October Musings

Hello Locally Fed friends, 

Welcome to October! Also, how are we already in October! Time truly flies when you're having fun, and my fun right now is chasing after my one year old, cleaning up all the messes he makes, and bringing delicious local food to you, dear reader. 

Where do I start? Well, let's rewind it back a bit, and talk about the last two weeks of Locally Fed and what I've been up too. 

The run out to Abbotsford & Chilliwack is becoming one of my favourite times a week. I am a big podcast listener, and love music while I drive, but I find my mind wanders so much while I drive that I tune out the music that is playing, or turn off the podcast that is on. Being a stay at home mom with a 1 year old and seeing friends and family multiple times a week, sometimes it is hard to have enough quiet to actually let my mind wander. 

Last week was the Thanksgiving run out into the Fraser Valley, and my car was filled with flowers and stalks of brussel sprouts. It felt so good. It also looked hilarious. Talking to different customers about what their Thanksgiving plans were and what recipes they would be cooking up was absolutely a highlight of last week for me. After the last box was picked up, I made my way home, and while I drove, my mind was starting to pack for our trip to San Francisco. 

This trip down South was planned around 6 months ago, before the thought of Locally Fed had even crossed my mind. One of my husbands favourite artists of all time was touring for the first time ever, and only had a few stops in North America, San Fran being one of them. We decided to make a trip of it, and brought along a friend of my husbands who also loves the band, my mom and her best friend from Calgary. The trip was absolutely lovely, baby boy was a happy camper, and we walked and walked and walked around that vertical city. 

Whenever I am in a new place, even if I have been there before, I have to check out a farmers market, or a random independent grocery store, or a grocery store chain that we don't have in Canada, basically I just need to check out the food situation. We popped into a Trader Joes to buy some Thanksgiving dinner ingredients, perused a Whole Foods and peaked our heads into some corner stores. 

The concert was great, the company was even better, and on Tuesday we packed up and headed North. 

Bright and early on Wednesday morning, I made my way out to gather the flowers, the veg/fruit, the bread and the eggs. On my drive home, through every different weather system I might add (cloudy, rain, sun & eventually thunder and lightening), I realized that all the farm stops I had just completed are all family run. 

Local Harvest - Dan & Helen and their 5 children. Their son Dallas heads up the Harvest Boxes, their other son Dustin is the head baker, and their daughter Courtney does all the flowers. 

Windberry Farms - Kim & her husband. Windberry has eggs, chicken, blueberries, AirBnB's and more!

Rookie Blooms - Lindsay and her family run a small vegetable, egg and flower farm

Gelderman Acres - though bigger than the other farms, Nathan and his wife and their four children run their production of chicken & duck eggs as well as growing organic livestock feed 

Another two vendors that I am looking to buy from are May Bloom eggs, they have next-level sustainably and regeneratively raised chickens and ducks. Her flock is molting right now, but come Feb/March we will have access to these eggs. The other vendor that I am just getting up and running is Healing Bee's. They produce organic and unpasteurized honey in Burnaby! I am so excited about this as I am always on the hunt for good quality local honey. Stay tuned for that! 

I'm not going to lie, supporting family run farms, all within 99km of North Van, feels pretty dang good. By supporting these farms and Locally Fed, we are all part of the local food system and are participating in short-food-supply chains!

Alright! That is all I've got for you right now, thank you again for all your support. 

I've got business cards & posters ready to hand out if anyone would like some of those to spread the word of Local Harvest, and we are working on some sort of referral % or $ off of your order if someone you referred to us puts through an order. 

Big Love, 

 

Sev & Locally Fed