WC Holiday Shopping Guide Part 5

WEST CARLETON – In our fifth and final West Carleton Online Holiday Gift Guide our series wraps up with some gift ideas that are sure to nourish the body, mind, or soul.

What better place to start this week’s story than down on the farm, where Kinburn grower Amanda Gillespie is already preparing your Christmas morning breakfast.

Amanda and spouse Gordon Gillespie moved to Limestone Acres in 2016 and it wasn’t long before they realized the generosity of West Carleton farmland as well as the power of community.

“I started selling at the Arnprior Sunday Market because I had so much in the gardens,” Amanda said of their very productive two-acre farm. “Then we did other markets and then COVID hit.”

During the pandemic they sold produce at the end of their driveway. It was also around that time Amanda started Farm School for youngsters and also began to sell CSA vegetable boxes in partnership with nearby growers.

In the eight years since arriving to the farm she says happily, “It’s kind of exploded.”

For the holidays, Amanda is offering a Christmas Breakfast box packed with fresh goodies from Limestone Acres and other local producers. The box includes, sausage patties, farm fresh eggs, cayenne infused cooking oil, local honey, crab apple jelly, and sourdough bread.  Boxes are available until the Dec. 22 pick-up while supplies last.

 “All of my collaborators are local to the Kinburn area and include, Our Farm, Hold Fast Farms, Peaceful Pea, Rail Line Veggies and in market season we have lamb from Shady Creek Lamb Co.,” she said.

Amanda is already looking forward to the 2025 growing season and providing fresh local produce to her customers.

“We will make CSA memberships available in February once all of us have gathered after Christmas and worked out what our gardens will be,” she said. Watch the Limestone Acres Facebook page it will be posted there first.”

For Fitzroy Harbour artist Janice Johnston collaboration has been an essential part of her life-long art practice. Johnston creates unique hand bound journals featuring a wide selection of quality papers, greeting cards and mixed media collages which she sells exclusively at local art shows. She says it’s a wonderful way to be inspired when artists come together to meet the public and to sell their work.  

“Last weekend (Dec. 7,8), the sale I did at Lis Allison’s Pine Ridge Studio in Carp was the second best one I have ever done. I sold my hand bound journals like I hadn’t before and many cards. People really seem to take the time to look and be fascinated by her property and studio.”

Johnston says one way to meet local artists is to join an art group or local club.  

“It’s an opportunity for learning, showing and networking but networking is the biggest,” she said. “You get to know more people and they know you. I have also volunteered for art clubs including curating the art exhibit at the Constance Bay library for the West Carleton Art Society (WCAS) for roughly 10 years.”  

For beginners and experienced artists alike, an art club membership is a great gift and possibly the beginning of a whole new creative journey. The WCAS and Kanata Art Club (KAC) both located in West Carleton are always delighted to welcome to new members and offer plenty of ways to support their members.

Johnston believes meeting up with other artists on a regular basis is essential for well-being.

“I attend a weekly group where we work on our own stuff but take a few minutes at the beginning to catch up,” she said. “We spark each other with our projects and learn from each other. We laugh a lot. Nobody is negative. Unless, you say, tell me what you really think, and they will. But it’s all okay.”

While shared experience is at the heart of community, the demise of local journalism has created a challenge that Jake Davies, publisher of West Carleton Online, knows all too well.

“I have closed a lot of local newspapers in my career,” Davies told West Carleton Online as we chatted recently over coffee (Dec. 13). “That’s the reality. I worked in offices, edited or reported or have been part of roughly 40 local newspapers that are all shut down now. The Arnprior Chronicle-Guide was the last one and I think it closed about a year and half ago.”

Davies was working for the West Carleton Review when it closed in 2017.

“That was the transition to West Carleton Online,” he said. “I liked my job and I knew people were still interested in local journalism. I just had to find a way. Printing a newspaper was not viable so we went online in 2018.”

As it turns out, he says there are many advantages to online delivery.

“For the first time in West Carleton history the community has daily coverage,” he said. “When has West Carleton ever had that? We can publish stories hours after they have happened. You can get it affordably. It can be done cheaply and it can be done well.”

West Carleton Online is available by subscription because Davies envisaged a publication which, as a source of independent journalism, was responsible to readers rather than to advertisers or other funding sources. 

“In journalism, editors are fond of saying ‘follow the money,’” Davies said. “A subscriber model says, hey, you are paying for this, you own it, you have a say in it. It’s your money. Having said that, we have never had more advertisers and that is a good thing because we are not at the point where we would survive just as a subscriber-based product.”

Davies says he enjoys doing all the stories West Carleton has to offer but it is the people of West Carleton who leave a lasting impression.

“We do a ton of event coverage, that is where a lot of our stories come from,” he said. “But really it’s more about the people who put them on. It’s often the same people over and over again donating countless hours and probably a chunk of their own money, for really no gain of their own other than hosting an event for their community.”

Having a job where no two days are ever the same, with the odd surprise thrown in, makes for interesting work says Davies. Although when asked, he is hard pressed to pick out just one story or even 100 from the past six years as most memorable.

“I had never covered any natural disasters before in my 20-plus year career,” he said. “Then, not long after I started West Carleton Online there was one every year or so for a while. I remember covering the flooding, especially in 2019. It’s easy to say I have never seen anything like that before. The tornado obviously was another huge one. And to watch the community, even the greater community of Ottawa, came out to support people in dire need, was something to behold.”

However, Davies says most stories are positive news.

“To this day I still find the positive stories are the most interesting ones,” he said. “We are having a really tough year, everybody is, and the people who are staying positive and trying to keep their community moving forward are far better stories than the people who are letting their anger show through. It just shows you good news can spread.”

If you are looking for a gift that keeps on giving, think about it, a West Carleton Online subscription will keep you and yours in the loop all year long.

To read all five West Carleton Online Holiday Shopping Guide stories, featuring nearly 20 local artisans and businesses, click here.