Where did summer go? ..a late summer summary

     The best growing summer ever...albeit a bit dry, but lots of heat for the tomatoes and peppers. I sold loads of salad mix to the local restaurants, greens can be a challenge in hot weather so this was a summer to experiment with different varieties. The green and red varieties of oak leaf lettuce became the basis of my salad mix, augmented with spinach, bulls blood beet leaves, arugula and various mesclan mixes. Seeding every 2 weeks gave me a constant supply of fresh baby greens.
     I started a new garden for next year, had a tractor mounted tiller come in and chew up a piece of the pasture, which was then limed, manured, and seeded to buckwheat as a green manure.
     The blossoms  were so lovely and the bees flocked to them, but the buckwheat had to be tilled under to fertilise the soil before it went to seed.
      Trusty old Big Red, vintage 1978, chomped his way through the tangle of buckwheat, and once mixed with soil the plants began to break down quickly.

    

 Darrel came back for his horse and chicken fix.

It's such fun to watch him having such a great time with the animals, and they really seem to be drawn to him.

Avery came and said his goodbyes to the horses, and then was on his way back to Ontario. I miss his frequent visits.


The weather forecasters had us thinking hurricane Earl would blow us all to kingdom come, so we tied down everything important.

In the end it veered off to Nova Scotia but we did get a welcome rain out of it.

We had record breaking high temperatures in late august and the hottest day ever was Sept 1. I'm so thankful to live on the coast as no matter how hot it gets here, its always hotter inland. Counting my blessings these busy end of summer days as I'm up to my elbows in ripe tomatoes, canning, making pickles, preserves, and freezing summer's bounty.

Avery

My favorite small visitor returning each year to the farm has to be Avery, from Ontario. I met him when he was two and was amused to see him confidently leading our white mini Stormy, the length of the pasture. Avery talks about Stormy all winter and when his family comes back to their St Martins cottage each summer he cant wait to get here to see his favorite little horse.

The first time he rode Stormy as a 2 1/2 year old he was hooked. I did his portrait at four astride his best horse friend.

This year the inevitable happened. Avery grew too tall to ride Stormy. Sad news, but he was excited to learn that he was now big enough to drive his special horse . We hooked up the cart and Avery was in heaven, learning the reins, the whoa and the go of it.

He came this week with a huge concern. He believed that the koi fish in our pond had to be lonely since he was the only fish. He had to have a friend and Averys parents got no peace until a trip to Saint John was made to find a goldfish. Not just any goldfish. It had to be the goldest goldfish in the tank. And so he turned up clutching a plastic bag of water and "Goldy".

He was on a serious mission that had to be seen through. He worried about the water temperatures in the bag and the pond being the same. We submerged the bag for half an hour and then, the great release!

Such a focused (his mom used the word obsessive) and thoughtful little boy, a joy to know. I am priveleged to be one of his friends.

Perspective

I think the world is being run by a lot of lost crazy people. Dictators threaten their neighbors with nuclear weapons with all the concern for the aftermath that people would have for a snowball fight. As a news junkie I am grateful for the power of nature to pull me away from harshness and volatility"out there" to a place of wonder, predictability, and mystery just outside my door. Three magnificent linden trees stand in front of our old house. I suppose they were planted when the house was built about 180 years ago. Every midsummer they burst out into yellow blossom and at the same time thousands of wild bees turn up from heaven knows where. As dependable as the sight of the canada geese soaring over the house in spring and fall, they bring the hope of continuity for this old world. Spring was very early this year and the trees have flowered 2 weeks ahead of usual but the bees knew and came at the right time. The yard hummmmms with a constant loud drone of their busyness. I can sit on the swing beneath the tree and feel as if I'm in a hive. I can feel that all is right with the world, at least this small part of it. Nature gets it right, and is a great teacher if only people would listen.

I have this quirky idea that aggressive and belligerant leaders, hyperactive wild kids, and sourpusses of all types would gain a whole new outlook if taken out of an environment of concrete, asphalt, steel and plastic and immersed in nature. They'd have to follow my instructions though..."Sit! Stay! Be quiet, Inhale deeply and Listen....."

For Darrell

I often wonder why I do this. Every day people turn up here: "We wanna mini horse ride." "Sorry" goes the spiel, "We retired the horses from rides 3 seasons ago, they're getting old, and so am I. Disappointed looks. " But you can go in and pet them if you like. No theres no charge." Which requires supervision.... "Those 4 are fine but not that one, she doesnt like petting. Dont pull on his tail please...dont put your fingers in his mouth like that please. Please stop chasing the hens...would you mind shutting the pasture gate behind you?"
   So yesterday we put up the large CLOSED sign and went to the city for errands and the next batch of meat chicks. Arrived home to find a woman with toddler on hip standing in the pasture, her 5 year old sitting astride Casey, free as a bird 10 feet away.
    She got a lecture (restrained for the child's sake) on the meaning of "closed" , on liability issues, on the idiocy of placing a child on an unknown unrestrained horse, (thank God she picked Casey who is next thing to comatose) and the impropriety of her attitude of entitlement, at which point she rather huffily departed.
     A cup of tea was in the works to soothe my indignation, but I wasn't to have it , in rolled another car. Two middle aged sisters and the husband of one of them, Darrell by name. They worked together to get him situated in his wheelchair and one of them explained to me about his stroke. Darrell was highly excited. I whistled the horses over to the low gate where he could reach them and feed them carrots with his one working hand. Darrell appeared to be lit up by his own personal sunbeams. He grinned and cooed and poured out his love for those little horses, each one in turn and Chloe, the 3 year old returned it, licking his hand over and over for the longest time. Chicken Little wandered over and his delight was multiplied. We worked out a one armed chicken hold and Darrel posed for pictures between burying his nose in her soft feathers and expressing his immense gratitude.
    I felt humbled to be in the presence of such a flow of love and laughter from one with every right to bitterness, whose mobility and independance had been stolen away. I couldn't wait to give him a copy of my children's book, Nana's Chickens. It was like I gave him a million dollars when he recognised Chicken Little on the cover. The last image I have of him as they backed out of the driveway is his joyful face mouthing the words of the story as his one good hand turned the pages.
     I know now why I give chunks of my day away to strangers. I do it for Darrell, who gave back so much more in return.
   

Ahhhh summertime!

I have never been in a kayak before. What a fun quiet happy way to enjoy the water and a lovely sunny day. We paddled under the covered bridges, had to duck under one as it was close to high tide at the time, and around the harbor where the lobster and scallop boats tie up.

Back to work with lots of weeding waiting for me. The first cauliflower and broccolis are ready. More salad greens seed goes in as the cauliflower plants come out.

Those cute little fuzzy meat chicks that

hatched on may 11 have turned into lumbering top heavy frankenbirds who live to eat and lie down. I call them the gorbies, which doesn't insult them at all, greedy things.
These three are the survivors (for a few more days) Their buddies are in the freezer. I butcher two at a time, first thing in the morning before any garden customers show up, altho I was caught the last time by some very curious people who wanted to watch. Kinda creepy. Sparing the reader the graphic details on this site, I would refer anyone interested in the process to the absolute best detailed copiously illustrated chicken  

butchering site ever : http://www.butcherachicken.blogspot.com/
Here are the latest two unnamed casualties on my kitchen counter, ready for their freezer bags. They are averaging about 4 and a half pounds dressed out. I will miss the others when they are all gone next week because they are the only birds we have that will eat the slugs I collect from the garden.
The new girl Lola is settling in with the flock. She is a pretty Buff Orpington, and a large size that none of the others will give any grief to. She got her name from her yellow feathers

(if you remember that dumb Barry Manilow song, "At the Co-pa, co-pa-ca-ba-na, and something about Lola with the yellow feathers in her hair and some mayhem that ensued...)
Well, anyway she appears to like her new digs in the Coopacabana.

Organic Market Garden Update

Here we are at mid june and things have greened up beautifully since the last garden post. I 'm enjoying the walk each day through the vibrant dappled greens along the path to the berry garden. I'll be putting out the Organic Market Garden sign at the roadside this week. The Salmon River B&B & Restaurant of St Martins has become a regular customer, going thru an ever increasing amount of mixed salad greens and herbs every few days. I mix together several types of mesclun  and oak leaf lettuce, baby beet and arugula leaves, and some baby spinach. The owners tell me that the customers are loving their new healthier menu.

       So far I also have ready swiss chard, a wee bit of broccoli, onion tops, chives, cilantro, sage, tarragon and chervil. The usual villans have shown up with their destructive appetites: brassica and arugula loving flea beetles, slugs and snails.

    Bottomless ice cream buckets with a mesh top are just the best thing for wind and chewing bug protection, and pushed down into the soil, they also foil the cutworms.                  These cauliflower plants are now big and strong enough to withstand the flea beetles so they can lose their buckets  to the tender squash and cucumber transplants. I use a pile of sheer curtains I found at the Re-store as row covers for the arugula and turnip, otherwise there would be nothing left. The hoop houses described in an earlier post have had a succession of crops since  housing the baby chard back in march. The radishes have come and gone, now the hoop beds are sheltering a second planting of arugula and some tender beans.

     Scarlet runner beans are finding their way up the poles. Their blossoms make such a bright splash of color in the midsummer garden, and how the hummingbirds love them. I put the beans through my bean frencher and sell them that way, all thinly sliced and ready to steam gently and enjoy.

      Some of the potatoes planted under mulch are beginning to blossom. I so look forward to the first dinner with new baby potatoes, there's nothing like it!

     Giant Tess, the swamp lady is at her usual haunt by the pond...lazy sod never does anything useful, but demands an all over haircut every few days, Such a high maintenance creature she is.

Finally Canadian

I've been a landed immigrant in Canada since I was a child in 1957, crossing the Atlantic from Britain on the rolling and pitching SS Newfoundland. Its been a wonderful adventure in a terrific country, but I never went for actual citizenship I guess because I'm a procrastinator with an aversion to paperwork. After 9-11 there was suddenly a requirement for a $50. plastic card to identify all the dastardly immigrants which I found quite insulting after all my tax paying years. Renewable at $50. or more every 5 years. So I got the card because I had to, and then we had occasion to cross the border into Maine, wherupon the opportunistic american border guards fleeced me for $6.00 because I had a british passport. No explanation given for such discrimination. When I asked the Canadian side about it the man was completely unaware of the fee.

So with a stupid $6.00 rather arbitrary toll cutting into my fun at Mardens Discount Everything in Calais, ME, I decided that's it, the last $6.00 the buggers will get from me. So I paid my $200. to the Canadian government (It's the principle of the thing) and a year of aggravating paperwork later, Im waiting for my swearing in ceremony that was promised in may, and I see in the newspaper to my dismay, a photo of the said ceremony attended the day before by a large group of colorfully clad happy immigrant/new citizens fresh off the boat so to speak. "Wait a minute ! I've been here since 1957! How could you not invite me to the party??" Paperwork screwup, I got lost in the mail somehow. So the nice people at citizenship & immigration scheduled my own private swearing in ceremony yesterday. I am now a fully fledged Canadian Citizen. Take that america!

Chick chick here, chick chick there, here a chick, there a chick, everywhere...

Wow, where did 3 weeks go since the last post? Lots of things happening here, both good and bad. Here is Freckles with her adopted babies, 7 meat chicks. I timed her setting so that her borrowed eggs would hatch the same day we were to pick up the meat chicks from the feed store. She never noticed the switch.

Chicken Little hatched out a batch of little layers also and gladly accepted the crew from under Freckles, so now she is mothering 10 of them.  The yellow ones are from the white rocks and the dark ones from the ancona. All fathered by our white rock rooster, Fancy.

They grow so fast, here are two of Little's bunch a week later with real feathers. One flapped into this visiting boys' hood, prompting fits of giggles.
In the not so happy news, two of the horses got inside the garden fence one night, the wind blew the gate shut behind them, and thats where I found them in the morning. Everything that was up and growing was pretty much stomped into oblivion, except the plants in the hoop houses, cold frames, and covered with ice cream buckets.

I had quite an undignified hysterical meltdown...but I'm good now. (sigh)

Not much time for painting with all the outdoor work to do, (and re-do) Here is a recent watercolor of Atlantic Puffins that we have made into prints and cards. I love birds of all kinds.

Busy, busy, busy...

So busy, so many projects and blessed with wonderful weather to be outdoors. There hasn't been frost since the 3rd week of march and the garden is up and growing. We're eating lettuce, spinach and radishes so far. We got on with this wooden pathway the last two weeks. It leads through a swampy bog to the far garden where the raspberries and blackberries grow. Carrying a full tray will be easier now with no muck to wade through. When the willows leaf out I'll tie them in a tunnel over the bridge.
I tilled up the floor in the older  greenhouse today, holding my breath so I wasn't breathing the gas fumes. Love my little mantis tiller! Its now full of sweet million tomato transplants. Sweet million are my favorites, sweet brilliant red tiny tomatoes borne in symetrical pairs along a long branch. They will have to be tied up later as they almost reach the ceiling of the greenhouse.
        Giant Tess has had a new coat of green this spring. She came through the winter somewhat patchy

so she had some mud/compost/lawn seed daubed on which has filled in quite nicely, it grew well everywhere but her bosom which she insists on baring to the elements. She will be getting  cement hands to replace the clay pair that keep eroding away with the rain just as soon as I find a tall man with large hands whom I can talk into putting said hands into a bucket of plaster of paris, to make moulds for the concrete.
Lately I scored the BEST recycle/trade ever! I got this wonderful useful cap for my truck essentially free. Actually the fellow traded me for three bottles of jam.  I know it's really good jam, but I did get the better of the deal.

Plants are blooming everywhere, tulips, daffodils, and over by the pond, I think these are marsh marigolds.
      The greenhouse is so full, I have to make some more cold frames to get the cukes and peppers and other warmth loving stuff out into the garden. It gets pretty chilly for them when a fog rolls in here. Once the greenhouse beds are somewhat clear of transplants taking up space, more tomatos are going to be planted into the bed. Looks like a job for this week.
Ha! I just did a double take at the truck photo...it looks like the greenhouse/chicken house is loaded on the wagon...

Here's my son and daughter in law in Fredericton getting into the garden spirit. Over the weekend I helped them get a raised bed garden going, 3feet by 10 feet.They will be amazed at how much good food can come out of such a small space.

Ok...the grandson is only on this post because he's gorgeous...

Exploratorium!

Over the weekend my friend Lorraine and I packed up some of our chickens and set up our display along with 2 dozen other hands-on educational exhibits at a large arena in Saint John. "Exploratorium" was put on by an alternative private school and we imagined it would be a rather small affair, so we were pretty amazed at the crowd of 4500 to 5000 people who showed up to pet a chicken, among other things.
     Good thing I had 3 petting friendly chickens to alternate or after 5 hours they would have had their feathers loved off! The funny question I kept getting, as a child would spot a hen on my lap, was "Is that a REAL chicken?"
 Kids love chickens. They love to stroke their soft feathers, touch their beaks and toes with a fingertip, and sense their gentle natures. The entire afternoon they were lined up 6 deep, 10 deep, hordes and hordes of kids all wanting to touch. I began to notice faces I recognised, kids coming back a second and third time. I suppose for many or most it was their first encounter with real live friendly chickens.
     Fancy, the rooster let off a cockle doodle doo every few minutes which startled and delighted and elicited fits of giggles.
       So many inquisitive happy kids, I had a wonderful time.