I’ll have to figure out how to create a column on this blog devoted to showcasing “what I’m loving right now.” Every time I settle in to write a post lately I get overwhelmed with too much material. Where to begin?! There’s just such an abundance of delicious local food in a Victoria summer I could write a post every meal if I had time. This coupled with the olfactory explosion of enticing new flowers is making my head spin.

So, here goes – the great passion purge. What I’m loving right now:

• fresh strawberries in oatmeal
• burnt orange sunflowers
• spiky bursts of dahlias
• delicate cilantro
• sweet peas (I have to devote an entire post to this intoxicating flower)
• fuzzy fragrant peaches
• teensy tart blueberries
• succulent cherries
• nutty arugula (I could survive for days on this green)
• my purple potato, pattypan and leek soup
• psychedelic painted tongues (another flower first for me)

One the simplest pleasures in summer has to be finding a use for every last morsel of fresh produce that overflows in our kitchen. Every other Friday Roddy and I share an early introduction into le weekend – I work a 4-day week and he gets every other Friday off. Since our reunion of households, it’s been wonderful to savour long mornings together, lounging in housecoats and sipping bottomless cups of chai tea.

This morning I woke up more chipper than my usual groggy-morning-self, and gathered sweet-n-sour magenta apples from the lawn under one of our mystery apple trees. These are the same apples that went into an applesauce we made the other night, and apparently their smell was sweet enough to bring our wandering cat home.

Yoshi was AWOL for a couple of days until I got a call from a woman yesterday afternoon. Now, this is not an unusual occurrence - I regularly receive calls from concerned women in the neighborhood who want to let me know that Yoshi has leapt into their windows looking for affection. This time, the wee Casanova had wandered through a woman’s open door and crashed out on her bed… 2 kilometres away from home!

He’s off again after a munch and will likely come home smelling of other women’s perfume. In the meantime we’re letting our own delicious lunch settle: lettuce wraps with beans, parsley, fried onions, new potatoes, quinoa and flax oil, made almost entirely of veg from Backyard Farm two doors down. Yuuuuuuuum!

Last weekend was a reunion of sorts: my sister Tori and her fiancée Nancy were in Vancouver and after seven months of unsatisfying phone communication, we soaked up our time together. Roddy joined us for brunch on Sunday where we were also reunited with Tan, one of Tori’s oldest pals and our ex-housemate from Nanaimo.

Being in the same room as Nanaimo and Toronto buddies really put our current plans in perspective: just a year ago Roddy and I were selling off almost all of our stuff in Lindsay, Ontario in preparation for the long train journey across Canada. When we pulled into our new place in Nanaimo, we came with the precious belongings that made the cut: some books, our computers, clothes, cameras, quilt, Moroccan lamp, special trinkets, djembe drum, guitar and our two young cats. We also arrived on different terms than we’d expected. Neither of us would return to academia, instead we would look for jobs in our fields.

We did find excellent jobs, albeit in different cities. But in retrospect our distance brought us closer to first developing our own dreams, then merging those visions and finally going after “the dream” full throttle. All dreaming aside, however, last weekend was one of embracing the weather, the season, the city, and the fabulous energy of my sweet sis and her darling partner. The wind wasn’t very strong but Tori fell in love with a city – with its game and book stores, its relaxed air, and its bountiful blackberries.

For those who’ve been following, a preliminary step hasn’t yet been posted, but the first step on our local food/local living quest has certainly been sniffing out local food. This step has been carried out in various stages: monitoring which grocery stores stocked seasonal, local produce; foraging fruit trees and bushes in summer; buying direct from local farmers; working on a local organic farm; and attempting, within our limits, to grow our own veg.

But the broader vision is to be growing our own food on a few acres in a bucolic setting. We also want to be mortgage-free, which led us to explore numerous properties in Nova Scotia last June. Well, after vacillating upon our return, we took the plunge and put in an offer last week on a piece of land in the middle of Cape Breton.

Fifteen minutes north-east of the historic town of Baddeck, set in a wild valley surrounded by comforting hills, lies what we call Baddeck Farm. This 70 acre swath of land contains 11 acres of cleared field, a solid driveway leading to a mammoth sand pit (hello cob house resource!), 3 streams, 1 river teaming with trout, a forest, a wild blueberry patch and wild strawberries. It’s free of traffic, has moose tracks meandering through the sandpit, and the air is fresh and filled with bird calls. Ahhh – peace, serenity, resources… an ideal place to create Locavore Farm? (above and below)

The process of looking at land and bidding on a property led us to refine our needs and desires.

What we need:

1. At least 3 acres, but definitely not more than 100
2. Clear land – a couple of acres should be field, without an existing dwelling
3. Clean soil and water – no contamination
4. A permit for a well
5. A building permit
6. To be mortgage-free

What we desire (or “The Wish List”):

1. To be as self-sufficient as possible, and then extend ourselves/our product(s) to others
2. To build our own straw bale/cob house
3. To grow food for as much of the year as possible (hoop house a must)
4. To be a destination
5. To be surrounded by wilderness – no traffic, birds and bees please
6. To have a view that gives us a sense of place
7. To have wonderful neighbors
8. To be near a fabulous community with lively, witty, fascinating characters
9. To experiment with various hobbies/trades/endeavors which excite us

Could Baddeck Farm at least meet our needs, if not please our desires? As it turns out, this Cape Breton acreage is not ours. We’re not certain it was just right for us for the price we would ultimately have to pay. We suspect the sellers aren’t serious about selling (it’s been on the market for a year), and decided to let it sit. Plus, in the meantime we discovered that it’s even cheaper to buy farmland in PEI… a new spanner in the works?!

So for now, we’re enjoying summer’s bounty right here in Victoria. One thing is certain, however: we’re closer to knowing where we’ll likely end up. PEI will require an investigation in March, along with the other potential location. Then we will have narrowed it down to three runners up. The big, exciting task will be finding our farm!