What’s better than receiving a bouquet of flowers (as a treat from yourself or from someone else)? Receiving a bouquet of flowers that are locally-grown and fresh-cut, of course. And on the regular, too. For the past four years Emily Harman (with help from husband Andy Harman) has been making this experience a reality by offering Flower Subscriptions – including Springtime Tulip Subscriptions and Harvest Subscriptions (available now) – for folks across Wellington County.
Friday afternoons in the summertime are made for getting out of town: for leaving work early, hitting the open road, and – several hours later – arriving at some idyllic slice of Canadiana for a weekend of great food, cold drinks and, perhaps most importantly, time in nature with loved ones. In theory, at least. The reality tends to go a bit differently. Taking hours to pack the car. The awful traffic heading north.
‘Just about everything in here has beengrown or crafted by regional family-owned producers,’ Jamie Israel tells me as he tours me around the bright and expansive farm store at 3Gen Organics. I spot several products that fit Jamie’s description. Cucumber relish from Kellsons Craft Condiments. Ice cream from Mapleton’s Organics.
As Chef Joel tops several clay vessels of locally- harvested duck bone broth – grouped together on a grill perched inches over a blazing livefire – with drizzles of Salt Spring Island olive oil, a blast of snow comes at us horizontally and somehow makes its way inside my wool jacket and down the back of my neck. I cinch my collar tight, pull my peaked toque over my ears, and hike my thick socks past my Red Wing moc-toes and over my jeans.
‘I think I spot the trailhead this way,’ Liz calls to me from the edge of a tree-lined glade – anticipation in her voice. Our three-year-old husky, Ellie, and four-year-old malamute, Mot, pull at their leads – enthusiastically ‘encouraging’ her toward the entrance of the route. Leaving behind the tasting room and bottle shop that had lured me inside, I jog across the gravel parking lot toward this most photogenic threesome – juggling a tall can of McQuade’s Black Current Cider in one hand, a neat stainless tumbler filled with ‘non-alc’ rosé in the other, and my camera and lenses somewhere in between.
When Lee Anne Downey moved with her family to a gorgeous ninety-three acre farm in Erin back in 2017, she had a singular mission in mind – to put lavender in the ground for a future business endeavour.
If you know anything about me – which you probably don’t – you would know I am a diehard Guelph Farmers’ Market regular. It’s been the anchor of my Saturday mornings for several years – perhaps my longest standing commitment besides my rabbit, who is ten and also has a penchant for local produce.
It’s late afternoon – almost five o’clock – on a Wednesday in early September when I round the corner from Wood St onto Ontario St in the heart of Guelph’s Two Rivers neighbourhood. Just a few dozen metres down the block, spread across the driveway and side yard of a house almost directly opposite the historic Tytler school building, I spot the serendipitously choreographed melee I’ve come to experience: ‘Community FEWD’ in action.
‘This is like a scene out of ‘Yellowstone’,’ I exclaim to my TOQUE Partner, Cai Sepulis, as we wade through the crowd to get a better look. When we get closer to the action the sea of bodies parts – revealing a brilliant tableau that really could have come straight out of the popular cowboy-themed Paramount Network show or, possibly, the town of Stars Hollow.
AROUND HERE, THE DEPARTURE OF WINTER BRINGS ON THE URGE FOR SCENIC DRIVES THROUGH THE COUNTRY – TO CLEAR OUR HEADS, EXPLORE, AND FIND SOME UNIQUE FARM GATES AND MARKETS TO SOURCE LOCAL AND FRESH PRODUCE AND MEATS. FOR THIS FEATURE, TOQUE’S CAI SEPULIS ASKED FRIEND AND REGIONAL FARM GURU CHRISTINA MANN FROM TASTEREAL TO SUGGEST THREE LOCAL FARM MARKETS SHE MIGHT CHECK OUT. JOINED BY TOQUE PARTNER CHRIS TIESSEN AND HIS CAMERA, CAI SET OUT TO TAKE A CLOSER LOOK.
Travel tends to sharpen taste. It introduces new ideas, uncovers unforeseen obsessions, and offers the occasional epiphany – nudging your sense of beauty and your grasp of craftsmanship in new directions. For Ryan LeClair, founder of Makoto Watch Company out of London, Ontario, it was travel – and specifically a trip to Japan – that transformed his infatuation with watch collecting into his initiation of a brand built on craft, restraint, and everyday practicality.
Almost nothing we carry defines us more clearly than the books in our bags: tactile objects filled with ideas and stories – testimonies to time well spent. They tag along with us, mark our days, and shape the rhythm of how we move through the world. In Uptown Waterloo, three long-standing independent bookstores – Carry-On Comics & Books (46 years young), Words Worth Books (42 years), and Old Goat Books (25 years) – offer distinct ways to build this bracket of everyday carry: a nostalgia-driven comic haven built for the thrill of discovery, a curated literary hub grounded in conversation, and a densely-packed used bookstore where the search is part of the reward. Together, these enduring fixtures map a reading life – charting not just what we read, but how we come to find it.
In my line of work – as writer, photographer, editor, regional explorer – EDC isn't a trend. It's infrastructure. Most days I'm in motion: tracing backroads toward a brewhouse, mapping my way to an artist's studio, or sliding into the corner of a coffee shop where I turn field notes into final copy and RAW files into photographs that will pop on paper. My office is wherever I set my bag down. My tools make it possible.
Stratford – and, by extension, Perth County – lends itself to takeaway. A coffee to carry, a sandwich in hand, something sweet tucked alongside – then out into the streets for window shopping, into the theatres for a performance, or down to the riverbank for a nosh.
