Banjo playing, windy walking, scrabble spelling, and beet gnocchi with honey mustard and goat cheese. Delicious.
Year in (re)view – 2012
It has been another year of travel and transition for the Peters-Kroeker duo. That is what we do.
Let’s see what happened:
Ethiopian island monasteries
JANUARY – We spent most of January in Ethiopia. First, for a MCC Sudan retreat and then for a few weeks of personal holidays. It was an amazing month with lots of vivid colours, experiences, and fruit juices!
Friendship day
FEBRUARY – Back in Rumbek we celebrated Friendship Day on February 14th with friends from around the world. International potlucks is something we miss a lot from South Sudan.
The dry season in Rumbek
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Our last parish visit
MARCH – The hot, dry, dusty season in Rumbek was how we said goodbye to South Sudan. We went on one last parish visit to Agangrial and had many going away parties. We left two days sooner than we planned when Joel had a kidney stone attack!
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APRIL – We spent a week at our second home in East Africa, the “Mennonite” in Nairobi, before leaving our East African life. On out way back to Canada we spent a wonderful 2 weeks in Slovakia and Italy with good friends and delicious food. After being in East Africa for 2 1/2 years we were amazed by everything in Europe!
Goodbye Mennonite / MGH
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Bratislava Castle
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Enjoying coffee in front of the blue church in Bratislava
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Amazing homemade Italian meals
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Venice
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Loving Venice!
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Northern Italy
MAY – We landed in Winnipeg at the beginning of May to be greeted by family and friends we hadn’t seen for many years.
Joel with his nephews at the airport.
JUNE – Joel spent the month learning how to build guitars. For my birthday I drove out to visit him and southern Manitoba for the weekend. We sought out all the tourist sites.
My southern manitoba passport.
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Joel and his guitar
JULY – With both of us on the farm we settled into life – gardening, working, and being in awe of the Canadian prairie weather.
Amazing weather
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Our growing garden
AUGUST – After being settled for a month we needed to get on the move again. We decided to travel in a way we have never done before (other than day trips to Winnipeg from Saskatchewan) – the road trip. We jumped into our newly purchased second-hand car and drove 3000km south to Austin, Texas. When we got there Joel helped our friends get married with his groomsman and guitar playing skills.
After 3000km and 4 days of driving we arrived!
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Being tourists in Texas
SEPTEMBER – Fall on the farm was filled with harvesting, canning, freezing, and attempting to mentally prepare for winter.
Harvesting
OCTOBER – We went to Winnipeg for a goat keeping workshop and came back with a family of milking goats in the back seat of the minivan thereby forcibly settling ourselves on the farm with daily chores.
Aurora farm goat-keeping workshop
NOVEMBER – Snow came at the end of October so by November we were layering clothes like we hadn’t layered for many years. And wearing toques inside.
Toques
DECEMBER – As we prepared for the Christmas season we went on a close-to-home adventure to cut down our own tree and fill our house with the fresh scent of pine.
Joel and his Christmas tree
So that was 2012.
For more pictures from Ethiopia, South Sudan, Europe, Texas, and Canada visit our picasa albums.
What will 2013 bring? Probably a few less plane rides and a lot more goat milk. We think it will be a good year. Come visit us – you are always welcome.
the home quarter – december 2012
Our first newsletter from Canada and our last newsletter from 2012. Find out what we are doing these days and read a choose your own adventure story about goat farming.
And happy new year.
‘Tis the Season
Time to take pictures of ourselves … again.
Merry Christmas from the farm
Now & Then
Then for us. Now for the chickens.
Still frame / Still life – December 1&2
It is Christmas orange time!
After a delicious breakfast made with goat milk and quinoa waffles Joel took off to the city for band practice.
Our lovely animals ate the afternoon away.
Cecilia came to the house to remind us that it was chore time and she wanted to be milked. She waited patiently as Joel prepared the milking room, getting it nice and warm. The chickens had already settled in.
The next morning we went Christmas tree hunting.
You Can Take Your Time Eating a Tangerine and Be Very Happy*
We now have more people using the land (that is, living from it) and fewer thinking about it than ever before. We are eating thoughtlessly … It is a crisis of culture.
The quote here is from Wendell Berry’s collection of essays “The Unsettling of America”. Starting in June, i’ve been a part of an informal challenge to read a Wendell Berry book per month for a year. I haven’t quite been able to keep up, but i am still trying to be reading some Wendell throughout the year. For those of you unfamiliar with Mr Berry & his writings, here’s a snippet from Wikipedia: “Wendell Berry (born August 5, 1934) is an American man of letters, academic, cultural and economic critic, and farmer. He is a prolific author of novels,short stories, poems, and essays.” Most of the time, i am in total agreement with what he writes. He’s a practical idealist; poet & plower combined. I like that.
In much of his writing on farming, he has three basic premises: 1) We need more farmers farming smaller portions of land, 2) We need to go back to older ways of farming, 3) There is a spiritual aspect to our food & the land from which it comes. Doesn’t that sound wonderful? I think so. I think it also reflects the growing concerns of the general population surrounding food.
The amazing thing to me is that he has been writing this for decades. Like, before people got this intense about their food. To me, the fact that his writing can be so timely 30 years after being written is a sign both of how far we’ve come & how far we still have to go. Or maybe more specifically, i find that it speaks to me where i am & points the way forward in agriculture.
So, when i read the quote above, i was pleasantly surprised to find that i had to disagree with Wendell on this point. Or at least about the part about us eating thoughtlessly. Heather & i recently attended the Harvest and Hunger forum, put on in Saskatoon by the Saskatchewan Council for International Cooperation (SCIC). People from across the province were in attendance & ranged from people new to food issues to seasoned farmers to urban beekeepers to conscious consumers. Our keynote speaker was Frances Moore Lappé, who had many wonderful things to tell us about the future of ecology & food. The second day was full of workshops on theory & practice around various food issues. It was so wonderful to be around so many people who were taking an interest in where their food was coming from & how it was being produced.
I’ve heard debates on what is the best method (or gimmick) when it comes to food: local or organic? meat-free? some other thing? I don’t think there’s one answer, but there is something very important to notice in the fact that we are having these debates, which is that more & more people are trying to eat more mindfully/thoughtfully.
So, while i agree with much of what he has to say in general, i am proud to say that i disagree with Wendell Berry about the fact that we are thoughtless eaters. I can only imagine that people like Mr Berry & Ms Lappé have paved the way for people like me. For that i’m very thankful.
For a few more of my thoughts around food production, you can go here.
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*Thich Nhat Hanh
**Wendell Berry
Still Saskatchewan – an album
On this snowy October day it is time to post pictures from our spring and summer and (already over) fall. We enjoyed growing and baking and harvesting. While we did have a 2 week road trip down to Texas and a few trips to Manitoba we mostly stuck around Saskatchewan, tending our garden.
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| Still Saskatchewan – 2012 |
Still frame / Still life – Oct 1, 2012
On Monday, October 1st we thanked our friends in Swift Current for letting us stay at their place for the weekend and then headed towards Winnipeg.
The trip is about 800km in a straight easterly line. We arrived in Winnipeg to find it on fire. Well, not the whole city but the fire was big.
We settled into our friends’ place (seriously, what would we do without friends’ houses to crash at wherever we go…?) and got ready for a 3 day goat workshop followed by a few Thanksgiving celebrations with family.
What we do on Sunday afternoons now…
In South Sudan on Sundays we would relax the afternoon away at Safari Style with good friends and good food and a pool. These days our Sundays look quite different – but are no less enjoyable.
With all the siblings around last weekend and with the impending frost we brought in boxes and boxes of tomatoes. Thanks everyone!
Since then we’ve been doing a lot of canning.
And don’t forget about our goats!
the home quarter 