This is a real bedroom! And boy do I need this right now.

I can’t tell you how happy I am to be able to bed down in an honest to goodness, no faking it, real bedroom. No more sleeping in the living room, this is the real deal. We still need to take an edge sander around the floors before we treat them, but at least I tried. Have you ever used one? They’re powerful little beasts! It dragged me across the floor with such force it left Roddy and I in stitches (Roddy is trying to go easy on an injured hand you see, and I thought I could come to the rescue. Apparently not).

Failed attempts aside, THIS feels so fabulous. To look down upon Persian carpet and Grandparents’ blanket box on original pine floors. To see the quilt Roddy’s aunt started for him when he was six, the lantern we bought in Morocco, and our antique dresser - the first piece of furniture we purchased together - right where they belong, here in our bedroom. No more waiting, no more peering into “the cold room” to plot my clothing plan of attack, no more fear of what lies beneath bare feet. Makes me wonder why it took us so long to move in, but then I remember the fleeting and slightly irrational plans of first-time home renovators. We wanted things “finished” before we moved in. Ha!

Remarkably, it wasn’t easy to uproot ourselves from the living room. Nothing beats gazing at the roaring fire while snuggled up under the covers. I found a happy compromise though. I positioned the bed in our room to leave the wood stove in full view through the open door… for one of us, two cozily. We still have to paint too, but I’m in no rush. I’m actually in love with the cracked plaster and stained walls. It feels like my antiquated Italian oasis; irresistibly old and warm.

And Italy is my mental holiday too these days (and tonight, to be sure! Along with the BBC’s ‘Michael Palin: New Europe’, oh, and I’ll be in Greece too with ‘Shirley Valentine’. Can anyone recommend some favourite film escapes? My infected body thanks you!)

Monty Don is also inspiring grand garden plans (and pissing Roddy off because “he’s so bloody perfect“). Predominant right now though, are thoughts, dreams and conversations of homey touches and pixie dust scattered throughout Gothic Cottage. I’ve rediscovered the public library, and my most recent haul includes a myriad of rooting magazines: House Beautiful, Canadian House & Home, Harrowsmith Country Life, and Country Living. Please recommend favourites! I’m soaking this stuff up like a sponge.

As far as I’m concerned, cozying up for winter starts now. We have a bedroom and all is good (she smiles).

Over two years had passed since I’d seen Mike. Last weekend was a very cool reunion.

When I volunteered on his organic farm in 2007 there were days I couldn’t believe he did what he did. He worked so hard! He had so much to do and could never stay on top of it all. When I would be sweating half my body weight and feeling like my bent knees were going to explode, Mike was cool as a cucumber in long sleeves, without even a drop of sweat on his brow. I was just helping out a couple of days a week. I could go home and soak myself in a hot bath, and not have to worry about a million little farm details and pleasing 50 CSA customers. I liked farming… on a very part-time basis. Community gardening was more my style.

Or so I thought.

Now I’m back in the home (er, hot) province, with a little farm and a big dream. Mike has to have something to do with it. He must have filled my head with tiny farming propaganda when we were weeding his fields. Whatever he did, I’m glad he did it.

Roddy and I spent at least four hours with Mike last Sunday. We walked his fields, got the lay of the land, dug up Jerusalem Artichoke, visited his hens, and y’know, talked farm talk! Then we went into town together with handy resources in tow, and talked more farm talk over coffee. Roddy and I had endless questions, and Mike is detailed and philosophical so there was an rich exchange between experienced guru and novice wannabes.

Back at Mike’s farm again we poured over organic certification criteria housed in a fat dusty binder, and got the inside scoop on the ins and outs of certification. I remember Mike showing me this binder back in 2007 and thinking to myself: hmmm, great work Mike, but why are you showing me this? I don’t want to be a farmer! Seeing the binder again was a defining moment for me. In a few weeks, I will be filing our first organic certification application. Two days ago, I was staking off 50 x 50 foot plots in the field with Roddy. Yesterday, I was reading Organic Farming: Everything You Need to Know in bed. Today, I was in a New Farmers Symposium. And tomorrow, well, tomorrow I resume work as usual, but this week, Roddy and I will be developing our farm vision.

And I thought I didn’t want to be a farmer…

I cannot write a book review. After many years devoted to university degrees, the idea of sitting down and writing something so structured is torturous.

But I also can’t keep this book to myself. It has stolen hours from my sleep over the past week. Usually when my eyelids feel like weights I give into drowsiness, slip deeper under the covers and exhale that last deep breath as I flick off the lamp switch. But Barbara Kingslover has my attention so wrapped these nights that I’ve not only fought my heavy lids, but I’ve strained to read her words by LED headlamp just to respect Roddy’s slumber.

To give you some context on what I qualify as a scintillating read, I do not read harlequin romances, Danielle Steel or any such novel that evokes women to conceal the cover in public. I did, however, recently read the scandalous and very sexually descriptive D.H. Lawrence classic Lady Chatterley’s Lover. While it was a hot page-turner, Kingslover’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle wins my heart hands down. This book is a romance novel for foodies, with passionate detail of the joys of thoughtful, purposeful consumption of whole foods. And better yet, the farm wife is reinstated as a nurturing goddess, making magic in the field and kitchen.

The Kingslover family’s year of eating within their county limits and growing their own food has at once filled me with gratitude for being raised in a household which valued preparing and sitting down to dinner together, reinstated my convictions for supporting small local organic farmers (and despising agribusiness), and reopened a closed debate about vegetarianism. It has also made me crave the good life with a new sense of urgency.

Kingslover’s book put into finer focus my need for pastoral vistas, a cozy farmhouse, a flock of hens, a pantry full of my preserves and mead, and friends gathered round a blazing fire pit. And for this, I thank her by writing this non-book review.

It’s time I read this book. I’ve been on Alisa Smith and J.B MacKinnon’s 100-Mile Diet email list for about a year now and finally broke down and bought myself a copy of the book. I just started it and am extra inspired to be reading a couple of Vancouverite’s account of their one year challenge - nothing like local knowledge.

So who wants to join the first installment of the Locavore book club?