Community Connections

Yesterday was one of those days where you could just feel the forces of "abundance" at work.

First, we decided to hold a "freecycle" day to pass on all the stuff we no longer need. We got up early and hauled out boxes of toys, housewares, videotapes (our VCR finally died and won't be replaced since we have a DVD player), clothes, furniture, and lots of other good stuff. We put out a couple of big signs indicating that everything was FREE but we still got a lot of people coming up and asking us if we were sure we didn't want money for anything, or *why* the stuff was free. We've gotten a lot of good stuff from our local freecycle group (including a washing machine when ours kicked the bucket) so we were more than happy to "pay it forward" and pass on our unneeded items. Most of the stuff cleared out by noon, and the remainder was posted to our local list.

By mid-afternoon, we were up at a local farm (Myer's Apple Farm) picking - yes- apples! I was a bit disappointed that my favourites (empires) weren't quite ready for picking yet, but we came home with a large bag of Cortlands which are pretty tasty too. We forgot to bring the camera, which I was already bummed about, but I was really annoyed with myself when we got to the farm and saw this great sign: "Drive Carefully - Children Being Children". Hopefully we'll go back and pick some empires, and I'll make sure to get a pic then!

From our apple picking excursion, we continued on to our CSA (Plan B Organic Farms) for their end-of-season barbecue (we'll continue to receive shares until the week after Thanksgiving - that's Canadian Thanksgiving by the way). We got to take a tour of the farm, which has been expanding every year. There are now 400 shares per season; just a couple of years ago it was closer to 250. Plan B has made great efforts to develop relationships with other local farmers so we get the most variety possible in our food boxes - fruits and some vegetables that they don't grow themselves. They also offer a "local fruit box" option - although they don't grow any of the fruit themselves, it is all from local farmers.

After the tour we had a fantastic meal at Plan B - organic meat, a variety of salads from Plan B's harvest, watermelon and organic ice cream (Mapleton's - totally divine). There were about 200 people there (about 50 of them were kids!) and it was just a great community-feeling experience. We got to chat with a few friends we hadn't seen in a while, and make some new friends too! The kids all had a blast running around and playing with the assortment of friendly farm dogs. Again, really too bad we forgot our camera!

When we came home from the farm, the rest of the stuff we had left out on the curb with a "free" sign was gone, and my neighbour had left a bag of clothes on the porch for the boys (full of pants with intact knees, which my guys desperately need!) I had also received an offer from another freecycler of some books I was looking for - very cool.

The theme for the day was definitely Sharing Always Creates More - more friends, more fun, and more abundant living.