Eat local!

This whole area is a farming paradox.

On the one hand, you have factory farms, confined feed lots (chicken and pigs), cash crops, and probably Monsanto seeds.

On the other hand, you have grass-fed, pastured beef and pork, free-range chickens and eggs, and loads of inexpensive organic produce - if you know where to look.

Farmer Jim was out first meat supplier: beef and pork.

I don't know how long Jim's been raising cattle and pigs, but it's been a while. He's not from around here, though. I knew he was in Caledon for a long time before moving here, but I'm not sure where he was before that.

I made a beef stew for the family shortly after we moved here with beef I got from Jim, and you'd have thought they were eating in a five-star restaurant the way they carried on. It was exceptional, like nothing any of us had ever tasted before.

Other than a bit of sausage or bacon, Mike won't eat pork. Never has. But he'll eat Farmer Jim's pork. He says it tastes "clean".

We get out chickens and CSA from Tarrah and Nathan at Green Being Farm. Tarrah went to university to study farming, and I feel like I have a vested interest in their success.

The first two years, we got 30 chickens a year (that's when we had other family living here). Now we're down to 15 a year. I couldn't go back to store-bought meat again - partly for ethical reasons, and partly for taste. Those chickens taste the way chickens tasted when I was a kid: delectable.

And the CSA that we got from them the first two winters was a delight for so many reasons. The price was great, the vegetables were gorgeous and delicious - and the bonus was the 4-page newsletter, complete with recipes, that accompanied every bag of produce. Awesome!

Winter of 2013 and 2014, we got a side of beef from Mary and Dennis Starkey at Hillview Farm. Mary and Dennis are true Torontonians. Dennis worked at the school board, and Mary had her own business at Yonge and Eglinton. When retirement loomed on the horizon, Dennis said, "I want a cattle farm," and Mary said, "Go for it" - never believing he would. But he did! (Having been in education, he knew how to research, and that must have helped!)

Mary continued to work in Toronto during the first year, then moved up here, fully expecting to get a Wife of the Year award for ditching her career to support her husband's dream. But she said that after six months, she realized she could never live in the city again.

Ever generous, Mary threw in organs and lots of soup bones full of marrow - oh, and a bottle of maple syrup. Best soups and stews ever! Again, when the kids left and it was just Mike and I, a side of beef no longer made sense.

Then there's Sugar Sweet Farms - technically local (they're within a 100-mile radius). I get all my veggies from Carla and Brian at the farmers' market near here, and we swap stories and compare "farming" successes and disasters. This year, we got hit with blight, and it wiped out our tomatoes. They got hit with a deluge of rain at the beginning of August that drowned their bok choy. It was Carla who advised me not to use summer cabbage for sauerkraut, but to use winter cabbage after a couple of good frosts. I didn't even know there was a summer and winter cabbage!

Everyone in the "eat local" community seems to know everyone else - and I'm sure we'll make new connections every year!