All from Attila’s garden.
Of course I also enjoyed a cup of coffee, a chocolate muffin, and a bowl of yogurt with dates and nuts.
Breakfast is my “big” meal of the day.
I had my doubts about the budget. We have made some major purchases over the last month or so. We travelled to attend my niece’s wedding and stayed in paid accommodation. We purchased a load of compost for the garden. We purchased an EVR unit. And we purchased concrete paint, crushed stone, pressure treated wood, and wood stain for the basement skirting. It didn’t seem as if we could stretch our dollars to cover all that.
To my utter amazement our budget almost stretched that far! I did have to dip into our savings a bit to cover the last few household bills, but it didn’t empty that bank account.
We attribute our relative success in balancing the budget to our greatly reduced food bills, all thanks to the garden, and the food preserved from last years garden. The garden is feeding us. We still buy some groceries. These days our grocery cart contains mostly dairy, a few additional vegetables, and sale items.
We aren’t finding many sale items these days. But this week our Giant Tiger store was selling Cream Cheese for $1.00 a package, it is regularly $3.95 or more. The packages were about to expire in two days, that is why they were on sale. When we got them home we double wrapped them in plastic bags and put them in the chest freezer. They will be used for Christmas and special occasion baking within the next year. I love to add a layer of sweetened cream cheese in my Mincemeat Squares.
We eat a lot of vegetables, garden fresh during growing season, frozen and canned garden vegetables during the winter. This evening we started our dinner with a large green salad made almost entirely from garden vegetables. We do not grow onions, at least not yet, so we purchase those. The main course was 4 ounces each of roasted chicken, and large helpings of garden beets with home canned red pepper relish on the side. The only purchased foods for our meal were the onions, and the chicken.
I think if this municipality allowed backyard chickens, we would have our own eggs and poultry too. But alas, backyard chickens are banned here. If we ever move to another location, we will find a municipality that allows us to keep backyard chickens. Not only do they provide high quality protein foods, they eat insect pests, and their waste provides top notch fertilizer for a garden.
Today Attila harvested carrots for breakfasts, strawberries for breakfast, edible pod peas for breakfast and for the freezer, three kinds of lettuce for dinner, and beets for dinner.
Attila has never used fertilizers or pesticides in our garden. Our land has been chemical free for 16 years, so I feel safe in calling our home grown produce organically grown.
Our lifestyle is very similar to that of my parents, and grandparents, and Attila’s grandparents. We are comfortable with this lifestyle, content with our lot, grateful for the plenty we enjoy, and for our relatively high standard of living in Canada.
Consumerism is still very popular, despite the downturn in our economy. There are constant pressures to spend, spend, spend. So many people are caught up with acquisition, housing beyond their needs, clothing beyond their needs, transportation beyond their needs, just about everything beyond their needs. So many confuse desire with need, two completely different things. Attila and I do not rise to these pressures, created by profit seeking entities. To a certain extent it is our choice not to accept the hype, the smoke, and the mirrors of “the good life” as advertised.
Our cherished lifestyle is “not as advertised”.
At the same time that acquisition dominates the desires of those who can afford it, an increasing number of people spend winters on the streets, without shelter, or a place to call home. Others work every hour possible and still need to visit a food bank to feed their families. We Canadians have our work cut out for us, turning this crisis around.
Attila and I feel lucky indeed for what we have, and where we live.
Worldly
Weather
25°C
Date: 6:00 PM EDT Saturday 4 July 2026
Condition: Partly Cloudy
Pressure: 101.3 kPa
Tendency: Falling
Temperature: 24.8°C
Dew point: 19.0°C
Humidity: 70%
Wind: SSE 8 km/h
Humidex: 32
Visibility: 24 km
Quote
“It is never too late to give up our prejudices.”
Henry David Thoreau
1817 – 1862
I can afford what I want to eat, but many times since the prices shot up so high I feel insulted by the price and pass the item on by. I feel sorry for people who have to feed growing teenagers right now. There are too many healthy foods that can’t be skipped, and kids are always hungry. -Kate
On the one hand we have a recent article describing Canadian mother’s of young children assuming it is appropriate to provide fresh strawberries, and other berries, as children’s snacks, year round, and complaining about the prices.
Many thousands of generations of humans until the 1950s did not expect to enjoy fresh berries beyond the months of harvest. In a few short decades the healthy balanced connection to our food sources seems to have been lost.
On the other hand we have people without adequate shelter, food of any kind, health care, and many other necessities.
It is not progress that we are seeing, in my opinion it smells a lot like decay.