#FARMLIFEBESTLIFE

2016 has been a year of first for me.  It all started with me officially leaving my powersuits behind and opting for the stylish chef whites at George Brown College.  In April, I added overalls and wellies to the mix when I got the keys to our new 90-acre farm in Mono, Ontario.

I am a very unlikely farmer and have difficulty remembering when owning a farm was a dream that I wanted to pursue. However, I do know that a ‘staycation’ in 2014 on a working farm north of Toronto was the tipping point.

Our stay at the farm that summer made us discover the area of the Niagara Escarpment and the rolling hills of Dufferin county. We also witnessed our kids’ joy and their amazement at the sight of hay being bailed, lambs being born and at feeding scraps to the pigs and chickens. Most importantly, the stay brought us closer than ever to our food. We purchased two large CSA (community supported agriculture) baskets from the tenant farmers and eat fresh, local and mostly organic.

 

Fast forward two years later, I have a farm with two barns, two silos, an enormous drive shed for ‘implements’ (which we don’t have yet other than a new small John Deere tractor), a cover-all building, a stream, a bush/forest and four large fields of hay.  I also have a large organic vegetable garden where I grow lettuce, radishes, beets, kale, loads of different beans and tomatoes including San Marzano for canning, cucumbers, corn, herbs, raspberries, strawberries, carrots, to name a few. I am also raising two Peking ducklings that I have raised mostly in downtown Toronto till now and have a new flock of eight hens.  We hope to have all our fowl pasture raised and they will all have access to the full farm to roam and forage.

   

I feel very strongly about eating tasty, nutrient-rich, real food. I also believe that more than ever people are too far removed from where their food comes from and that we are raising a generation of nugget eating kids. Food in our home is what brings people together.  As parents, my husband and I strongly adhere to eating dinner as a family where we all eat the same meal (as I have said many times to my five year old ‘I am not a short order cook’). We also host friends and family regularly, if not every weekend, to get together around a home cooked meal.

At the farm, I plan on growing food organically and hope to create as much as possible a self sustaining farm where little is wasted and almost everything is used to better the soil, grow good crops and raise healthy livestock. The plan is to grow what the land can support and cook accordingly.  Like Dan Barber talks about in his book The Third Plate, it’s about going beyond farm-to-table.

  

To be honest, I am still very much at the early stages of growing food. I have read a lot about the subject but have very little practical experience. I am also aware that the romantic images of farming will soon be long gone and all I will be left with is real hard work. But for now, I feel like I am doing my little part and it feels great. Cannot wait to share more about our farm life and our adventures. But now, I have to go fight with some chickens to get them into their coop.