We let our youngest and our oldest family members take lead on our walk – and the result was brilliant! They discovered a secret path to a secret hiding place (this one will have to remain a secret, obviously) and not so much a secret but a beautiful walk, called The Measured Walk, that brought us to the Duddingston Field with a vegetable garden and some very cute hens. We found out it was a Community Garden, run by locals and volunteers and all the products were for sale.
Love at first sight of course. Boys got interested in the lives of hens and chicks, into planting veggies and as we were lucky enough to buy some eggs and lettuce they got a first hand experience of the BIG difference between food grown like this and the one we get in the shops.
The Field provides a pathway between Holyrood Park, Meadowfield Woods & 
Duddingston Village Community Land 
In less than five minutes all the hens had names, my children were ready to adopt. 😊
Their observations: the eggs have brighter colour and are tastier, lettuce is much crunchier and so sweet they can eat it on it’s own. Ideas that followed included, of course, the one about how great it would be if we had our own farm.
I must admit I never ever thought about myself as living on a farm when I was younger. Last decade – it would be a dream come true – farm and, if possible, a community of like minded friends. Seems I’m not the only one in the family.😊
One thing led to another, so we looked closer into sustainable farming – how is it different from conventional crops and why conventional agriculture brings more damage than good. We read articles about emissions from 13 biggest dairy firms matching those of the entire UK. It became more and more obvious how important sustainable farming is. Maybe even the only real answer to saving our planet. Plus it does sound yummier than the option of switching to the bug diet we discussed before.
Local food…foraging…a bit of everything…mixed up in a beautiful salad
Our movie night wrapped it all up beautifully. We watched an inspiring documentary The Biggest Little Farm – a story that vividly explains how nature takes care of everything, if we only gave her time. One I would definitely make a part of every curriculum in the world.
It also reminded me of my physics teacher in high school. Other teachers and all students thought he was a bit crazy and he obviously didn’t seem to care much about what we will learn or not re physics. He often started the class telling us we would be better off learning how to grow potatoes and cabbage then what we are learning that day. The man wasn’t crazy at all; he just got lost in the educational system. If only we were learning about growing our own food.
Lockdown gave us opportunities to get more of our food from local farms, we found a wee garden where we can actually volunteer and literally grow what we eat. And in the future, who knows, maybe we get our own ‘biggest little farm’; until then – food simply does taste better when you pick it with your own hands.