By Lisa Boonstoppel-Pot

Never underestimate the power of a baby animal to tell your story. One image and moment with a healthy farm animal in a pen full of fresh straw can embed a lifetime of security and confidence in the mind of a consumer who is starting to lose faith in farmers to grow and produce good food. Farmers do take excellent care of their animals. Open your farm to guests and offer experiences. This little one delighted guests on an Eat Local Huron farm crawl at Meeting Place Organic Farm.

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I’m a farmer who used to kill milkweed plants with Roundup. Now I grow them in my garden ON PURPOSE to feed the pollinators. Goldenrod too. Supporting biodiversity is all the rage and I’m here for it because it’s actually huge fun to grow things instead of kill them.

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While on a hay wagon en route to see a hay field, Tony McQuail was talking about rotational grazing, soil microbes and pasture. One lady asked, “What is pasture?” There was a pause and he nicely explained what pasture is. It might seem like a dumb question to us but if you lived in the city all your life, why would you know what a pasture is? There is most definitely time for science, agronomy, research and deep-diving into soil microbes and the latest innovations. But urbanites are flooding to rural Ontario and we also need to make time to just talk, in simple language, about what we do and why we do it, explaining our lingo as we go.

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Strawberries are the only fruit to have seeds on the outside and the Vitamin C in seven strawberries is equivalent to that of one orange. You learn something new every day. This wisdom came from Emily Morrison of Morrison Berries near Lucknow.