homesteading

Mar 19 2020

Laying Ducks with Charline Kavanagh

Charline Kavanagh has a hobby farm outside Moncton. She started off with a just a couple of animals, mostly chickens, but now has a small hobby farm That includes turkeys, sheep, pigs, goats and, of course, ducks. We asked her to tell us how to get into laying ducks.

We are grateful to New Brunswick Government’s Wellness Movement for a Community Food Action grant and to Pays de Cocagne Sustainable Development Group (GDDPC) for their support.

By Elaine and Archie • farming, food movement, food security, food skills project, homesteading

Mar 1 2020

Fireweed Jelly with Shelley Bauman-Shantz

Shelley Bauman-Shantz runs a small farm with her husband, Aaron, and her children. At her booth at the Bouctouche Farmers Market her Fireweed jelly caught our eye. Fireweed is a flower that comes up in abandoned fields and sometimes where there’s been a fire. We got her to walk us through her whole process for making the jelly.

Thank you to New Brunswick Government’s Wellness Movement for a Community Food Action grant and to Pays de Cocagne Sustainable Development Group (GDDPC) for their support.

By Elaine and Archie • cooking, food security, food skills project, foraging, homesteading

Feb 15 2020

Beekeeping with Brian Pond

Brian Pond is a true ambassador for the beekeeping community. He takes every opportunity to get people into bees including a kiosk at the local market where he has a display of live bees in a glass case for people to examine. In this video he took us to his hives and his honey processing shop in Mckees Mills.

Our thanks to New Brunswick Government’s Wellness Movement for a Community Food Action grant and to Pays de Cocagne Sustainable Development Group (GDDPC) for their support.

By Elaine and Archie • farming, food movement, food security, food skills project, gardening, homesteading

Feb 15 2020

The Family Cow with Hannah Buschhaus

Nothing says homesteading like the family cow. However, it’s an even bigger undertaking than most people realize. But Hannah Buschhaus shows us her how she and her family make it work.

This Food Skills project was made possible by New Brunswick Government’s Wellness Movement for a Community Food Action grant and the support of Pays de Cocagne Sustainable Development Group (GDDPC).

By Elaine and Archie • children, farming, food movement, food security, food skills project, homesteading

Feb 1 2020

Sheep Farming with Moranda Van Geest

What is the number one business for young farmers to get into these days? Moranda Van Geest says it’s sheep farming. Moranda and her husband had a dairy for for decades after they came from the Netherlands. They “retired” from that and started a sheep farm.

We couldn’t have done this project without the help of a New Brunswick Government’s Wellness Movement for a Community Food Action grant and the support of Pays de Cocagne Sustainable Development Group (GDDPC) for their support.

By Elaine and Archie • farming, food movement, food security, food skills project, homesteading

Jan 30 2020

Foraging with Samantha Christensen

Samantha loves to teach people about how to forage for food. At this point in her life her fridge is almost always has a load of foraged food. In this video she gives a quick look at some of food you can find in our countryside.

We are grateful to New Brunswick Government’s Wellness Movement for a Community Food Action grant and to Pays de Cocagne Sustainable Development Group (GDDPC) for their support.

By Elaine and Archie • cooking, food movement, food security, food skills project, foraging, homesteading

woman with parking lot of garden boxes and a greenhouse behind her

Jan 15 2020

Urban Farming with Alicia Clarkson

Alicia Clarkson is the garden coordinator for the Peter McKee Community Garden in Moncton, NB. When she started there were just a few boxes, but now the parking lot is full and there is greenhouse and potting shed and more. She says most of her job is teaching people every aspect of gardening. Listen as she tells us about how to be an urban farmer.

We thank New Brunswick Government’s Wellness Movement for a Community Food Action grant and to Pays de Cocagne Sustainable Development Group (GDDPC) for their support.

By Elaine and Archie • farming, food movement, food security, food skills project, gardening, homesteading

Sep 22 2016

ACORN’s first Homesteader Symposium

Homesteading is changing. As more people want to take control of their food, lifestyle and consumer habits, homesteading is becoming an urban pursuit as well. That’s why we found ACORN’s first Homesteader Symposium every bit as applicable to our life in Moncton as we would have living in rural New Brunswick.

Over 40 people from a broad cross section of local people attended the daylong workshop on Sunday, September 11, held at the Dieppe Farmers Market.

Not just a rural pursuit

Evidence is everywhere that doing it yourself isn’t just a rural phenomenon anymore. Yards, lawns and vacant lots in cities are turning into food gardens. Workshops on wild-crafting, making household items like soap by hand, and doing more with less are popular. And Facebook groups like Back to the Land in Moncton or NB Gardeners and Wildcrafters have many urban members, including us.

The Internet broke that barrier of thinking homesteading can only be done outside the city limits by making homesteading skills available to anyone with a smart phone, tablet or computer. It might have started out as homesteaders sharing experiences with other rural homesteaders, but anyone with a yard and an independent streak can see they can do most of those things, too, once they stop valuing their green carpet.

Nice balance of skills

There are so many skills needed to be self-sustaining, choosing a day’s worth of information to present must have been challenging for the organizers. But the topics of how to produce all (most) of your food, root cellaring, extending the growing season, wild edible and medicinal plants of the Maritimes, food forest gardens and lacto-fermentation techniques provided a nice balance.

Food Forests

Estelle Drisdelle’s taught us about turning your lawn into a food forest. We started doing research on how our willow at the back of our Moncton lot might be the centre of a little food forest. Since we stopped mowing around it, it has become way more interesting.

Estelle Drisdelle’s presentation on food forest gardens that mimic a forest ecosystem to grow food, medicinal plants, pollinator plants and create habitat was fascinating. A food forest garden is beautiful, low maintenance and resilient. The ones in Sackville that she helped create withstood major flooding whereas conventional gardens there did not.

My husband, Archie Nadon, and I are going to do one in our Moncton backyard where the willow tree has created a haven for diversity since Archie has stopped mowing.

Lacto-fermentation

Shannon Jones and Bryan Dyck of Broadfork Farm in Nova Scotia gave a great introduction to the lacto-fermentation preserving method. No boiling. No cooking.

And, just as I was getting ready to do some conventional pickling this season, Shannon Jones and Bryan Dyck of Broadfork Farm taught us about lacto-fermentation.

No boiling involved, just preserve your veggies with brine. There are three methods: sauerkraut, kimchi and immersion. The resulting ferment is, Shannon assures us, tasty and excellent for maintaining good gut bacteria. I made the first test bottle this morning.

Shared hard-earned experience

All the presenters were great and shared their hard-earned knowledge and experience. For example, Rebecca and Robin LeBlanc of Bathurst both work full-time as teachers and raise their three children, but also manage to grow vegetables and grain, make cider, cheese, press sunflower oil, raise chickens, and milk a cow!

Photographs of their home-grown food was mouth-wateringly stunning. When I asked Rachel “How do you do it all?” she answered, “It’s a lifestyle. We are used to working very hard, but we also enjoy what we do.”

And Alyson Chisholm of Windy Hill Farm gave us lots to think about the pros and cons of greenhouses to extend the growing season. I did not realize that the snow has to be cleared off of them all winter. So maybe movable tunnels that are taken down in the fall are a better option for me. And on it went.

It all sounded so doable and so inspired were we that we think ACORN should start offering an urban homesteader symposium.

For a list of all that went on, here is a link to the event posted on Facebook. (Note: since this is a link to a Facebook event, it might have been taken down.)https://www.facebook.com/events/1223595117684739/

By Elaine Mandrona • farming, food security, homesteading