I think I've seen this before in books

This is a North American city that can still hawk items on the sidewalk, not fake Louis Vuittons like they do in New York, but homemade things. I've walked by children on the sidewalks of the busiest street selling lemonade and men dressed in suits buying from them. I've walked past people selling jars of jam, and rode past a family sitting on their porch yelling, "75 cents for a bike wash!" People don't have to wait for official sidewalk sale days here, nor do they have to open a store. This kind of thing died in the suburbs long ago (because no one is on the streets there! ha!), and in the cities people are too suspicious of each other to stop.

I think I've read about this kind of selling in books, but I don't recall seeing it so frequently. This place is so foreign to me, this place called community.

Surrounded by Farms

So, I inevitably landed in a place that has one of the most active community garden communities in Canada, a place where a university has its own gardens, and a place that is surrounded by farmland and where I know a bunch of people who work in farming or has farms and goes out on the weekends to farm. I didn't know that Trent University has such large environmental science and food systems programs, like Guelph does. I almost feel like I owe it to my roots to be interested in food growth, what with my mother having studied nutrition and my dad studying microbiology in Nebraska, of all places.

I am such an cold-climate urbanist that I must say this: I like the idea of gardening. I just don't worms nor insects. Yes, I am depending on others for my livelihood, but I just can't get over the idea of insects and things that pop out at you. Would this be the place to get over this fear? I don't know...I've always wanted to go WWOOFing, again, the idea of it is incredible...but would I ever do it?

So...will Peterborough make me into the permaculture enthusiast I've always been in my dreams? Or will I keep on going to farmer's markets as an urbanist crazy for farm-to-table restaurants?