Everdale Environmental Learning Centre

IMG_1231, originally uploaded by cabeca dura.

After being with my family, I drove down through Ontario and stopped at Everdale on my way to Toronto. I wish I had photos of the drive to share - a wicked thunderstorm gave way to a sky split between angry, dirty clouds and golden-red sunshine with walls of fluffy trees broken by occasional wetlands - it's the sort of thing we're meant to soak up slowly, in a canoe or on your bike.

After an unexpected visit to the Silver Creek Conservation Area (read: I'm not the best navigator) the Everdale sign popped up and I drove down into the mini-valley where it sits. There's a flower and herb maze on one hill, a soon-to-be-finished maze featuring heirloom seeds (it's a test site for a great org called Seed of Diversity), an open-air barn with sheep and cows and a few donkeys, acres of organic vegetables, a community meeting space, a farm market, compost outhouse, solar showers, and a bio-intensive garden run by one of my wonderful tour guides, Farmer Andrew. Andrew's in his first year of internship through another amazing org called CRAFT and will soon head back to his hometown Mississauga to head up an urban agriculture group - he was so wonderful to talk with! I also got to meet George and Peter, brothers from Mississauga who grow much of their own food and are easing their way into a completely raw diet - such great tourmates!!

This photo is meant to form a triptych of sorts with the two that follow - far too difficult to capture the Farm in its entirety!!