Showing posts with label farmers market. Show all posts
Showing posts with label farmers market. Show all posts

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Organic Agriculture

Over the last little while, I've been doing lots of reading and research on organics. I started a couple of years ago, reading a bit here and there. But the last few months it's been really important to me to get as much information as I can.

A good website to check out is the website run by the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM). There is a lot of information to read there, including links to organic producers. And this is an international group, so it has information for many different countries which is great!

Being located where I am, it's difficult to choose what food to eat. Ideally, local organically grown food would be available as it's important to me to support local producers as well as eating food that is grown/raised without using chemical fertilizers and pesticides. During the winter months, it's next to impossible to find fresh local food, so when I can I usually choose certified organic food, even though it's grown in the US or another foreign country. However, if I can choose between an organic item grown in a different country and one that isn't certified organic but grown in my own province, which should I choose? I waffle back and forth on that issue every time I go grocery shopping :(

Luckily, one of the vendors (East Coast Family Market) at our local farmers market will have certified organic vegetables this year (I'm so looking forward to our opening day - June 6!). ECFM also has meat available, but I'm not sure if the meat is certified organic or not. But I do know that the animals are humanely raised, and even though I haven't asked them yet, I'm sure that if they feel it's important to grow certified organic veggies that they will also be raising their animals in an organic way.

On the organic topic, I've decided that I'm going to produce a line of organic soaps. I have on hand certified organic carrier oils and essential oils that are either certified organic or organically grown but not certified. I hope to have this line ready for market no later than September. The soaps themselves will not be certified organic, as I am not certified. But all of the plants provided the oils I use will have been grown organically so I know that I'm helping to support organic agriculture, which helps keep our Earth healthy.

Is organic agriculture important to you? Why or why not? How do you ensure that you are buying food that is healthy for both your family and the Earth? I'd love to hear what other people think!

Happiness Thought of the Day:
"Now is the time to be happy. This is the place to be happy."

Monday, January 5, 2009

January GiveAway - Nova Scotia Beach Glass!


This lovely bracelet (which is actually a blue/green seafoam colour, not white) is being donated by Lori at Willow Black Lab (mostly beach glass supplies Lori and her black lab Willow find on their treasure hunting expeditions) / Nova Scotia Beach Glass (beautiful jewelry Lori designs and creates with the treasures she finds along the shores of Nova Scotia). This is what Lori told me about how she started collecting beach glass:
"Willow found me when she was only 4 weeks old and weighed in at a whoopping 3 lbs. So she started to travel to work with me and on my lunch hour we would head for the beach. I noticed broken glass and picked it up because I didn't want her to cut her paws or eat it. Then one day I found a perfectly smooth and frosty piece of cobalt blue . I was amazed and hooked on beach glass from then on. It's been over 5 years that I've hunted for seaglass and eachpiece I find still holds me in amazement just like the first piece."

The bracelet is 7.5 inches long , silver plated and has seafoam green beach glass.

All you have to do is go to either of her Etsy webshops (you can click on the links above) and make a comment below as to what your favourite piece is. On January 15th, I'll be making a random draw from all the people that commented for the winner of the bracelet :)

I've recently bought a few items from Lori. I've been experimenting with making jewelry pieces for over a year now, and thought I'd try my hand at using beach glass. I got the following items:
I'm really looking forward to playing with them to see what I come up with. I took a class last spring on wire-wrapping, and we used beach glass. We shall see what wire designs the above pieces call out for :)

And since this is my first post of 2009, I wish you all a Happy New Year! May 2009 bring you peace, happiness and prosperity :)

The Enfield Farmers Market is finished for the winter. Thank you to everybody in the community that came out and supported your local vendors! We'll be opening up again in June. For anybody that wants to order Clean & Bright products, you can see what I have available by going to my Etsy shop here. If you're local and want to arrange to pick up your order, feel free to place your order on Etsy and put a comment in the Message to Seller box that you'd like to pick it up. I'll let you know what the actual total is in Canadian funds since you won't have to pay for shipping. Also, I'm now available for home parties. If you'd like to host a home party please email me at cleanbright@eastlink.ca and I'll send you some information. I won't be doing very many home parties due to my knee injury. But I am up for doing 1-2 every month until my knee surgery is scheduled...

May your day be filled with sunshine :)

Saturday, July 7, 2007

A New Soap - as yet unnamed

I cut a brand new soap yesterday and it's now curing for the next several weeks. Despite what the title says it does have a name, but it's part of a duo and until the second soap is made I'm not publishing the names of either one.

This new one is in our Silk line, and contains a blend of essential oils that combine for a wonderfully earthy, grounded scent. It has oodles of olive oil (it's main ingredient), lots of coconut oil for a fantastically sudsy lather, shea butter, avocado oil, and palm oil. It contains coconut milk for a creamy lather, and contains silk (which really does make the lather feel silky!). For scent imagine a blend of cedarwood, ylang ylang, vetiver, vanilla, and patchouli. I was trying to come up with a blend that would make me feel like I was sitting at the very base of a tall mountain in the middle of the night during a new moon with no breeze whatsoever to disturb the black, utter stillness of the moment. And I think I came pretty darn close :) It will be on the shelves mid-August.

We made it through our store's 1st Anniversary celebrations! We still have some cards left in our draw, so until they're gone we'll be offering everybody who makes a minimum purchase of $25 the chance to draw a card from the box. You can save anywhere from 5-25% off your purchase, or get an item for free :) This includes all internet/mail order purchases as well.


We have a new Farmers Market in the area that just opened today. I was very excited to hear about this, as I'm a huge supporter of buying local whenever possible. I'm currently reading a book by Barbara Kingsolver entitled "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A year of Food Life". Not sure about some of her statistics as she doesn't reference them, but it definitely makes you think about where your food comes from. And it confirms by own belief about supporting local producers. Unfortunately, there weren't any produce vendors there today, but it is only their first day open so I'm hoping that they'll show up soon. I'd much rather give my money directly to the producer/farmer than some middle man/grocery store. Good thing about going today, though, is I found out the name and contact info for a local CSA (Community Shared Agriculture) organic farm. It's too late to join this year as they're already several weeks into deliveries, but I'll be on the list for next year's shareholders. For anybody in the Elmsdale area, the new Farmers' Market is held on Saturdays 8am-1pm at the Elmsdale Legion on Highway #2. Please go out and support our local producers :)

Happiness Thought of the Day:
"Happiness lies in becoming unafraid of change."