How Far Do I Need To Go??!!

What a beautiful sunny day.  The sun is gaining strength, a sure sign its plan is to melt away the snow and warm the earth again.  With that comes dreams of gardening.  Today I was thinking about what the next season will hold for us.  An addition of new piglets, a pumpkin patch and perhaps an expansion of my existing vegetable garden.  I would like to expand the garden to allow more room between the rows.  Then I wonder if I should just plant less.....but I want to plant carrots, sweet potatoes, various lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, peppers...... and then I watched the "food industry documentaries" on Netflix.  Expanding my garden sounds like a great idea and I may research options for growing some of my own veggies during the winter months, or at least extend into the beginning parts of winter. 

The documentaries have over loaded me with uncertainties about what I am feeding my family.  I will certainly have to watch them a few more times to absorb the information.  It's interesting how they describe a lot of our food as "food like products".  They aren't "real food".  Most of our food is so processed and refined the nutrients are gone.  We're eating calories with no benefit to our body.  I hadn't thought of it that way.  From most of our food all we're gaining is fat!

This is not news to me.  We grow our own meats/eggs so we know what we're eating, we grow our own summer veggies so we know what we're eating....how much further can I take it?  I can't see me milling my own flour....in reality I shouldn't have to mill my own flour.  Would I have to grow my own wheat so I'd know it wasn't sprayed with chemicals????  How far do I need to go????  Do I just search out alternatives to processed bread products?  Are there alternatives to processed bread products?  What is really safe????  My mind is whirling with information overload and uncertainties. 

A lot of it is a no brainer - fast food, sugary snacks, sugary drinks, processed foods are all bad for us.  But what is really good for us?  Tomatoes are sprayed with a gas to ripen them.  Are organic tomatoes sprayed with that same gas?  How many chemicals are in a salad?  If the grass the cow eats is sprayed with pesticide that is in our milk, our cheese, our yogurt.......  It's crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!  It's scary!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We trust the food industry to supply us with nourishment but they don't deserve our trust.  They are failing miserably.  It's all about making money.  One documentary suggests sourcing local milk, flour, etc.  Government regulations frown upon sourcing milk from local farmers, they want us to drink only pasteurized.  In the eyes of the government we are no longer capable of knowing if something is safe.  Or that's what they want us to believe, that we need them to make sure our food is safe.  They don't want us to purchase milk, eggs, meat from our fellow neighbours.  They want us to support the processed world of the supermarket. 

We have recently found out government organizations are actually spending time on internet classifieds such as Kijiji watching for local people selling food products such as eggs, turkeys, chickens, pork etc.  Apparently, if you are not a part of the government organization, if you don't fill out their paperwork and abide by their criteria you are not seen fit to supply food to others.  To source unprocessed food you have to go underground.  If you could source whole milk you'd have to sneak it home and tell nobody.  As they crack down on our neighbours who are supplying us with unprocessed, hormone free, pesticide free, natural food it is going to be harder and harder to find someone to take the risk.  Threatening letters are scaring home farmers, making them afraid to share their hard work with others.  There's always the Farmer's Market, from what I understand those people have jumped through the hoops for the government to get permission to sell their goods to us.  It's a crazy world we live in!

Anxiously awaiting SPRING!

It has been a long winter in Nova Scotia....or I feel it has.  I sound like a broken record but I am anxiously awaiting Spring!  We have had a record number of cold and flu bugs hit our household this winter, I am ready for open windows, fresh air and warm sunshine.  And I'm ready for camping.  I have been working on our camping agenda off and on, several short trips planned, some with special events tied into them.

As for the farm, we have added an Eastern Wild Turkey Hen to our family.  She completes a trio and will hopefully supply us with eggs to hatch our own turkeys for the freezer this fall.

I was told by a friend whom I've never met in person but talked to her on the phone many times about farming that I would love raising Turkeys.  She said Turkeys cannot be compared to raising chickens, they are a totally different experience.  She's right.  Heritage turkeys are so beautiful when they display and I love their gobble gobble.  It could be that it's a new sound on our farm but it makes me chuckle every time I hear it.  Our big guy is a bit shabby from being inside all winter but I still think he looks pretty impressive.  The ladies don't seem to be paying much attention though......

We have 3 more little piggies coming to the Farm in June.  We have come to the realization that it will be hard to go back to store bought meat.  We may have to become vegetarians if we cannot raise our own meat!  Our beef arrived a couple of weeks ago and it's perfect.  It's tender and delicious.  There certainly is a risk to forking out the cash for 284lbs of beef because that beef could be as tough as shoe leather and taste like cardboard!  But we were lucky.  We have lots to choose from for our bbq while we're camping this summer!  We're actually having BBQ steak tonight, something we have not had for months.

While we were ill this past month my Son and I spent some time looking at our local seed supplier catalogue, deciding what we're going to plant this year.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to try sweet potatoes.  I can't wait for the time to come to turn the soil!

There you have it, a quick update on our little farm.

'til next time!