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!

Now this is just what I need. Snow… and lots of it!

Playing in the snow, pushing cars out of the snow, plans of sledding through snow, photographing snow, and warming up with hot drinks after being out in the snow. Perfect!

I loved this blogosphere idea so much I had to copy it: sending you postcards via locavore.

Two days ago I fled the land of rain on Christmas and I’m now in a far away winter wonderland  for a much needed holiday.  The fire is roaring, my belly is full of delicious food, and guitars, bongos and lovely voices are filling the room.

I hope you all had a fabulous Christmas!

I’m almost embarrassed to admit that we have a skunk problem. Why? Because our house stinks!

Not all the time, but the frequency and intensity has escalated since the mercury dropped. These little buggers (well, not the ones pictured above - I can’t take credit for this lovely shot of seemingly innocent creatures) live underneath the front addition to our house. The add-on doesn’t have a proper foundation, so the burying devils have found an ideal nesting spot. The space is also uninsulated, and even though it’s closed off for the winter, the smell still leaches into our main living space and stinks us out. It was so nauseating yesterday that both the cats yacked.

So I had a fine day of gasping for fresh air and cleaning cat vomit three times. I tried to avert one accident on our Persian carpet but I was too late, and no sooner had I scooped the cat up than she projectile spewed all over the carpet and untreated floorboards. Lovely.

Help us! Our neighbour loaned us one small and one large live trap, which we’ve rigged with wet cat food and set outside the skunk farmily’s point of entry. If that fails we’ll purchase pricey dehydrated fox urine my mom recommended from an internet dealer. Apparently the scent of their predator leaves them house hunting. Our neighbours have guns, but we never see the beasties - we just smell them. And I’m telling you, they must have a hell of a party down there spraying just for kicks.

This is war! I will not stand idle as we get blasted out of our cozy home. Pass on your skunk arsenal, comrades! We need it.

Food never looks attractive under harsh lamps and unnatural lighting, but I couldn’t resist sharing this fantastically simple and delicious recipe. I’ve developed an intense fondness for a veggie that’s often overlooked these days.  It’s not very striking, but cooked the right way this veg becomes the stuff of dreams.

The humble parsnip is my new go-to comfort food. Tonight I was craving salty and sweet - chips and chocolate, right?! I thought so, but then I remembered what was waiting in the crisper: parsnips and beets. Perfect! I tossed the two root vegetables with olive oil and salt, roasted them, et voila! Salty and sweet, tender and crunchy morsels. With a simple accompaniment of mayonnaise and spicy dijon mustard for the ’snip chips, and a garnish of parsley you have the perfect craving buster meal!

I love the rosey blush the parsnips bear from being kissed by the indelible beetroot. Deep red, white and green make this an excellent festive side dish too. Beautiful! How do you like your snips? I need to expand my recipe bank for this fine root.

Parsnip Chips

Servings: 2

2 large parsnips

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

2 pinches coarse sea salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Celsius. Slice the parsnips into thick cut chips. Toss in a bowl with olive oil and salt, tip onto a baking sheet and arrange so that the skins make contact with the baking sheet. Roast for 20 minutes or until tender and skins are browned. Serve hot with favorite condiments (and parsley if on hand - it looks pretty and it’s loaded with nutrients!).

NB: If you’re roasting beets as well, just toss four peeled and quartered beets with the parsnips, oil and salt, but throw them in the oven 10-15 minutes before the ’snip chips to give them enough time to cook through. 

Living in the country has brought me up close and personal with three products: wheat, corn and soy. Corn, soy, wheat. Soy, wheat, corn. These three food commodities, which drive our mass produced, processed foods are rife in the countryside! It’s pretty depressing when I think of all the ‘real food’ that could be covering our fields.

At Union Station last week, I was rushing to find a healthy breakfast before my early morning train departed for Montreal. Still bleary eyed and getting desperate, I reached for a V8 Splash but had the sense to read the label first: “water, high fructose corn syrup, …” I stopped there. Isn’t this drink supposed to be loaded with fruit? Why on earth does it need added sugar? Because that’s essentially what high fructose corn syrup is - a chemically produced sweetener made from corn, which is just as sweet as sugarcane but cheaper to process and ship. The concoction is also almost certainly made from genetically modified corn and then processed with genetically modified enzymes. Yuck!

I worked for five hours solid on the train, fueled in part by Fair Trade organic green tea (kudos to ViaRail!), but glanced from my laptop at a stop near Dorval to take in the snowy scenery. I might have just glazed over the writing on these cars, but I love the aesthetic of cargo trains, especially the really old cars. And there I was, face to face with the corn that may have been harvested just down the road from our farm, processed into high fructose corn syrup and traveling to a Coca Cola plant, or destined for V8 perhaps?

I wonder if we’ll see a shift away from the mass production engine in our lifetimes? I sure hope so!

There’s something unique about seeing images of our field when I’m away from home. This photo was taken this morning after the most significant snowfall of the season. Now I’m in a loft in downtown Toronto and I can’t believe that this is our farm.

It must be the snow that’s messing with mind. The field just looks so serene! A light quilt has been laid over our land and it’s soft beauty makes me wonder why I don’t take in this view all the time when I’m home.

More white stuff is coming - the first ‘real’ storm of the year is due in a couple of hours. I’ve only been gone for five hours and already I can’t wait to get back to see how different the farm looks covered in a thick blanket of snow.

Welcome December! I have felt your crisp winter warnings on my cheeks but briefly as I holed up indoors to get well again. But today I immersed myself fully in your biting winds and embarked upon a long overdue chore.

Without the proper tools, I had a choice. Our local hardware store five minutes away in Rockwood, or the ubiquitous DIY giant Home Depot fifteen minutes away in Guelph? A trip to Rockwood would be in vain if a) they didn’t have what I needed, or b) they were closed. At the vital crossroads of decision, I turned right and headed for Guelph. I froze my fingertips in Home Depot’s garden center searching for the perfect impediments. Should I go for ergonomic or standard? Plastic or metal? If only Lee Valley Tools were in my neighborhood all would be well.

45 minutes later I was bundled up back at home, bracing the cold and ready to roll. I found a rhythm with my new rake quite quickly. It actually felt fantastic to be out in the fresh air again. And it was a relief to (finally) be raking the leaves just before serious snowfalls are due. My tardiness has been rewarded by unseasonably mild weather lately. This year our region had the first snow-free November in 162 years! The tides are changing now though. Since the calendar has flipped we’ve woken to three dustings of snow.

Last night was one of them. So I met December head on today and raced against the setting sun to get half of our lawn tidied for winter.

As I found my groove in the blustery wind, my mind wandered to the subject of choice. My decision to shop at Home Depot rested on a simple fact. The store prioritizes choice; I knew they would have a wider selection of rakes and shovels. But what did that choice really get me? I had trouble navigating the behemoth of a store, I couldn’t find prices for everything, I was bombarded with Christmas (am a Grinch, or is it still just a bit too early for decorations and carols?!), and I lost 30 minutes of valuable raking time. And really, a rake is a rake is a rake, unless you buy it from Lee Valley Tools.

I did get half the lawn raked into neat little piles just in time to see the sun set behind the forest. Yes I might have been able to finish the entire job if I had chosen the local hardware store over the big box chain, but my “choice” musings set me on an amusing path:

:: What happens if you just let leaves sit on the lawn until springtime?

:: What would Marjorie Harris do?

:: What would Monty Don do?

:: What would my Dad do? (this was helpful to me. I should do the opposite when it comes to yard work)

:: What would you do?!

I hope you weren’t raking this weekend!