Buy Local
You hear it all the time: buy local. But does it really matter if you buy local, or buy that product from overseas instead? And what is "local" exactly??? I don't have those answers, but here are my thoughts on the subject.
I have to admit, I love to buy local when I can but I don't go out of my way to do so on a regular basis. Maybe I should more often. Locally-bought items feel so much more personal to me. When you consider how many people around you in your community are making their own products to sell, it really shouldn't be hard to buy something local say once a week.
Around our area we are pretty lucky I think. Even though our community is pretty rural, we have a local coffee shop that blends and packages its own coffee, lots and lots of local produce and meats, and a lot of local crafters that often choose to sell their crafts at craft sales and markets all around us on weekends, weekdays, and holidays. One such "local producer" is my sister in law, henofthewoods.ca henofthewoods.ca.
Hen of the woods grows her own mushrooms, different varieties each year, and sells these out each week at local farmer's markets. She also grew pea and other shoots as well as microgreens this year, cans and makes various things like garlic jelly to sell, grows some produce, and hatches heritage chicks from her backyard flock's eggs each spring. Her all natural soaps are the best! Needless to say, I see how busy she is with all of these things, and it makes me want to try to buy local more. I see a fraction I'm sure of the ton of work hen of the woods puts into her local products and this really makes me understand how important it is to build a community of local producers for all sorts of things. The more you know about the people in your community maybe the more appt we would be to help out each other and form a more "true" sense of community? This is something that I think is really important to enstill in our children considering what we see going on in the world today.
So, if you aren't buying a lot locally, or find yourself saying "I just don't know where to buy locally made items", maybe you should try reaching out to your community. Ask around; ask through social media for recommendations...I think you will be pleasantly surprised with the result!
I have to admit, I love to buy local when I can but I don't go out of my way to do so on a regular basis. Maybe I should more often. Locally-bought items feel so much more personal to me. When you consider how many people around you in your community are making their own products to sell, it really shouldn't be hard to buy something local say once a week.
Around our area we are pretty lucky I think. Even though our community is pretty rural, we have a local coffee shop that blends and packages its own coffee, lots and lots of local produce and meats, and a lot of local crafters that often choose to sell their crafts at craft sales and markets all around us on weekends, weekdays, and holidays. One such "local producer" is my sister in law, henofthewoods.ca henofthewoods.ca.
Hen of the woods grows her own mushrooms, different varieties each year, and sells these out each week at local farmer's markets. She also grew pea and other shoots as well as microgreens this year, cans and makes various things like garlic jelly to sell, grows some produce, and hatches heritage chicks from her backyard flock's eggs each spring. Her all natural soaps are the best! Needless to say, I see how busy she is with all of these things, and it makes me want to try to buy local more. I see a fraction I'm sure of the ton of work hen of the woods puts into her local products and this really makes me understand how important it is to build a community of local producers for all sorts of things. The more you know about the people in your community maybe the more appt we would be to help out each other and form a more "true" sense of community? This is something that I think is really important to enstill in our children considering what we see going on in the world today.
So, if you aren't buying a lot locally, or find yourself saying "I just don't know where to buy locally made items", maybe you should try reaching out to your community. Ask around; ask through social media for recommendations...I think you will be pleasantly surprised with the result!
Photo credits for this post go to henofthewoods.ca.
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