Rethinking Lifestyle

The back to the land movement has always been an interest of mine.

My grandparents, like many others in their generation, grew up rural, but even in their later years, in a semi urban setting, continued with large gardens and some livestock. I observed the passion, skill and knowledge with which they produced their food. Their freezer and pantry were brimming with produce that came out of their own large gardens. Nothing went to waste. I remember after a very bountiful harvest of watermelons, they cut out the melon hearts, pitched them into a cauldron and reduced the melon juice until it became the most delicious syrup. I wish now that I had lived closer and that I could have worked alongside them more. A child of the fifties, and with parents that moved away from self sufficient food production into buying all foods in the grocery store, a lot of the skills my grandparents had did not get passed on to me.

Even so, the idea of self sufficient food production has interested me through a lot of my adult years. Sadly, a move to an acreage didn’t happen until all my children had left our nest.

In 2007 my husband and I took a three month challenge to eat a diet within 100 miles. Although we made a number of concessions it was nonetheless a good exercise in growing more of our vegetables and finding local producers for many of our foods. Our dependency on food that comes from outside Canada and many miles away, became very clear to us. So began my quest to become more food secure.

Several years back, looking for some community connections in our new location, I joined the Woodmore Womens Institute. This well organized group with a long history of promoting the well-being of rural women, their families and communities through education and social connections was embarking on a focus around food security and food literacy issues. As a newly arrived outsider I was in a position to point out to these WI ladies how well organized, rich in knowledge and experience, and uniquely placed they were to engage in our communities and transfer knowledge to special populations such as students and young families.

In the past year we focused our educational efforts in the Emerson-Franklin Rural Municipality with organic gardening presentations, fabulous food garden tours, and workshops including food preservation, cooking from scratch from your garden pantry, bread making and cheese making. The turnouts to our workshops and presentations were way beyond our expectations. It appeared even rural folks are hungry for this kind of information. Some workshops needed to be repeated, the demand was so high.

This summer we are engaging with school age children, encouraging them to grow food by offering them an opportunity to enter a food growing contest. Start them young and pass on the knowledge before its too late.