Met a Garden Mentor and Found a Local Hot Dog

            This past weekend, the family and I traveled to my friend's cottage. I stuck by my regular routine, picking up my weekly groceries at the ELS before heading out of town. I stocked the cooler full of lunch meats from Dalew and Burt farms, Thornloe cheeses, and milk. I picked up lettuce, green beans, and garlic at Beaulieu's Farm down the road and off we went.  I did make a stop at the grocery store for Cheezies, marshmallows and Kaisers. 
           
          On our way up to the cottage, I sheepishly shared my plan with Terry to keep a much larger garden- where I could grow our veggies for the year and maybe have some chickens.  I sincerely want to try to keep a bigger garden and I suspect I could handle chickens, however I am intimidated by the amount of work required, and also seriously afraid of roosters, But ever since I met the farmer who keeps the veggie stand 3 km from my house, I can't shake the feeling that I could be growing so much more myself.  On my usual bike route I pass four veggie stands. We have the property, the only thing holding me back is.... fear, I guess.  Will I have enough time, who will teach me how to do this, can I still go away for the weekends? 


         As luck would have it, the unexpected highlight of the trip was meeting my friend's uncle Mark, who keeps a 1 acre garden and manages to grow nearly all of his own vegetables- FOR THE YEAR. His wife helps him with cleaning and canning, but he tends to his garden by himself. For over an hour we chatted about his garden. When I invited myself over to his garden to check things out, he didn't seem to mind. I can't wait to see his garden and begin researching the possibility of keeping a bigger garden.  I told him about this project and he seemed genuinely interested in sharing his knowledge of gardening. He told me that for dinner that night he had potatoes, cucumbers, carrots and green beans from his garden and fish he'd caught on the lake himself. What I admired most was that none of this was political for him, he had no pretensions about him, no agenda- he was just living a way that made sense to him because he can. 
      
         Another highlight was a stop at Creative Meats- I asked the butcher if the meat was locally raised and he said that some was and other meats were from a federally inspected plant. He said the smokies, wieners and ground chuck was local. Yes that's right- tomorrow it's LOCAL hot dogs for supper.