A Word in the Woods

When was the last time your grocery store gave you a hug, a handshake, and inspired you for the week’s cooking? That’s exactly what your market can do for you — there are people whose skills, hard work, and pride in their craft put quality food on your table, and I enjoy being reminded of that every Sunday that I can make it down to my local market.

Extra love goes out to friends I’ve met, Zach from Highmark Farms, Christian from Monforte Dairy, and especially the lovely Janaki for putting together the wonderful Leslieville Farmer’s Market! Thank you for a great first season!

And although the market season is over, I’ll be sure to pick up my winter produce box (pictured above) from Le Papillion on the Park every Sunday.

Tags: farms, fresh food, leslie market, local, market, produce
Posted in Conservation, News, Personal | No Comments »

Perhaps not something that everybody likes to hear, but I, for one, found myself nodding along with many of the points in Don Tryon’s Leave-A-Trace editorial page.

He makes the point for a common-sense approach to camping, and takes issue with the extremes that some enthusiasts have gone through to erase our existence on the land. I agree with much of the spirit of leave-no-trace in preserving the land for future enjoyment, but, like Don, I find some practitioners take it too far.

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Tags: camping style, editorial, ethics, Leave no Trace, LNT, opinion, purcell
Posted in Conservation, editorial, Personal | 4 Comments »

Although I’m not a fan of banning everything for our own good, this makes me smile. I’d have preferred if they just levied an environmental impact fee on buyers, but hey.

Read the article on the London’s plans to phase out bottled water.

Tags: bottled water, environment, London Ontario, politics, water
Posted in Conservation, News | 1 Comment »

There’s a good writeup CPAWs site about how our Boreal forests are going to be given a bit more protection when industrial development decisions get made. With any new policy or announcement that involves big business and the environment, I’m always a bit skeptical, but this seems like a great start.

Continued conservation of Boreal forests in Ontario means that the species that call it their native habitat have a better chance at surviving, and the hunting and fishing that goes on in those areas can be tailored to control the population to make sure the local species are not over-harvested, or grow in population too large for the land to support. More land means more flexibility for threatened species such as the Woodland Caribou, Lake Sturgeon, and Polar Bear – species that are also considered at risk in other areas of Canada.

Tags: boreal forest, Conservation, CPAWS, environment, government, ontario, politics, species at risk, woodland caribou
Posted in Conservation | No Comments »