined with berry bushes. Any suggestions for the chicken coop and free-range zone? And a small plot of lavender blowing in the breeze would be lovely, don’t you think?

We may add more veggie beds but a 1/4 acre feels comfortable for our first year, especially since it’s largely a one-man show in the field. My job is particularly demanding this year so we can’t realistically count on much more than two days help a week from me.

Having said that, just as I was drawn out to the snow to see what Roddy was up to this afternoon, I’m sure that as spring creeps up on us and summer draws near I’ll gravitate to the seedling room and out to the field to take quick breaks here and there. Our new sleeping patterns have rewarded me with the satisfaction of being a productive morning person for a change. I’ll try to keep riding that wave so that come spring I can seamlessly slip into a routine of getting my hands dirty before the keyboard tapping, phone dialing and pen twirling begin.

This is the course we’re trying to chart anyway - keeping things manageable enough that we still have time to have fun and enjoy our garden space… while trying to live peacefully among the raccoons, who are also laying tracks around Gothic Cottage.

… and I’m baking cookies. Christmas cookies.

The morning after Roddy and I arrived back in Canada I had bags of energy. I guess that’s what a fabulous holiday blesses you with - high spirited enthusiasm. I was so excited to greet my mom in her pajamas and hug her in her kitchen with the smell of baking filling the house.

I made these cookies on recommendation of my dear friend German Jenny (the name has stuck - I have an abundance of Jenns, Jennies and Jennys in my life). Their German name is vanille kipferl but I’m pretty sure we call the cookies almond cresents over here. I made a double batch over the holidays which I gifted to friends (including Jennie B - also of German heritage but not to be confused with German Jenny) and family (my mom - see fingers above - was the first to try these divine wonders). I missed them so much in Scotland I made them again at Shona and Al’s to share with revelers at the bonfire party. They didn’t taste the same the same though.

When Roddy and I returned to my folks place for a night after our vacation I nosed through a bag of goodies my mom had set aside for me. It was mainly filled with stuff I had left lying around their house over the holidays, but I was most amused by a little bag of an unassuming ingredient. I must have had visions of ground almonds dancing in my head that night, for when I woke I was like a whirlwind in the kitchen whipping up one last batch of vanille kipferl. It felt like my last breath of freedom before the holiday was over and I returned to work. Like running into the ocean or down to the lake for one last dip.

The Christmas spirit caught up to me quite late last year. Maybe it’s because Roddy left for Scotland in early December and I was all by my lonesome for a couple of weeks here at the farm. Now that I am armed with this fabulous recipe I think I’ll be milking the season with these bad boys by late November. YUM! I miss them already…

Back at the ranch we’re still on UK time, which means early to bed and early to rise - between 5:00 and 6:00 am. I love this routine. I’m able to get so much done before day breaks.

There’s far less snow here in Wellington County than in Scotland. It feels much colder though: at -12 degrees C this morning it’s bitter outside. The snow is gently falling now so maybe we’ll catch up to Scotland’s record snowfalls.

2010 feels more real since returning to our little farm. It’s good to be home so we can start putting plans into high gear!

What a bonus these last couple of days have been.

In my years in Edinburgh I never saw it blanketed in snow as it is now. It’s slippy, icy cold and beautiful. The extra days have given us the opportunity to stroll through the Royal Botanic Gardens (above)

take in a couple of galleries, soak up the view of the castle, Princes Street Gardens and the city’s many monuments,

and be inspired by a number of craftsman’s creations with a massive old wych elm tree - one of which was this yurt with ash roof poles. Our friend Daniel is building one in the Highlands and we were getting tips from him as we consider building a yurt of our own some day. They’re such welcoming spaces. I love tipis for the same reason. Shona and Alistair have a fantastic tipi which I’ve missed on our last two cold weather visits. Has anyone come across good suppliers of canvas for tipis or yurts?

We’ve also had more time to pop into favourite haunts, watch the BBC, buy gifts, cook an Italian meal with ingredients from the amazing Valvona & Crolla, curl up in the flat Roddy lived in when we first started dating almost seven years ago(!), and catch up with friends which we’re off to do again just now. Blizzards never looked so good!

What was I saying yesterday about wanting a couple more days in Scotland? I guess yesterday was my lucky day!

We had a plane to catch in Edinburgh this morning but blizzard conditions all over Scotland yesterday left us trapped in the Highlands for the night. After getting stuck on the road out of Redburn, towed by a plow to the main road, and discovering the train to Inverness from Nairn had been canceled we finally made it to the Inverness train station.

But the trains were canceled. Copious snow, hail, heavy winds, black ice, and whiteout conditions also meant the closure of the main motorway south from Inverness. What about a flight south, we thought? No more flights were leaving from Inverness Airport.

So we rebooked our flight home and tucked in for the night at Roddy’s Dad and Fran’s place in Inverness - an unexpected encore visit.

The bus trip to Edinburgh should take three hours. It took five. The journey was stunning and now we’re cozy down in Edinburgh for a few bonus days of holiday… and hopefully no more long bus trips - because I enjoy reading and knitting but not when there’s fun to be had!

The soft fluffy snow has created ideal conditions for sledding by the Findhorn River.

Roddy, Finn, Kevin, Allie, Daniel, Claire, Solas and I trod through the knee deep snow with five sleighs in tow to plow out a couple of race tracks. Great fun!

Redburn - Shona and Alistair’s steading near Inverness - is surrounded by hearty horses, ponies and sheep and we’ve also spotted deer, hare, rabbits and ptarmigans, pheasants.

No raccoons thankfully.

The snow just keeps on coming and this winter wonderland gets more magical by the minute.

We’re off for one final walk before heading back to Gothic Cottage tomorrow… I wish we had just a couple more days in my beloved Scotland but this holiday has been just what I needed - relaxing, rejuvenating and full of great music, excellent food and drink, lovely friends and family and tons of fun and laughs.

I’m ready to embrace the new year now!

Photos courtesy of Claire

Magic!

A bondie in the garden, which is covered in over two feet of snow now.

A pathway from the house to the bonfire pit, lined with torches and candles.

An icicle sculpture at the top of the garden.

And fantastic friends and family. My ideal winter wonderland!

Photos courtesy of Claire and Roddy

Happy New Year from Calton Hill in Edinburgh!

May 2010 bring you fun and laughs and new adventures… and bountiful harvests!