About me

 

Welcome, my dear!

I’m so glad you found your way to my blog!  My name is Mel and I’m passionate about nature and self sufficiency.  While I pursuit the dream of owning a small farm to grow all of our food and depend as less as possible on stores, right now, I’m stuck in the city! Like lots of you, I don’t have a lot of growing space and I need to be creative when it comes to gardening.  I also try to make everything myself by learning skills that were lost in time like baking bread, preserving food, cooking from scratch, knitting, crochet, etc. I’m what you would call an urban homesteader.  On this blog, I share our journey toward sustainability.  My goal is to inspire and help you become self sufficient in at least one thing, no matter where you live in the World. 

 

About me

Hi!  I’m Mel.  For the past 18 years, I’ve been coaching figure skating in my hometown, Gatineau, located in the province of Québec in Canada.  I’m a big believer that you can achieve anything you set your mind to.  It goes without saying that I’m also a dream chaser who always has a project on the go.  I’m an animal lover.  I’m a cat mom.  I’m a creative home cook.  I’m a gardener. I’m a tea / coffee / wine drinker. And I really like flowers, baths, antiques, Christmas and chocolate!  I dream of owning a small hobby farm with a roadside farm stand to sell a variety of organic vegetables, flowers and breads.  But for now, while we’re still in the city, I’m finding creative ways to transform our small property in an urban homestead.  Building gardens, sowing perennials, putting in renewable energy sources and building a cold room are part of the plan for the next year.

 

My story

From a young age, I’ve been very concerned about the bad condition of our planet and it’s now very  to me that our actual system and our habits are totally unsustainable.  I realise how disconnected from nature, we, as humans, really are.  Are bad habits are destroying the planet.  This breaks my heart.  It is something that Is constantly bothering me.  But I’m a solution finder.  I’m a plan maker.  I’m a leader.  And most importantly, I have faith!  Therefor, I believe that every little effort counts and I’ve been trying to to reduce my carbon footprint as well as my waste production, one simple step at a time.

 

In June 2016, while looking for ways to make more sustainable choices, I stumbled upon Cowspiracy, an environmental documentary exposing the destructive side of animal agriculture.  After learning the truth about this industry, I couldn’t continue to eat and shop the way I used to.  It totally changed my perspective on food and nature.  As a result, my husband Jason and I had no other choice but to adopt a vegan diet.  We couldn’t ignore nor support the abuse and the waste that was going on.

At this point, it also became really important to me to be making any other sustainable food choices possible like buying local to avoid transport as well as packaging as much as possible.  This meant no more going to the concrete building (grocery store) to buy blueberries grown in Mexico and sold in plastic containers.  This meant paying a little bit more to sustain a local berry farm where we need to pick blueberries one by one in the hot sun of July and preserving them using different methods so they can be used throughout the year.  This meant buying local and buying in bulk when possible.  This meant cooking from scratch.  This meant learning to preserve food, bake bread and garden!  And here we are, doing baby steps to become self sufficient.

I’m glad you stopped by and I really hope you’ll stay around for the journey.  This way, we can dream of a greener planet together, and make this world more sustainable, one step at a time.