So much has happened in the last few weeks, that I figured I better sit down and try to get caught up a bit. I went to Wolfville for 6 days at the end of July for a yoga teacher training intensive. It was my second week (out of 4), but the first time I'd been away from Oliver for more than one night. It was a bit hard emotionally, but it was really nice to get some time for myself. A week of yoga training ends up being part yoga, part group therapy, as there's a lot of meditation and self-awareness exercises that we do, and is a wonderful mind/body/spirit process to go through.
At the end of the week - before I was allowed to come home - I drove to a nearby farm and picked up 3 sheep – a ram, a ewe, and a ewe lamb. These are Jacob sheep, a heritage breed good for meat and wool, and they are endangered in Canada. Orrin decided that he wanted to get sheep this year to start clearing more of the brushy stuff out of the areas that we are trying to make into pasture; stuff that the cows won't eat like blackberry and raspberry bushes, goldenrod, and anything else taking up space. Turns out they are awesome at clearing – Orrin moves them every day, and all that is usually left are tiny alders.
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| Our Jacob sheep. They need to be shorn, but we need to find someone who can do that for us. |
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| Before sheep. |
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| After sheep. |
A week ago Thursday the cows got out and ran away again. We think a deer knocked over a post, lowering the electric fence and enticing the cows to explore. It took us all day to get them back (it might sound like a lot, but really that was a record, because the last couple of times they'd run off it had taken 2 and 3 days to get them home). Thanks to the help of Zane and James (our brother-in-law visiting from BC), we got them home and back inside electric fencing. The event made us realize how important it is that we have a stronger perimeter fence set up, so that in case they get out of one paddock they would still be contained inside the main pasture area. Orrin realized how little grass we have to offer them right now, though, and packed them up a couple days ago and took them back to the farm where we'd bought them from. They'll be there for probably 6 or 8 weeks, to get Gigi bred again, and fattened up on real pasture.
I've been working 3 days a week at a local tea shop. I am learning a lot and enjoying chatting with visitors who come in, as well as with my co-workers. It's hard to believe how only being away for 3 days a week can really cut in to how much we get done at the farm. But of course, Orrin has to hang out with Oliver while I'm working, so he's able to get some things done but is not as efficient as if I were there too. But it's pretty helpful to make a few bucks this way since the farm is not making any money yet. We hope to start selling greens at a local farmer's market in the fall, and to start a food box program next summer.
In the last couple of weeks, we have begun eating bush beans, cucumber's (1 to 2 a day), and we ate the first yellow meteor summer squash today. We jumped the gun a few days ago and ate a tomato that was mostly red, but not fully ripe. It was pretty good, but we'll try to be patient and let the rest of them ripen up. We are eating new beds of lettuce, and continue to eat kale, chard, endive and radicchio from plants that have been producing for a while now.
The pumpkin and winter squash plants look fantastic out in the garden now; some plants have spread to two beds over from where they were planted! There are lots of flowers on them, and a number of actual pumpkins and squash on the vine. The dry beans and pole beans are doing well, and there are lots of beans on the vine there, as well.
In the greenhouse, there are lots of large tomatoes now, but just a couple starting to turn red. When you're waiting for it, it sure seems like it takes forever for them to turn red! There are several watermelon and honeydew on the vine, and lots more flowers, so we're excited to think that we might have some tasty melons later this summer. The eggplants look big and healthy, and have just started flowering. Pepper plants are picking up steam now too, and at least one plant is flowering. We have peppers on a couple of the plants that we bought as starts, and have tried one of the spicy peppers so far (I can't remember the name of it). The basil is doing well, and I made a bunch of pesto yesterday from the first stems that I cut.
The apples are getting big on the trees, and every once in a while we try one to see how they're doing. They're still too starchy, but they're getting there!
We pulled all the garlic a few days ago, based on the fact that there were 3 to 5 green leaves left on the plants (this criteria came from the book “Growing Great Garlic”), which corresponds to the number of skins covering the garlic bulbs. Some of the garlic are decent-sized, but a lot of it is fairly small. Out of our 10 varieties we ended up with just under 10 lbs of garlic, which includes bulbils as well. A good portion of the garlic will have to be used for seed in the fall, so I don't expect we'll have enough to get us through to next year, but I am grateful for what we do have. Last year was a pretty dry year for garlic, since we moved here and didn't have anything but the seed to plant. Garlic is a huge staple in our house, and my kitchen was feeling pretty empty without it (I had attempted to use some store-bought garlic a few times, but it's just not the same). I made a couple ice-cube trays full of garlic scape pesto in July, and that has been a nice addition to pastas.
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| Seven of our garlic varietals, hanging above our masonry wood stove. |
