Covered head to toe in a veritable space suit and feeling very chilled out and curious, I recently had my first encounter with honeybees. My friend Stacey has two colonies that take up residence in the green twin towers at the top of Cathy and Kaj’s market garden near Erin. They’ve been gorging on blooms all spring and summer and in a few weeks Stacey will extract their divine honey from cells like the ones above.

This is Stacey’s second year with her own hives. She took a beekeeping course at Everdale a few years ago, started with one hive last year, and knocked the socks off her CBC colleagues with her delicious raw honey. Stacey’s bees make the most flavourful honey I’ve ever tasted. And I’m not the only one who thinks so - it’s prize-winning honey.

I got her last jar nine months ago and have been savouring it slooooowly. I don’t put it on toast. I don’t add it to tea or pair it with peanut butter. I lick it off a spoon and let the flavours linger. This gold is so sacred to me that when friends come to visit I’ve been known to tuck it in dark corners of the cupboard and leave decoy jars of sub-standard honey at eye level. That’s horrible, isn’t it?! When I’m feeling generous I do share a spoonful (I only have a 125 ml jar after all) and everyone agrees it’s phenomenal honey.

Good thing more is on the way. This will be full of honey soon if it isn’t already.

And this is full of brood - the baby-making chamber. Stacey leaves enough honey in her hives for the bees to live on throughout the winter so she doesn’t have to feed them sugar water.

This year I’ve put in a large order of honey to sustain me through the winter (and my friends if they’re lucky, or I’m not looking).

Oh Jenny, sweet backyard visionary, how I’ve missed you and your Fernwood oasis! What a wonderful reunion of newbie farmer and biodynamic elder/urban creative.

I had to travel for work a couple of weeks ago. As luck would have it the BC legislature is in Victoria - a perfect opportunity to pop round my old stomping ground and pay a visit to backyard farm.

Greenhouse tomatoes in full swing (and so sad I forgot seedling gifts at David Suzuki’s cabin on Quadra - hopefully they’ll find a home in David and Tara’s garden), fresh purple sprouting broccoli and arugula tasting delicious, and the little flock of Barred Rock and blond beauties (can’t recall their name) strutting their stuff. Jenny was disappointed to find out that the striped hens were called Barred Rock, not Bard Rock. They can get the attention they deserve and be flamboyant bards here…

A sensational weekend of exploration, discovery, fun and spring unfurling in Toronto and at Gothic Cottage.

Yellow tulips have been replaced by red. Windows and doors are flung open by day and a fire burns by night. The grass is now bright green and the first electric lime leaves are unravelling. Magnolia and cherry blossoms were collected and intoxicating hyacinth held right up to nostrils. Fragrant, luscious spring.

Out of the corner of my eye today I caught activity on the sun-drenched deck. One fuzzy orange and yellow bumble bee and this little honey bee. So very inspiring to see a honey bee buzzing with me here at Gothic Cottage!

I’m loving being passed garden design books and cook books to leaf through while relaxing. New perspectives, reminders, fresh inspirations, and insightful conversations. We’re taking pencil to paper and mapping out designs - all the more pleasurable while on holiday!

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 needed a change of scene. Country life is invigorating - it grounds me and challenges me. But city life also draws me in. Especially the city of Toronto. If I’ve been away for too long it feels like something is missing. It’s a drug; if I don’t get a regular hit I start to get the shakes.

So last week I left our chaotic, unfinished work site and struck off for big city lights. With bandana tied around a stick carrying my provisions I made my way to the heart of the city, Kensington Market. Tori and Nancy have a new loft right in the market - one of my favourite urban places on earth - and from their nest I can get my TO fix.

Bright lights, tall trees, base-y music, dimly-lit restaurants with exposed brick walls. The “doon doon doon” chime of the subway, incredible graffiti, incessant laughter with friends who have known me since we were seven. Amazing art and architecture, characters in the street, delicious food.

The city and it’s people excites me, inspires me, and comforts me. Every time I visit I notice new, awe-inspiring scenes. 37% of Toronto’s population is made up of the creative class, which is no surprise to me. The energy is palpable and I’m so grateful to be a quick train ride away from the buzz.

This country mouse needs to kick the manure off her boots, run a comb through her long locks and escape to the city now and again. After a spell downtown, I returned to the country with fresh eyes. Our wee farm adorned with muted autumnal colours never looked so pretty and welcoming.

Carrot Fest was an excellent excuse to get over to Everdale Farm & Environmental Learning Centre. BBQ, an abundance of carrots in big bowls on harvest tables, workshops, guided farm tours, self-guided exploration - who could ask for more on a sunny Saturday afternoon? In the spirit of the orange root vegetable, the staff placed laminated pages of the sweet kids book Carrot Soup by John Segal along a path through one of their gardens.

What a fabulous idea!

I remember when Everdale first crossed my radar three years ago. Roddy and I were living in Toronto and being exposed through our work to inspirational food security groups and the world of community gardens. I was bubbling over with enthusiasm for this newfound arm of my passion for engaged communities, sustainable agriculture, seed diversity and simply, food - thinking about food, preparing food, eating food. It’s safe to say that food has always been at or very near the forefront of my mind (and I am relieved and eternally grateful that I have a fast metabolism).

When I learned more about Everdale, the centre sat in my mind as a beacon of alternative living. From it’s web pages I learned about straw bale construction and farmer apprenticeship opportunities. I didn’t know it at the time, but Everdale was part of the inspiration for my volunteer experience at an organic farm the following summer. It was also one of the sparks in the creation of my mission to integrate community, deeper connection, and organic agriculture, which ultimately led to the development of Roddy’s and my shared dream to create an organic market garden.

I visited Everdale in person for the first time when I was back home in Ontario last September. My mom and dad were curious to get a tour of Home Alive - the farm’s green powered straw bale house - and I wanted to suss the place out. At the time, Roddy and I were toying with a grand plan of either WWOOFing our way down the west coast into South America together, or hanging onto one of our jobs (mine) and doing an intensive apprenticeship at Everdale (Roddy). Even in the rain Everdale was quite magical, but Roddy and I decided the apprenticeship and WWOOFing options weren’t right for either of us. We wanted to jump right into our own farm. A somewhat scarier option, but definately exhilarating!

Funny how things come full circle. Roddy and I never expected to return to Ontario, and now we are only a 15 minute drive from Everdale. We’re very lucky to have landed so near their experienced staff, some of whom oversee LandLINK - an initiative that connects beginning farmers with farmland owners and farming opportunities in Erin Township.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering,

Who wants to win a prize package worth $1000? I do I do!

If you’re growing gorgeous pesticide-free veggies or flowers, why not snap a picture of your garden (if you haven’t already) and submit it to this year’s David Suzuki Digs My Garden contest?  Have a peek at the hot new website, and enter here: www.naturechallenge.org/dmg09/

I’m missing Roddy. His absence leaves so many holes in my life. I need him to:

steam asparagus to perfection

weave wonders on his guitar

play with me

bake his homemade bread

make me laugh (and laugh and laugh)

snuggle during a thunderstorm

stroll with me

dream farm dreams with me

rouse me in the morning with tea

inspire me.

The countdown is on: in 6 days we’ll be back in each other’s arms. This brightens my spirits, but boy the wait in Ontario hasn’t been easy!

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.