The adventure and some little changes...

So, I know you are all burning to know how the winter camping trip went... Well, it went great! They all came back at 7:30 smiling and hungry and a little cold!

Je sais que vous brûlez tous d'envie de savoir comment s'est passé le camping d'hiver. Ça a très bien été! Ils sont tous revenus à 7 h 30 ce matin, souriants, affamés et un peu gelés!




A happy but tired camper!

Une petite campeuse heureuse, mais fatiguée!

Look at that great gift from my Italian friend! They are family handpuppets from Hungary (www.bi-ba-bu.hu).

Regardez ce joli cadeau de ma copine italienne! Ce sont des marionnettes maman et bébé (www.bi-ba-bu.hu).



Grand-maman est ici pour deux semaines et elle a apporté son accordéon!

Grandma is here for two weeks and she brought her accordion!





Mathilde is quite happy to see the Christmas tree being replaced by her beloved hammock.

Mathilde est bien heureuse de voir le sapin de Noël se faire remplacer par son hamac bien aimé.




Now, the resolution part. Just like you, I don't like to take resolutions that I always write down again every year, like an old mantra. I don't even like the word resolution. So let's call this Little changes. In this regard, look at this Community of Change created by Suzy from Hip mountain mamma. The idea is to pick one change each month until Earth day. If you click on the blogs, you can read what everybody decided to work on. Quite inspiring!

Yes, we do a lot for the Earth around here, but we sure can do much more. So, here's a list of the Little changes that we will work on :

• Being more careful about the wrapping (no styrofoam, packaged baby greens, soft plastics - like cheese wrappers, saran wrap, ziploc) and of course, grocery bags (we're quite good with those).
• Buying our laundry and dishwashing produits in bulk (I tried making my own for many year but never found a satisfying recipe).

Here's a list of the food we will stop buying (or only very rarely):

• Italian prosciutto, balsamic vinegar, olive oil and parmesan (oh, I'll miss my parmesan... and olive oil... well, maybe we'll get some olive oil once in a while!)
• Coconut product (milk, oil, nut)
• Tropical fruits (but we'll buy the occasional banana, orange and grapefruit). We actually just signed up for a veggie basket from a local producer that will include Quebec only veggies. We will used our canned veggies and frozen berries, as well as our sauerkraut and sprouts. No more veggies that come from far away (maybe the occasional avocado...)
• No more chia, goji berries, carob
• No more imported pasta, cookies (Lu!)
  
• We will cut down our rice consumption a lot (including rice cakes)
• Making our own crakers or finding some local alternatives (I didn't even know the Ryvita were from England!! Urgh!)
• We don't drink much coffee nor eat much chocolate, but we will be even more careful, and only buy organic and fairtrade when we do
• Cut down on our cane sugar consumption and use mostly local raw honey and maple syrup (no more agave nectar for us)
• No more cashews, sesame seeds and other imported nuts (carefully read labels and find some US grown nuts when we consume them)
• Same for dried fruits (dates, figs and other fruits from far away will not be bought)
• As healthy as they are, seaweeds come from far away, so unless we find alternatives, we will stop buying those too...
• Cutting down our imported spice consumption.
  

I have made a list of meals that we can prepare with local ingredients and need to work on changing my cooking habits. We love indian food, italian food and many other ethnic foods, but they require ingredients that come from far away. I am planning on buying an Native Amerindian cookbook to get inspired to cook with local ingredients. Living with my Grandma is also very helpful in that regard!

And on the farm front :

• Learn to milk the cow
• Try to milk the ewes in the spring
  
• Learn to spin
• Get a bee hive or two and get comfortable around bees
• Plant enough veggies for a whole year and pick as many berries as last summer to fill our freezer for the winter!

Je suis trop fatiguée pour traduire les amis!

Here' a great article on real milk (raw milk) by Sally Fallon.