Wild Strawberries…

When the rain stops, I will go into the forest and pick a bunch of wild strawberries.  They are nearly ready at Tiny House Ontario.  I think that nothing tastes better than these little wild wonders.

Categories: Food, Forest, Off Grid, Ontario, Simple living, Tiny House Ontario | Leave a comment

Growing – Maybe

It is now six months since I started the Tiny House Ontario Blog.  It is almost a year since the Tiny House was built enough to move things and myself into.

This year we got some soil from one of the local farm boys.  He delivered beautiful soil to me, far more than I needed for $40.  The best thing is that it is REAL soil not sifted dead crap that you buy from the companies who bring their interpretation of soil. Dead dirt.

The soil has lovely clay deposits in it which I took out and will make a clay oven from ( I now have half of what I need).  It also had some wonderful round granite rocks which are left overs from the ice age going over the Canadian Shield, these will be beautiful orange accents, for the stone fence, I also had four full wheel barrels of extra soil which I put beside my humanure/compost unit and this will be used to cover the organics.  I am grateful to the farmer and to the young man for sharing with me.

There was a good half day of digging and I am grateful that I have a husband who took care of this for me.  I am still quite winded from losing my grandmother, so it was nice to have him take care of the hard work.  He dug and I threw out the beautiful stones and clay, then raked and planted the garden.

We went to Sand’s Produce and picked up a few tomato and pepper plants from the Sands family business and planted them too.

The next morning we found that some little critter stole every single one of the zucchini and squash seeds as well as having dug up the bean seeds.  Today since it is raining, I put a few more in the ground and will put wire mesh over the seeds.

I am not sure if we can produce any food in a garden, in a small clearing, in the middle of a forest.  I guess it is fully depending on the cooperation of the other creatures who make this their home as well.

Categories: Environmentalism, Food, Forest, Nature, Off Grid, Tiny House Ontario | 1 Comment

Food Culture

Yesterday My cousin Tracey came from the city, my husband HJ came from Hamilton, and my sister came from Saskatoon and I planned to make a meal for them.  I bought ingredients and then decided while I was still in Kingston that I felt too overwhelmed to make a fuss, so I stopped at the Pasta Shelf in Kingston and picked up a huge vegetarian pasta dish, some extra red pepper sauce, some roasted garlic as well as garlic bread and put it all on the BBQ to heat.

I know it is LAZY, but sometimes one has to allow themselves such conveniences.

The meal was nice, but I could not really eat, actually, only my husband ate well, so over half of the pasta is left over.  I think that this means that I don’t have to cook today either.  Just warm.

So… the problem is that I still have ingredients for a meal for four hungry people.  Having grown up on a farm, I always find that I over prepare food.  This over preparation, always thinking if there are no left overs that people did not get enough to eat, caused a funny situation in my marriage for the first few months.  I would cook big meals and my husband who grew up in a culture where leaving left overs is not acceptable… caused confusion.

I would cook bigger and bigger meals and he got fat a little bit at a time.  Finally, I said, “I think you might be eating too much” and he said, “I think you are cooking too much”.  Turns out that the poor man was in agony trying to get through these meals in order to prove to me that he enjoyed what I cooked him.

A funny cultural difference, I think.  Now I prepare proportionate meals unless I have guests, or I remove what will be for the next meal before I put anything on the table.

Categories: Cloth Porch, Friendship, Off Grid, Tiny House Ontario | 2 Comments

A Different Angle

I took a photo of Tiny House Ontario that I find so absolutely initially terrible looking that I almost don’t want to show you.

Still… it is too weird and funky to keep to myself.  And if you look past the TYPAR covering, you might see this photo as interesting, as I do.

The light filtering through the trees is gorgeous and also my sweet husband is the shadow in the cloth porch.

Life is worth living here.

 

Still, I hope we can get Tiny House Ontario sided this year.  A new white food grade barrel will go up this weekend on the WC roof to meet the hose (you might see it) there.

Onward, we move.  One foot in front of the other.  

Categories: Cloth Porch, Environmentalism, Forest, Magical, Off Grid, Tiny House Ontario | 1 Comment

Big Loss

Sorry I have not been good about updates in the past week.  Truth is, my grandmother died on Friday.  She was my mentor and best friend.  It has been rough and with being off grid, when I get somewhere I seem to always have other obligations.

I will post again soon.  I have to get the garden going, the eves trough up and the rain barrel connected.  So there are things to do and talk about.

Weather is nice and bike is fixed but I have not had the chance to even pick up poor Baby.

I hope all is well with my readers.

Categories: Tiny House Ontario | Leave a comment