July flown by

Ok, I know..I've been a very negligent blogger. About 6 weeks has flown by in a roller coaster of mid summer neverending to do lists. And honestly there hasn't been a spare moment for the blog. The 3 months of gst paperwork backed up in a pile at my elbow, due today, is testament to that.

The strawberries owned me for several weeks. Twice a day they needed picking before the slugs and birds claimed them. MMMM, juicy sweet organic berries, they flew off my tables at the farmers market, I made them into strawberry cake, strawberry milkshakes, strawberry jam...every evening Jimmy sat hulling and slicing them for the freezer. Glad that's over but I miss them in all their fresh abundance.

The kids came home from Yellowknife to visit, so wonderful to see them. They buried their beloved little dog Leroy beneath our old apple tree. Always so sad to lose a faithful old dog.

Every sunday in July was perfectly sunny for our farmers market, in fact it has been perfect weather from the start. My weeks have become a predictable cycle of wednesday - make granola, thursday dig new potatoes, friday - pick wash, weigh, bag all the salad greens, chard, and spinach. Pick nasturtiums and johnny jump ups from the new flowerbed to pretty up the salads,, pick peas and beans, put the chick peas in water to soak overnite. Saturday - clean the cottages for the next tenants, make the hummus, pull carrots, beets, onions, cut broccoli and herbs. And tomorrow morning before market - pick cukes and zuchinni in case they grow a bit more overnite. Monday, Tuesday, catch up on the weeding and re planting succession crops like spinach and lettuce.
The market seems to be growing more popular every week. I really enjoy presenting good healthy food to people who appreciate fresh, local and organic.
One of my favorite vendors is Pizza Del Fuego. They pull in with this great little wood fired brick oven on it's own little trailer, and they make the most incredibly delicious thin crust pizza. My weekly lunch treat.

Avery said goodbye today after 3 weeks in St Martins. I will miss his six year old gap toothed smile. He loves his pal Stormy as much as ever. His family comes every summer from Ontario.

My birthday was mid month and I was too busy to give it a thought, but my beloved, unbeknownst to me had the whole market serenade me with a box of vendor Derrick's sinfully delicious chocolate truffles. As if that wasnt enough, when I got home I found this apple cider press on the porch! Apparently he had been trying to buy it for me from a local guy for the past 4 Christmasses and birthdays, must have worn him down.

Stormy and Avery

I started an acrylic portrait a few days ago of two of my favorite characters, our minihorse Stormy and his little fan, Avery. There were 2 reference photos, I liked the horse's position in one, and Avery's face in the other, so the painting is a combination of the two.

This is a 16x20 canvas covered board. I started by covering the white with a lot of orangy color and blocking in the main bits and pieces leaving specks of the underlying colors to show through. Not sure what to do with the background at this point.

Actually , not sure of anything much at this point so doing some details on the face. Avery is so happy and proud of himself when he is riding Stormy and I want that to come through.

I thought the tree background was boring so I broke it up with a bit of sky, altho there really is a solid mass of spruce trees there on a steep hillside. Painting is a lot like carpentry or renovating in that you are constantly solving construction problems one after the other. I guess thats why my attention span doesnt last more than an hour or so...its just hard work! The next problem before getting into finishing details is to make Stormy's belly a lot rounder and put some kind of interest in the pasture grass, but not so much that its distracting. Looks like I'll be a few more days at this.

Goodbye Blue Moon

A sad farewell to our last foal...Blue Moon, named for his crescent moon star and his lovely blue eyes, has gone to Nova Scotia to be a Cape Bret'ner. He will be keeping company with a miniature donkey, some goats, and a flock of chickens. Now we are down to 5 minis, hard to believe we kept 17 horses a few years ago, but with the downturn in tourism, the decision to end 10 years of saddle and cart rides for summer visitors, and our aging creaky bones, this number looks a lot more manageable. We will still do rides for our small B&B and cottage guests, just not the entire world any more. So now we are down to 4 originals all aproaching 20 years old, who will likely live out their days here, and a sweet two year old filly.