Farmer in the dell...

Brian and I have just finished reading Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon's The 100 Mile Diet, A Year of Local Eating (ok, I finished reading it...Brian skimmed through the bits he thought were the most intersting) and I have to say that we have been further inspired to try this for ourselves.

I say "further inspired" because this idea of eating foods that have been grown in and around the Ottawa area is something that has been a growing concern/interest for us in the last few years. Last summer's copious rain through the month of July did not help our small backyard garden grow into the cornucopia of fresh vegetables that we had hoped for, but we did get a few tomatoes and some green peppers, a whole lot of salad and some fresh basil and cilantro out of our little plot of dirt. Our tiny garden was nothing like the massive gardens that used to feed my family growing up (or the even bigger garden that my aunt and uncle had out at their place-that thing seemed to go for miles...or at least it seemed that way when you were out there weeding for hours), but the Lilley family garden made me want more...more land, more garden, more sky...just...more.

I want to wake up to the sound of birds and the rooster crowing, not the deafening roar of dozens of planes taking off overhead (which by the way, is how we go to sleep some nights too). I want my own horses. I want to smell the sun warmed grass and feel just how small and insignificant I am as I stand under clear blue skies.

I want to grow my own food and eat it, knowing exactly where it came from and what wasn't sprayed over it or forced into it to make it grow three times larger than normal.

I want to eat eggs from my chickens. I want to eat my own chickens, not ones that have been forced to grow bigger and faster than God and nature ever intended and whose skeletal structures cannot support their own body weight...

I want a goat.

Since I can no longer eat anything containing gluten, nor any dairy products, without my stomach ballooning out very painfully to the size it was when I was 6 months pregnant with the twins, I want to be in complete and utter control of everything that goes into my gullet.

Three of the four children keep telling us they want to move to a farm too (mainly so the dogs will have more than enough room to run free)...Jamie is the holdout, although Brian and I think that he is the one who would end up having the most fun...like the dogs, Jamie likes and needs space to run...

Crap. We're turning into those hippies Brian likes to mock. In our nearly 14 years together, my husband has mocked minivans and their drivers (we now drive one), ADHD (we have 3 of 4 kids and one wife diagnosed with it), celiac disease (um, got that now too), food allergies (check on that one) and people who homeschool their kids...

Maybe he could start mocking the rich and that farm will become more than a dream...


*Photo reprinted with permission from Ad Meskens, Wikemedia Commons