The Art of a Manitoba Summer
By Dan Mitchell, Farmer’s Son Co.
Photography by Jerra Fraser
By the middle of July, I feel like most of us have found our summer rhythm.
The garden’s looking lush and green, the evenings are warm and our weekends start to disappear. We head to the lake or the cabin, find a favourite patio, pack a picnic for the park or chase whatever adventures we can fit in. Summers in Manitoba have this way of making us want to do everything all at once and, for a few short months, we almost believe we can.
Around home, our summers always begin in the garden. My husband, Rory, and I spend many of our evenings outside this time of year tending to our garden beds, coaxing our tomatoes to grow even bigger, trying to keep ahead of the weeding and talking through all the future ideas for our yard. I learned long ago that a gardener’s work is never quite finished, but I think that’s why we love it. The garden gives us a reason to step outside at the end of the day and stay there longer than we’d ever planned.
I think that rhythm’s what I really love about summer around these parts. Dinner can be simple and yet, still feel special when the evening air’s warm and everyone ends up outside. A quick drink turns into an evening filled with laughter as friends sit around a fire. That drive home from the beach becomes reason enough to take the backroads. The plans don’t need to feel polished. They simply serve as the starting point with the details coming together as we go.
Summer entertaining is best when it’s simple, generous and unfussy. It can be as easy as setting out a few snacks, filling a coupe glass with something cold and letting the evening unfold from there. It’s the easy gestures that make our guests feel most at home.
So many of our favourite summer adventures have started with a loose idea. We should go for a drive and grab a burger at The Kiln in Stonewall (a fave spot of ours). We should make a coffee, hop in the truck and wander out to find the best small town bakery pie. We should pack the paddleboards and venture out to that lake we’ve been meaning to explore. We should spend the day in the Sandhills out near Carberry or head out to Asessippi for a good long hike through the hills. Not every plan we’ve made has become a tradition, but the trying becomes the memory.
That is something I think about often at Farmer’s Son Co.
Nearly a decade ago, Farmer’s Son Co. began as an artisan candle studio in Winnipeg. At the time, my candles were how folks came to know us, but what really drew me to fragrance was never just the scent notes themselves. I’ve always been more interested in atmosphere: the way a space can change when there’s something familiar in the air and how memory can be carried by the tiniest details of our lives. That might look like your great-grandma’s peonies, still growing all these years later. Rain moving in before you can see it. Ditches alive with the fragrant notes of alfalfa, clover, wild grasses and cattails after they’ve been cut.
Growing up on a small family farm near Roblin, in Manitoba’s Parkland region, I come by my love of rolling fields and pastures, dusty backroads, gardens and big summer skies honestly. Though our home is in Headingley, and our studio and shoppe are in Winnipeg’s West End, it’s where I come from that’s really shaped the way I think about Farmer’s Son Co. In a farming community like Roblin, you learn that people aren’t just passing through. You remember the things they like, you notice what they’re looking for and you take care of them like friends and guests. That’s always stuck with me.
I think that’s what summer reminds me of most. The best parts rarely come together exactly as planned. A memorable meal comes together from whatever’s in season in the garden. The weather shifts and you find yourself caught in a summer shower at the farmers’ market. Someone suggests one more stop on the way home and it becomes the favourite part of the day. Those are the details that stay with us because they feel real.
Over the years, we’ve tried to build Farmer’s Son Co. alongside those values. Today, we bring together fragrance, food and flavour, garden tools, barware and hosting pieces, gifts and goods for the home. To me, those ideas belong together because they’re part of the way people live. They show up in the meals we host, the gardens we tend, the drinks we pour, the gifts we bring and the rooms we hope will feel welcoming to the people we invite into them.
Summer really brings that whole world into focus for me.
A few years back, Rory and I created a Honey Dill Cocktail, a playful nod to one of Manitoba’s most familiar and beloved flavours. We love that it makes friends smile and perhaps scratch their heads a little before trying. It’s familiar, but unexpected, which is a balance I find myself drawn to time and again. It feels right at home on a Manitoba summer evening.
That balance is something Rory and I come back to often at Farmer’s Son Co. We find ourselves drawn to pieces that are easy to live with but still tell a story: a well-crafted garden tool, the way a candle’s fragrant glow can set the tone of a space, a charcuterie board enjoyed during happy hour, or a host gift chosen with care. We don’t want the pieces in our shoppe to feel so delicate that they sit apart from life. We want them to find their way into the many rituals, gatherings and small moments that make summers memorable.
If there’s an art to a Manitoba summer, I think it begins with making room for what’s already here: warm evenings, afternoons spent berry picking, the simplicity of a garden bouquet or catching up with friends over a round of yard games.
This season’s shorter than we’d like it to be. So while it’s here, we hope you find your own ways to enjoy it.
And if your summer plans happen to bring you through Winnipeg’s West End, Rory and I would love to welcome you to the Farmer’s Son Co. shoppe.
The Honey Dill Garden
A distinctly Manitoban botanical cocktail.
Ingredients
2 oz gin, preferably cucumber or floral
¾ oz fresh lemon juice
¾ oz honey syrup
1 small dill sprig
Dash of celery bitters, optional
Dill frond, to garnish
Method
Muddle dill gently in a shaker. Add gin, lemon juice, honey syrup and ice. Shake until well chilled, then strain into a coupe glass. Garnish with a fresh dill frond.
Honey syrup: Stir equal parts honey and hot water until dissolved, then cool before using.
