Canadian Thanksgiving

Cinderella heritage pumpkin.

There are many garden delights to be thankful for this harvest season. Among them are the pretty, colourful squash known as Pumpkin. My friend Pamela grew this one and although she gave me seeds to grow some this year, I was late in planting mine and they are still golden yellow, not reddish-orange like this beauty.

I hated to cut into this pumpkin, but I remembered how delicious last year’s pie tasted that came from the parent of this pumpkin (or would that be the aunt, or sister???)

This pumpkin variety is tasty for cooking and has thick flesh.

I had to get very serious about cutting into the pumpkin and that meant a machete and hammer! Can you believe how thick the walls are?

After I scooped out the seeds I piled it all into a roasting pan. I added about 3/4 cup of water and covered it loosely with foil. Into the oven at 350 it went and I roasted it until I could easily pierce it with a sharp knife. When it came out of the oven, I let it rest for 1/2 an hour so the excess water could drain away. After that I cut off the outside skin and then pureed the flesh.

Even the sale price is about 10 times the cost of making it from scratch.

I filled the roasting pan twice, so it took some time to cook the entire pumpkin. When finished, I added the sugar and spices to  the equivilant of 20 whole pie portions and and then froze the portions in our upright freezer. When it’s time to bake them, I’ll add eggs and evaporated milk to complete the filling.

I still had containers of plain puree (for winter soup) left over as well as enough pumpkin to bake 3 pies for Thanksgiving weekend.

Ready for roasting in the oven.

I took the leftover pumpkin seeds to “the girls” aka Pamela’s wonderful, happy chickens. It was the end of the day and they had feasted on slugs and worms and organic barley grown just for them, so they didn’t stampede like they sometimes do. I love the cooing sounds they make in this little video.

Part of the point in getting pumpkin ready and baking pie in the first place was to share it with our friends at a Thanksgiving potluck.

First though, Larry and I had to take a walk down Kniffen’s Hollow to take in the beautiful fall colours that cover the Bear River hills right now.

Giving thanks to Bear River.

The air was cool, but we never get tired of this ever-changing scenery.

Kniffen's creek empties into Bear River.

We walked back up through the woods, past the creek that moved fast with the rains we’ve had off and on this past week.

The leaves are falling and the sight is so magical, that it’s like seeing it all for the first time again.

Kniffen's creek.

We climbed back up the hill to our friends’ house. Inside the guests were arriving, the fire was crackling, the house smelled of turkey and squash and stuffing and vegetables and salad…………..and homegrown, homemade pumpkin pie.

Turkey and all the trimmings on the way.

Living it up in Bear River with $16-a-litre Organic Apple Cider!

  

Fallen apples in a Wild Rice Pottery bowl

One of the wonderful things about living here in Bear River is trying to figure out how to grow your own, make your own, and create your own food. People here love their fruit and vegetables and are always trying to either extend the growing season and/or preserve some of the harvest for the wintertime. Bear River is loaded with apple trees and you often drive past trees that are dropping their bounties on the edge of the road. We have about 10 apple trees at our new/old house so we decided to get in on the ground floor of a group purchase of a new, but authentic apple press. After all, the apples are ‘free’ and it would be a great chance to spend time with friends in a worthwhile pursuit. Eight households are sharing this apple cider press.

Apple crushing machine

It’s a bit late in the season to be picking apples; they’ve mostly already dropped on the ground. This actually made our job easier because we only had to spend time picking up the most recent fallen apples. I felt a bit squeemish about the worm factor, but friends here assured me that a bit of organic material in the cider is no big deal. As it turned out, the apples were pretty good and it was easy to cut out the ‘non apple’ bits.

Sweet, fallen apples

What surprised me about the day was how much time it takes and how much work it is being authentic and all! But not to get ahead of myself….we arrived at Don’s and Norma’s house. They had graciously suggested that we work together there and they’d been up since the crack of dawn putting drop cloths on the kitchen floor, taking doors off hinges to fit tables into the kitchen so that we could set up the production line.

Don inspects the setup

You see, the 5 bushels of apples that we had all gathered had to be scrubbed, quartered, inspected, crushed, pressed and then put in containers and frozen.

Beautiful red apples

The 4 of us worked steadily for a total of 10 hours, including the time spent apple picking. At the end of our efforts, we had pressed 60 litres of ‘free’ apples. I figured that if we were paid $20 an hour for our combined 40 hours of labour and added in our share of the cost of the apple press, that would equal about $1000. Divide that by 60 litres and the actual retail price for a litre of Bear River Organic Apple Cider is a mere $16. Think of the money we saved doing this ourselves!!

Around about the 10th litre of juice, it occurred to me that we hadn’t thought about where we were going to put the finished product. Now we have 25 litres of fresh pressed cider sitting in a huge pail in our cold car and no containers to put it into and no freezer space for that much cider either. In the morning I’ll be racing into Digby to buy containers and then mooching space in Norma’s freezer. But hey, if you want to help me out here, you can have a litre of the tastiest organic, free range cider I’ve ever tasted, for $16, no, make that only $10 a litre!

Only 20 more litres to go!

Gardening Teachings

One reason that I was so eager to live in a rural Nova Scotian community was to fulfill my years-long yearnings to grow vegetables and a few flowers. I’ve done some city gardening before, but most city lots are small and don’t have the full sun conditions that plants need. As a result, my old garden was limited to shade-loving plants and sadly, I could grow no vegetables.

Sunflower planted by the birds

My garden here is pretty modest compared with some of my friends, but it is huge for me and so far it tastes great! But besides enjoying the taste of the fresh produce, gardening is teaching me mindfulness.

It turned out to be a lot more work than I remembered and more time consuming too. I have become mindful of my body and it’s limitations. I believe now that active gardening is as effective as a regular gym workout due to the constant movement; the bending, stretching, squatting, lifting and physical exertion. A big surprise for me is that my hands are stronger now….and I KNOW that it’s from pulling weeds!!

Blue Lake runner beans mid June.

Eight weeks later the beans are tall and producing.

Blue Lake runner beans in early August

Gardening has taught me to be mindful of the weather. I have never been so aware of the amount and frequency of rainfall as I have in the last 6 months. I have enormous respect and reverence for independent farmers and the crap-shoot they go through every season with the uncertainty of the weather. Drought conditions aren’t easily fixed when you’re using well-water or when your fields are far from a tap! An intense short hot spell can make your lettuces bolt and spell the end of cool-weather crops..even when the heat disappears. Too much rain will bring out slugs that chew up your cabbage leaves.

Marigold and Basil

Now that I am reminded of the mindful work and tending of plants that goes on in order to produce a bean, I am astounded that farmers can make a living. It has become even more important for me to buy local produce…..indeed it seems ludicrous not to support farmers in our own community. Because apart from wasting resources by trucking in food that is grown here, I really want to make sure that the small farmers in the Annapolis Valley (or in Niagara or the Holland Marsh if I was in Toronto) will still be growing food for me when I can’t or don’t do it myself. There was a protest about this in New Minas this week.

I wanted to give you a visual tour of what was growing in my garden today.

Right now as I type this, I can hear the rain tapping on the red metal roof and sliding down to collect in the rainbarrel. This will give me a place to dip my watering can so that I can provide drinks to the plants in pots around the porch. I can almost see the plants stretching up to receive the rain. Like gardeners everywhere, tomorrow I will marvel at the growth spurt I see because no matter how much rain you can collect or how much you water, nothing has the magical growing effect of a summer’s rain.

Here is a little video showing the progress of the flower bed I dug into the front lawn. Rain has made all the difference.

Signs of Spring

There may still be serious frost in the ground and we may still get a few flurries, but there was one bona fide sign of spring today! The fish man delivered!

I missed this event because I was having an afternoon nap and enjoying the sunlight that streamed through the windows. But when I came downstairs, the kitchen showed evidence of Larry’s impulse buying and the fridge and freezer were full of Digby scallops, salmon, and fresh haddock.

I wish I hadn’t slept through it because I really want to get a picture of the fish truck. Can you imagine? A big white van is loaded up at the fish plant in Digby harbour and then a delivery man makes over 140 stops, including one at our door. This happens every 2 weeks starting today and lasting until November.

We ate a delicious supper of fresh haddock — it was so light and moist and delicate. Just like you would expect of a spring delicacy.

Prices change on the truck depending on the catch and the season and other things, but in case you are wondering what the cost of spring fish delivered to the door is, here are today’s prices per pound:

• Haddock fillets 5.50
• Digby scallops 9.50
• Smoked haddock fillets 6.50
• Haddock bits 3.50
• Scallop pieces 6
• Salmon fillets 8
• Halibut steaks 8
• Salt bits 3
• Atlantic shrimp 7