is it failure or learning...

Can you sustain local in the middle of winter in Calgary without preplanning?  This was the question I asked myself in January.

I can tell you resoundedly NOPE.  Or if you can, you are a much better woman/man than me. 

I tried.  I really did.  I sourced out produce that was grown locally in greenhouses and it worked for awhile.  I ate my weight in root vegetables, which for the first month wasn't bad.  Again I am a wizz at the parsnip.  But then I wanted real, or heck even fake, food.  And then my husband was told he needed to get healthy.  So out went that.  He needed to eat his colors.  And with very little local available I had to go elsewhere.  I feel like I failed but then with each failure you learn.  You learn that you can have local, healthy fruits and vegetables but you have to plan a lot for the future. You have to can, to freeze, to dehydrate and all those preserving methods that I love.  But you have to do it on mass scale or you will be unable to sustain it.  We did it for 14 weeks in the middle of winter.  So for that I am very happy.  And next year it will be better.  I have my root cellar planned out.  I have my can plan mapped out. 

I'm still buying local meats because I can't get those images out of my brain.  I can't.  I won't.  So we are eating less meat for the time being.  Because those are expensive if you don't go "bulk" and I haven't been able to save up the money for bulk yet.  But I will. 

So for now, we will eat our colors using as many locally sourced ingredients as possible but knowing it can't all be done yet.