As some of you may know, we are a part of the Food Is Free Project.
For 3 years now we have shared any extra veggies we have, with our neighbours. We have a sign on our door, and I put out a sign by the road as well, listing the items we have available.
The board from last summer
Last summer we had many, many folks come by and share in our abundance. An elderly lady who was visiting from out of town walked by, noticed the sign, and later came over with her niece to get some fresh produce. As it usually happens, they ended up staying for a while, looking around our gardens, checking out the chickens, and of course being entertained by our 3 sons.
I guess we made a lasting impression because yesterday we look out on our front lawn and there is this...
And upon closer inspection we see there is a note attached...
How sweet and thoughtful is this? We have been having really dry weather in Hacketts Cove, Canada lately, and she dropped off a bunch of water for us, incase we needed it for our gardens. Of course I called Carol right away to thank her. She said her well is spring fed, so it never runs dry, and if we need more, all we have to do is bring her the empty containers and she will refill them and bring them back to our home!
WOWWWWWEEEEEE!! Kindness level 100000000%
It just feels so amazing to know that year by year, bit by bit, we are joining in solidarity and support as a community. These little things just make me smile so much it's not even funny, my face hurts! If communities band together like this, nothing can stop us from thriving the way we were meant to on this beautiful planet. No drought. No food shortages. There is nothing to even fear when a community is strong and self sufficient.
So, if you grow food and you find yourself with a little extra, set up a Food Is Free table on your front lawn. Put up a sign. These are the ways you will get to know your community, and everything great can begin by simply giving. By trusting.
I'm also excited to announce that the founder of the Food Is Free Project is on Steemit now! You can follow John at @foodisfree to find out where and how he started this amazing venture, and of course the latest news.
Our front door sign
I'll leave you with this one last thought...
Art By SETH
Sending out tonnes of good vibes, thank you for reading this success story!
Love,
We've got a terrace garden and we definitely produce too much! I love your article and follow you and John now AND I will put up a "Food is free project" sign. This is the way forward! @antje
Ooh my goodness how special!! Please, when you do get your sign going, send the photo either to John or I and it will get shared like crazy on fb to help inspire more folks to do the same!! xxooxoxxooxoxoxox The Food Is Free page on fb has around 300,000 likes! So your food sharing will reach and encourage a lot of others~!
I just photographed our new foodisforfree sign. Will write a Steemit post, so you can see the photos and then I'll be over to your facebook page. I had to write the sign in Spanish, of course, so if anybody wants to copy the text in Spanish, go ahead! Love to all!!!!!
WOOOHOOOOO!!!!!!!! Great work!!!!
that is an amazing story! people must help each other.. Here in Alaska 50 years ago people provided 55% of their own food today it is 5%. All of our farms were turned into stores and we are completely dependent on planes and boats to get us our food. If 1 barge is late the stores empty out with in a week....... Everyone needs to stop what they are doing and grow a damn garden!!!!!
Wow....I couldn't agree with you more! You would think with stores going empty it would be a big wake up call to the folks living there, amazing how we can stay in our bubbles...Dory from Finding Nemo saying: "Just keep swimming, Just keep swimming" comes to mind!
YES! I have goosebumps thinking about all the amazing people out there uniting around the world. We're planting seeds and making shit happen together! Infinite love and abundance! <3
Thank you so much John! I'll second that Infinite LOVE and Abundance! You got this, We got this, and very soon, the whole WORLD will get this! WE are going back to the natural/traditional ways, one family, one person, one seed at a time! <3 <3 <3
Yes! One seed at a time! We are the seeds we've been waiting for. It's time to sprout!
Sprout ON :) :) :)
You guys are my kind of heroes! Keep encouraging people to get off their grass, haha, and discover the virtues of the "weeds".
Oooh my goodness I just LOVE what you did there @colorado-girl!!!
so very sweet and i love to hear things like this. if more people just felt that same way and would just practice a little kindness. this world would be a lot better place. Thank you so very much for your post and hope to see more.
I am so glad that you got some warm and happy feelings from this :) :) :)
Lyndsay, I am so happy to read this. It's crazy that it has to be tagged with anarchy in such a strange world we live in now. I'm resteeening and upvoting and following. I know you will get people's minds working in this group as they find you and think of your own location.
I would be so on this spring water offer. I'd do a weekly trip for sure if I could do it. I have done a lot of complicated steps to get clean water at various times and places in my life. I would try to make this work. She not kidding to lug all that for you. What a fantastic offer.
Keep posting about what goes on there. I'm sure the good stories keep coming. :)
Thank you VERY much for reading this, and resonating so much @fitinfun! Yes you are totally correct, how is this anarchy? I guess it is a penchant of the times we are living in, where in the US sustainability is being cracked down on so much, in certain places collecting rain water is an offence. Folks being told to tear out their front yard gardens because it's not aesthetically pleasing! WTF!! It's getting crazy round here, and the only thing that can fix it, is putting things right.
I will certainly be doing updates all summer long, so far we've only given away lettuce, dill and eggs, where we live, it takes a little ways to get into the full growing season. There will be some serious action by the end of this month and for the rest of the season, which thankfully is at least a long one, October/November because of our greenhouses too!
Thank you for Caring!
What an inspiring story @lyndsaybowes! I love the fact that you are being the change you want to see in the world. This is how we were meant to treat each other, and in a world where the media tries to convince us to be afraid of one another, its comforting to see people like you bringing us together, one kindness at a time. Gonna resteem this. Love your work x
Ooh you are so right, we are living in times where every day we are bombarded with images and stories meant to scare the living daylights out of us, and not trust our neighbours, or anyone for that matter. It's almost getting to the point where people will be afraid to leave their own homes! Needles taped to handrails...terror attacks in public places, a murder a minute...
But what would happen if the so-called "news" showed us acts of humanity all day and night long? What would happen if they showed us every beautiful baby that was born, instead of every death? What would it be like if every random act of kindness was shown to us?
I have the feeling that the news would never be off! There would have to be 10 million different news channels just to tell all the different stories, instead of all the channels we have now regurgitating the same 10 bad stories every day, literally all reading off of the same script!
Check it out if you haven't seen it before: Media Brainwashing - News simply repeats the same taglines & phrases OVER and OVER.
Just checked out the link, thanks for this! It just confirms what I already thought. Its all scripted according to their agenda. A few companies own all the media outlets and they're just their mouth piece - proper brainwashing. I think we're headed out of it though, people are waking up. Thank goodness :)
Yes, thankfully for the internet, and social media, and the folks using it to be the TRUE MEDIA! We are breaking through the lies...
That's awesome!
Thanks Angel!
woohooo Always doing great things Lyndsay!
Couldn't do it without YOU and your unending support @hendrix22!
This is such a great initiative, I hope to be able to do the same one day!
I hope you can too! Do you guys grow food?
We live in an apartment :( I have mint and basil on the balcony but we dream to buy a house and have a little farm one day!
Ooh that's so great that you are growing on your balcony, MMMMM that must smell SOOOOO good!!! I wish for you to be able to get your dream home <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 I know you both would be amazing land stewards!
Strangely enough the mint is not very fragrant but the basil smells so good! We are hoping to be able to buy a house in a few years, we look on Kijiji all the time at what's available, it will probably be in Nova Scotia! We have never farmed so we are total noobs in that regard and would probably start small but hopefully we can at least grow some food to supplement ourselves and one day have enough to share. When the time comes I will be bombarding you guys with questions ^o^^o^^o^ because you seem to know what you're doing!
Awww!! That's epic! Nova Scotia has such reasonable land for sale, and homes too, the best place in Canada to ever live as well!!!! Would be pretty darn cool if you landed here, and sure thing, ask away, anything, anytime!!
I was born in Halifax and most of my family is still there so it's a natural place for me to live! In Montreal it would cost 1million to have a tiny condo in the city or more but in NS I've seen houses with big land for 50-100 thousand which seems an attainable goal! The first thing I will do is get chickens because I love eggs haha I will have tons of questions :)
I love your philosophy!
We don't really have any neighbors that could walk by as we are isolated on a steep hill but we bring surpluses to the senior center, to church, the local food pantry and soup kitchen, everywhere we go. We even left a lot of apples at the transfer station for people to pick up when they come by to distribute their trash and recyclables.
This year the trees are more full than ever so we have hired a boy to help us out with the picking.
We triage everything: best for giving away, okay for us to preserve and last through the winter, poor for the pigs who live up the street anything unusable for the compost.
It is very satisfying to share our abundance. Try it...you will like it.
Malachi 3:10
Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.
Aww, that is SO beautiful @bchick!! I love the idea of leaving food at the recycling station, here, we have pretty long line-ups for that place, so how sweet would it be to munch on an apple while we waited!
Small town, so not a big crowd; actually no crowds at all and everyone has to bring their trash and recyclables here to distribute into the various sections.
But still, anyone who eats an organic apple has got to notice the difference from those that are produced by commercial growers.
Just like your signs we aim educate to by experience.
Whatever works in your neighborhood.
Last year at this time and with a warmer spring we were able to sell (for a nickel) zuchinni at the town wide yard sale. This year some people came specifically to see if there were any more. Sorry, late spring so the zucchini are just beginning to blossom this year but who would want to pay even a nickel for zucchini at this time of year?
Who would, why would anyone want to pay even a nickel for a vegetable that is being given way by every local gardener?
Beautifully said!! And Yes, absolutely I can taste the difference between store apples, and our own, or other local grown apples, I find the store ones actually burn my mouth! :'( I have to soak it all in apple cider vinegar and water first before I'll even give it to my family.
What a thoughtful thing to do!
:) People all around the world are joining in! I hope you can one day too after your big move!
Yes hopefully so! We don't have a lot of space though, but in terms of food creation, I am thinking about learning to make kombucha.
That's amazing and such a beneficial action to take, You got this!!
Even with lack of space you will find that there are so many climbing plants you can grow out of containers, and even herbs <3
Cool! I'll have to do some research I guess.
Peas, tomatoes, cucumbers...for starters :) :) :)
Ooh, good idea. Can't have too many tomatoes. Speaking of publicly available food, while I was in KC I actually found a peach tree just hanging over the street, and they were the best peaches I've had, possibly ever.
Sharing our produce is such a great gardening tradition! I take mine to our local food bank. They have a commercial kitchen, so they can use even unusual vegetables or less-than-perfect ones, by making soup or stew. Home gardens can produce so much! It's great that you are sharing from your garden!
Thank you @Haphazard-hstead! And it doesn't surprise me in the least that you do this as well! Making sure your food bank is full of delicious, nutritious food!!
This is great. Just wondering if with your extra produce you've ever had a neighborhood canning session? Might be another good way to connect with people and skill share.
That's a really great idea! Thank you @janamclaughlin! :) :) :)
That's so nice! I probably would have cried!
So, do you not have a well? How does your water systems work there?
Yes we do have a well, and thankfully a creek too, which Carol didn't know about the creek, and I informed her, that if the creek runs dry I will be taking her up on her offer.
Last summer many people in our province (Nova Scotia, Canada) ran out of water, it was such a hot dry summer that wells were running dry, so scary!
That is very scary! I don't even know what we would do! We want to put in some pumps (hand pumps?) somewhere somehow around our property. Unsure how to go about that! But water is a real issue for everyone!
That's a really good idea! I hope to read about your project, and especially your success with it @farmstead!
What great neighbors, and what a great thing you're doing. All that fresh heritage produce.
I worked with a man in his 70s who was eating a salad in the break room one day. He said, "You know, I remember when food used to taste good..."
We have a 1950s well - the type you can climb in to. It's often low and muddy, and far closer to the cesspool than modern code permits. When the water started turning brown we stopped drinking it. We've been carting in drinking water from a public well several towns over. It really made me appreciate the value of drinking water.
Ooh yes, how sad the times are now, I cannot believe the difference in taste of our own homegrown, compared to the store. Some shit from the store actually burns my tongue when I eat it! Ewwwww
So sorry to hear that your well "crapped" out! That's terrible! Yeah, trucking in water would be so annoying, and even a bit scary if there ever were a shortage...
I think the water is mostly okay and the brown is from mud and rusty pipes. But still, it looks too gross to drink!
Enjoy your home-grown produce and those eggs with the bright orange yolks!
Come to think of it - do those factory chickens you rescued start laying proper eggs once you get them on a proper diet? Or do they stay the pale yellow of grocery store eggs?
Yes, good question. Within about a month the started getting brighter yolks! When we changed their diet at first they stopped laying altogether. Then the magic happened. They love eating weeds, fresh greens, any other little treats my kids leave on their plates haha, and of course real layer food, not the creepy shit they were fed in the factory.
It's good you still have a source of water there, in a tough time, you could always distill it I guess eh?
That's so great that their rehabilitation actually affected the eggs they produce.
yes, perhaps the sunlight helps too?
Oh, and being able to move....