To Market, To Market

It was our first day at the farmer’s market in the city yesterday. The week leading up to it was full of washing table cloths, finding tables, getting change from the bank, canning last years harvest out of the freezer (squash and tomatoes mostly), doing up pesto from dried tomatoes and basil and the last of the garlic, wrestling labels out of the printer, coaxing sunflower shoots and spinach out of their zygote stages in the greenhouse, gathering signs, photo albums, distractions and necessities for the kids and remembering how to put a smile on for the public.

Setting up the kids under the tent!

We pulled in to our usual spot beside the ‘cookie guy’ who my daughter insists that I call by his name, Brad. (Selling vegetables all day beside a guy who keeps shouting ‘fresh baked cookies!’ as he hauls them out of the oven wafting their enticing smells is both cruel and delicious). My children clearly remembered from 6 months ago that they were headed towards cookies. Somehow I hauled them out of bed and got them out of their pajamas, into some porridge and into the van by 7:15am without arguments. I think it was the cookies.

Rob standing at our booth beside the B. Goods Bakery.


Being in the not-so-South part of Canada in early May and going to a market where you are only allowed to sell things entirely grown on your own land can be interesting. I did not venture to find fiddleheads (one customer did ask) though I’m thinking I’ll go back to the forest later this week. We’ve relied heavily on early greens and anything dried or frozen from the fall harvest.

Gabriel getting his face painted in front of our stand


What I did not anticipate was the very warm welcome from our regular customers from last year. It was so incredibly rewarding to see their smiling faces and armful of bags ready to be filled. There was the couple who take one of everything without asking questions, the single woman who seems genuinely interested in how each and every thing is grown, the fellow who shows up 5 minutes after we’ve packed everything away at closing time telling us to haul out a selection of items of our choice from anything that is left, our good friends who bring hugs from their children and give us an opportunity to see them every week. We’ve learned a dance with each of these people. We give them as much information as they need, and they are free to make their choices. No pushy marketing, nothing to hide, only real people exchanging real things.

It was also really nice to see the other returning vendors again. There is Graham with his fabulous spelt breads, flour and jam squares. There is Joseph with that ridiculously tasty sheep milk cheese, Brad and his cookies of course, John with his enviable produce display across from our stand, Isabelle with her dips. It is very satisfying to be part of such a family of people attempting to make their way from the things they make with their land and/or their own two hands.

What I thought would be a stressful day of trying to find our bearings and reintroduce our children to the rhythms of the day turned out to be a wonderful sense of coming home. It was pure joy to stand there chatting about nothing and everything with new friends and old.

We managed to sell more than we thought we would but it was certainly not going to be our best market day of the year. As in all things farming, you can’t really focus on the hours you log or the units you produce. Your hands move one over the other, repeatedly, day after day until there is something to show for it. If you are lucky, someone will want to compensate you for your work.

And we are lucky.

In the Belly of the Soup

I’ve talked a bit about making stocks. Mostly from beef bones and chicken or turkey carcasses so far. But here is my latest thing: vegetable stock. I keep a Ziploc bag of ‘cuttings’ in my freezer where I keep vegetable bits that aren’t being used (broccoli stems, wilted cabbage leaves, fennel stalks, cauliflower stems…some use carrot or potato peels but I worry that would add an unwanted bitterness to it).

When I can fill a 20L kettle around halfway with frozen vegetable matter, I’ll fill the rest with water and boil it down over a great number of hours (half a day?) This will end up being a concentrated stock that can be frozen in ice cube trays. I’m still on the look out for those old metal ice cube trays with the metal lever for this purpose. Then I remove the frozen stock cubes and store them once again in a Ziploc bag to be added to any little thing.

It is great in soups and stirfries, casseroles and shepherd’s pie. My new, favourite use, however, is to boil rice in it. Now I know why I like rice so much better in restaurants. It is always tasty and rich with flavour, unlike my water boiled version which is as bland as a cracker at best. I think they boil up their rice in stock! At least that’s my guess because now my rice tastes just as yummy at home.

Homemade soup stock can also be frozen in mason jars and grabbed in a jiff whenever needed. In the past I used to use the little handy, dried cubes out of a box and wondered why my soups had that tinny, shallow, salty flavour. Worse yet, I would find out later that I had added MSG to my organic vegetable soup pot.

Here is the thing about stock made from scratch that like so many things can’t quite be described with words. It is rich, full, round, deep, complimentary, whole, expansive, full of colour, taste, harmony, symphony and much more. A simple vegetable soup with beef stock earns an undercurrent of flavour unmatched by any other addition. Leek and potato soup with chicken stock becomes heavenly, as though kissed by angels. Fish soups with vegetable stock straight from the heart of the divine.

Deep in the belly of any good dish, I now believe, is a basic, simple, easily home made stock.

Spring Cleaning

Like so many, I am now doing my usual spring-cleaning exercises. I’m switching winter clothes to summer and sorting out closets and sheds and sending away bags and bags of stuff. To add to it, I have decided to clean out my computer hard drive as well.

With these tasks I have become ruthless in nature. I have told my children that all clothes and toys found on the floor instead of in a hamper, a drawer or on a shelf will be given away. All photos that are out of focus, too dark, too much like another or not of anything I will ever care to see a photo of again are getting deleted. Music in my iTunes that I don’t think I’ll listen to is getting culled. Everything in my path is now at risk of being removed.

In the bigger picture I have quit my job, stopped my distinct exercise routine (too busy and tired from being physical around the farm now), decided to stop performing music and now, yes, I’m afraid this dear blog is in the ‘consideration’ pile as well. If I simply look at the things, files, people, clothes, activities through one simple lens, it has become very easy to decide what needs to go and what I should keep. The lens is this: does it give back to me, to my family or my community? Or does it just take up space, time, energy and emotions with no return?

I learned about the music performance issue last night where I played a few songs at a local talent show I was asked to participate in. Literally a few hours before I played, I picked up my guitar for the first time in weeks, ran through a few songs guessing at a possible set list and packed up my guitar and lyric sheets before going out for a walk. When it came time to play my set, I was the usual nervous but I found myself unable to focus. I just couldn’t seem to find it in myself to care what happened next. I forgot my lyrics, forgot the chords, stopped in the middle of the songs and the worst part of it all is that it didn’t bother me.

The lack of commitment and preparation made it clear to me that I wasn’t meant to be doing this anymore. I deserved to be spending my energy doing something that inspired me to try my best. It wasn’t fair to the audience to have to watch my apathetic performance. My spot was better given to someone (similar to most of the other acts) that was keen to be there and wanted to grow in this manner. It is time to hang up the guitar for this purpose. I have other ideas of how to keep music in my life but that is for another post.

What has stayed, you ask? In no particular order: my children, husband, chickens and cows. The clothes we wear on a regular basis. My dear friends who do not dump, drain or manipulate us in a negative way (I’ve cut nobody, by the way). Photos that represent the journey our family has taken since each of us were born. Time for our extended families. I do laundry, buy groceries, clean the house, wash dishes and cook because, well, it gives back in ways we can’t possible measure, right? The games we play, the toys we use, the movies we watch, the books we will read, are reading or have read and have touched our lives so greatly that they remain on our shelves as beacons of the past. You get the idea.

Clutter remains of course. But the air is becoming clearer every day.

What does that mean for this blog? Well, I’ve been drafting an ‘in conclusion’ post for a week now as a way to wrap up my original quest. The blog was intended to help me figure out my new place in the home without ‘external’ employment. The purpose was served. But now that the decision has been made, and I am entirely satisfied with how it has all come together, I need a new goal.

In addition, the vegetable growing season has now begun. Everything around us is changing, turning greener and coming to life again. Our farmer's market starts in six days. I started ‘blogging’ in November just after a whirlwind farming season. Though I have always written things down daily, and always will, I may not be able to take the extra time to make it pretty and share it. I will just have to see.

What I will do is try to separate the writings a little more. Put the self-absorbed crap in one pile, the quasi-religious views in another, 'how-to' stuff on farming and cooking/preserving in another, bits about parenting and spout-offs about women’s rights and choices, opinions about nutrition and food choices and inspirational/creativity/artist stuff all into different piles. With this exercise I hope to be able to see which parts should remain and which are just self-indulgent drivel. I know I can’t change food policy or parenting styles with anything I have to say but I’ve always believed that the personal is political. If I can’t leave something productive behind with my shared, written thoughts, I oughtn’t be doin’ it anymore.

Though I must say, so much stuff is leaving that I wonder if I have taken away too much. But I recall learning about how to put a photo portfolio together. The rule of thumb is ‘less is more’. It was better to have three exceptional photos than 20 mediocre ones. Now I see that the less junk there is in my life, the more I can see the greatness of what surrounds me.

Yet, just like I explored in a previous post about feeling like I need an anchor, I find myself now looking for a label, a box, a place to keep my hat. I am no longer a biologist, a policy-advisor, a singer/performer, a mountain climber. Right now I am only ‘everything-else-girl’. All things related to being a mother/wife/farmer. I get the oil changes done. I pick up building supplies. I transplant onions. Whatever is needed of me each day is what I do.

A friend of mine and I have been reading fairy books to our daughters over the past few months. This friend reminds me that just like Rachel and Kirsty found out, sometimes we have to let the magic come to us. You can’t go out and find the fairies, they have to find you.

But I’m certain that if I chuck out a few more rounds of crap, the fairies will have an easier time of getting here.