by Lillian Lake | | Building Community
Veteran’s Day offers an opportunity to think about what it is to be a hero. My paternal side of my family raised firefighters and police officers. I think about how through the years, they gathered and shared stories of their experiences. I do not remember any of them...
by Lillian Lake | | Building Community, Food, Recipes
This last week has been a lesson in learning to go with the flow and remember to allow what needs to happen, happen. Everything has its timing. The week started OK. The tomatoes I tried to grow this summer were a bust. They got a blight that took out most of them. So...
by Lillian Lake | | Building Community, Food, Recipes
Every once in a while, someone will reach out to me via social media, email, or stop me somewhere and tell me they enjoy reading my column and blog posts. I look forward to them every week. I also enjoy reading comments in the comment section of my blog so let me know...
by Lillian Lake | | Building Community, Farms, Food, Locally Made
And just like that, summer collapsed into fall. – Oscar Wilde It would be honest to say that Oscar Wilde’s words regarding fall are nearly my favorite way to describe how I feel about this particular change of the season. The others seem to be gradual, but it...
by Lillian Lake | | Food, Stop Trafficking
Tasseography, or tea leaf reading, is specialized fortune-telling done by interpreting patterns in leftover, used tea leaves. Tea leaf readers look for special patterns or symbols. My great-grandmother was a tea leaf reader. I didn’t know this until my teenage years...
by Lillian Lake | | Farms, Food
For the last eight years, I’ve been learning about topsoil erosion and preventive, regenerative agricultural practices as a means to understanding how our food is grown and how it relates to the plant-based eating vs. meat-eating discussion. The two instances...
by Lillian Lake | | Desserts, Food, Recipes
September has arrived with a gentle breeze and lower temps in the 70s. For many, September signals the end of summer. I’m still clinging to the knowledge that summer doesn’t end until it ends, no matter the date on the calendar or the number of pumpkin spice lattes...
by Lillian Lake | | Climate Change, Food
I read on the National Geographic website that Canada is richly endowed and unlikely to run out of water. The writer made some good points but failed to consider Canada’s rising population, increase in agricultural production, adverse effects of climate change, and...
by Lillian Lake | | Building Community, Farms, Food, Stop Trafficking
A few years ago, as I was doing my catalog Christmas shopping, I had a few questions, so I decided to call the company directly. Their customer service is excellent. As the representative was chatty, I imagine it must have been a slower evening. She asked me what I do...