Even if you’ve never entertained the notion of raising chickens, Signe Langford’s Happy Hens & Fresh Eggs: Keeping Chickens in the Kitchen Garden, with 100 Recipes has the power to pull you into the renaissance movement. Those who are already part of the growing...
Fifty-five bunches of chard, 75 heads of lettuce, 110 bunches of kale, 18 kg (40 pounds) of salad mix, 13.6 kg (30 pounds) of spinach, and many more items are assigned, and we set off to harvest. I finish harvesting my last bunch of kale and starting walk back to the...
Langdon Hall is known as a luxurious retreat. Just one hour from Toronto, the Cambridge, Ontario, property boasts plush, Hollywood-worthy suites and an afternoon tea service fit for a princess. And yet, with chef Jason Bangerter at the helm, Langdon’s dining room has...
As a young girl growing up in the country, I couldn’t wait to leave my parents’ home and move to the city. I had never understood the lure of the countryside. On the farm, my life consisted of going to school, cutting grass, and helping out in the family garden. I was...
Most of us cannot wait until the warmer weather arrives, there is so much to look forward to: watching for signs of new growth, going outside wearing fewer layers, and hearing the peepers. The peepers are a sure sign things are about to change – for the better! Also...
Here’s what you probably didn’t know: Earth Day was founded in the United States on April 22, 1970. It is now celebrated in more than 196 countries. While Rachel Carson’s 1962 New York Times bestseller Silent Spring turned up the volume on pollution and the fragile...
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...
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...
Our gardening editor, Mark Cullen, has his hands in many things--including a monumental tribute to Canada's soldiers. His ambitious "Tree For Every Hero" was designed to commemorate fallen Canadian Armed Forces members whose final journey is along the Highway of...
At the opulent Langdon Hall Country House Hotel and Spa in Blair, Ontario, the kitchen behind the province’s only five-diamond restaurant never closes. At 2 am, you’ll find coveted Pastry Chef Rachel Nicholson starting her shift, ensuring all the savoury breads for...
You have to pity Victoria Bick and her staff. It's an unseasonably scorching day in late May. The midday sun is a harsh mistress. But, there they are, working in the restored kitchen garden of Dundurn Castle. They move about in long skirts, long sleeves, bonnets and...
Just shy of two centuries ago (1828), the Canada Company began surveying Huron Road, part of which included an area where William “Tiger” Dunlop became the first European to plant his surveyor’s stakes in what would become Stratford, Ontario. But as was typically the...
Held this year from July 17 to August 27, the Stratford Summer Music Festival is now in its 17th year, though its roots stretch back to the 1950s, when it was closely associated with the theatre festival. Abandoned in the ’70s and revived here and there over the...
It was back in my early years of elementary school when I first remember seeing one: There, projected on the gymnasium wall, bigger than life, was a Land Rover. The scene was from Born Free, the 1966 film about a couple who were working in a nature reserve in Kenya,...
Mention the name Stratford, Ontario, to most people, and its annual celebration of Shakespeare is the first thing to come to mind. Though the town has enjoyed a connection with William Shakespeare since Thomas Mercer Jones gave a picture of the Bard to the owner of...