A kitchen garden is a wonderful addition to a garden repertoire and if you have no other gardens, it’s a perfect one to have as the only garden or as the beginning to many others. A traditional kitchen garden is known as a potager in French. The word potager...
I love making the best of the winter months by cross country skiing and snowshoeing when the conditions are right. Nothing is better than to take a break around the campfire for a warm up and lunch. This recipe, Belgian beef stew, is one of my favorites all winter...
Inside At The Table Fresh homemade lunch at the farm is available in the kitchen at 11:30 and 1:00 p.m. (2 reservation times available) Eat inside at the kitchen table. Self – guided tours of the farm are available and you are welcome to use the Ballyduff Trails....
Sourdough is an elusive item in my kitchen. I love using it and having it fresh and active in my refrigerator but mostly these past years, it is absent, having been neglected and then pitched out. When it’s gone, I miss it, when I have it on hand, I’m not the most...
Beekeeping and all the delicious by-products!
This summer’s evenings have been magical, so ideal for enjoying meals outdoors.
When we break from the busyness of the day and jump off the treadmill, cup in hand and perhaps under the shade of a tree, tea time is a respite. It’s a chance to rest and compose ourselves amid the seemingly never-ending work. When my daughters were little, we often...
The winter was especially long — deeply cold days with lots of wind and interjections of ice and snow. It’s only once we think the bad weather has passed that we begin again, stacking wood, planting, trimming, and cleaning the layers of dust that have accumulated in...
I have a love-hate relationship with this time of year. I’m sure I’m not alone. In the country, I believe we are more closely connected with nature and when the sun’s warmth hits the earth we feel it more intimately. All the animals begin to come out, and both day and...
Heating a drafty farm house entirely with wood is nearly impossible. It can be done, but parts of the house will be cozy and lovely, while other parts, well... Our family has spent many a night, reading and chatting with our feet in the open door of the wood...
I was looking for a simpler, more balanced way of life for us.
It was 2006 when I moved with my four daughters from Toronto to a 60-acre farm in Pontypool, Ontario. I was searching for a different life for my girls and I, one that was more like my childhood in rural Vermont. And even though I hadn’t grown up on a farm,...
We’ve had some really frigid days this January, with many nights well below minus 20°C. I often wonder how they managed in past times; keeping themselves warm, while tending their animals outside, where simply keeping the water from freezing in their stalls would have...