Taking it national baby!

Our love of craft beer has made Canada’s national newspaper! We’re featured on the cover of the Life section of today’s Globe and Mail for our (possibly obsessive) beer run to Madison, Wisconsin last summer, to bring home kegs of New Glarus beer (Belgian Red and Raspberry Tart to be exact) for our wedding last fall….

A costly error in judgement

I knew that this could happen, but I just couldn’t pass up the pretty when I saw them… hydrangeas for my porch planters! I put these out on the weekend of March 17-18, and the week that followed was insanely warm. I wasn’t terribly surprised that it got quite cold again for a couple days,…

This is going to be a very short Spring

Last Sunday was unbelievably warm. I was finally on the other end of a nasty stomach bug,  and I had hoped to plant my onions, although as of Sunday the ground still had a wee bit of ice under the surface, so they had to wait. Instead I cleaned and reorganized the garage. To be…

Welcome NOW readers!

How flattered I am to be ‘consulted’ by my pal Adria Vasil over at Ecoholic about getting your seedlings started for the upcoming season! There are certainly many more experts out there with greater knowledge than I, but to build on the story in this week’s NOW magazine, here are some additional tips and tricks….

It’s that time of year again

I’m still in the thinking/planning stages of my garden for this year, but very soon I’ll start my seedlings. I have a terrible habit of starting them far too early, and then end up with gargantuan plants that I awkwardly jostle around in the house for weeks until it’s safe to move them outdoors. So…

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I hope you have a wonderful, love-filled day!

Nostalgia… beer drinking socks

One year after trying to make SpillyJane Knit’s Socks with Pints On for Chris the first time, I  attempted them again, this time with lots of mods to try make the damn things fit Chris’s weirdly wide feet. The pattern is available here. I would deem my effort mostly successful. Firstly, I increased the needle…

Play farm

After Christmas 2010, my mom told me about a potential sewing/craft project she thought I might like to take up for my niece and nephew, as a future Christmas gift. I endeavour whenever possible to make Christmas presents — I loath the commercialism of the holidays — and I truly believe people appreciate something more…

Farming in the urban shadow in Waterloo, Ontario

Urban farm pressure. A combine harvests wheat off Fischer-Hallman Road in Kitchener. As Kitchener’s suburbs have grown outward, the once-quiet countryside has become a busy suburb. Photo by David Bebee. “Urbanization forces farmers to become land speculators, even the ones that don’t want to be,” By Greg Mercer, Record staff Jan 06 2012 Excerpt: Flourishing…