Art + Craft in Bear River = happiness

This weekend I took part in the very first Bear River Holiday Spirit Craft Show at the Rebekah Hall.

The tables were 6 feet long.

I had stressed a bit before the show about what I would display, whether I should even participate, did I have enough stuff, how would I display things, etc. , etc.

It’s not like I’ve never been in a show before, but I guess it has been a long time and my head has been in gardening not in art and craft shows.

It was SO MUCH FUN!!  In fact, I’d forgotten about how much I enjoyed the whole process of a show. The fun parts are:

• Seeing a body of your work together

The chaos of creativity in the studio can hide the previous weeks’ pieces. Placing your work together gives definition to your direction.

• Seeing other people’s work

It’s lovely to see other people present their work. It’s inspiring because hand-made work is so unique to the creator. It’s like a signature. It has an energy.

This detailed ornament is made from paper by Apryl Surette.

• Seeing the work of your friends in the village

When I know a person it’s even more interesting to see their work. It’s a window into their being.

• Visiting with your village friends

This is the first show I’ve ever participated in where I knew or knew of 80% of the vendors and many of the purchasers. It’s like having a show with all your friends and that’s an art party!

The people even dressed like works of art.

• Buying other people’s stuff

“Supporting the arts” is never so sweet as when you are buying beautiful things and tasty food from old friends and new friends!

• Selling your own stuff

I paint to satisfy an inner need to respond in colour to a scene or an object that moves me. It’s always a thrill and a surprise when someone else responds to a piece, especially when its creation was such a personal experience for me. It is wonderful to know that my paintings are enjoyed by others. Money is a good thing too!

• Absorbing the energy of others

Most vendors and participants at shows are in happy moods and the happy energy vibes are in abundance and are contagious.

This doll called me, but I had to leave her behind for now.

• Sharing tips and techniques with other artists

I exchanged printmaking stories and techniques with a storyteller artist  Sheila LeBlanc-Joyce. The photographer across the aisle from me shared his tips about digital photography, photoshop manipulation, printing, and paper preferences, all worth gold!

• Uping your own creative force

The end result of all of this is to send the artist home with new ideas and some inspiration for new work

Lots of people came through..like hundreds. Many of us were happily surprised to see such a crowd on a rainy day. It was an excellent turn-out for a first-time venue and it bodes well for the future.

Fabulous stories, photos and dolls by Ken and Amy Flett

And what did I buy? There were lots of beautiful things I wanted to buy, but I restrained myself. When I got home I noticed that all of my purchases were very practical and often food related.  I bought:

• Some coffee from Sissiboo Coffee Roaster, a new, fair-trade coffee roasted here in Bear River by Jon Welch.

The aroma alone is out of this world!

• An  especially-for-artists  week by week calendar that will help me organize my life if I cooperate with it. This was developed by artist Helen Opie who was frustrated with what was on the market and designed and printed her own.

• Some wild, handpicked cranberries from organic market-gardener Gilbert Doelle at Wild Rose Farm in Gilbert’s Cove.

• The tastiest loaded-with-fruit-and-nuts fruit cake I’ve ever sampled made by Barnwood Inn in Bear River.

The fruitcake is so fresh and so tasty.

I forgot to mention that there was also live music and carols.

Emily added some of her Deer to the table and they were a hit!

Thanks to Erin Schopfer and Jon Welch for providing the venue and more.

A very special thanks to a wonderful artist and woman, Jennifer Quercia who did a huge amount of coordinating and organizing and planning for this event. Jennifer makes beautiful felt creations when she’s not homeschooling or assembling yurts or working on  community projects.

Jennifer's felted 'tooth fairy' pouch.

It was quite a fun event. I can’t wait for the next time!

We’re All Having the Same Dream

Jesse and I had supper at the Bear River Café a few nights ago and we could barely make the walk home we were so full.

The Bear River Cafe at low tide. (blue building) At high tide, it's surrounded by water.

One of the challenges of living in a little village at the edge of Canada as compared with a bustling city like Toronto or New York or London is that you don’t get to go out to dinner all the time or even some of the time.  If any restaurants are open in the evening it’s usually only during the tourist season. A friend of mine in the village, Lynn Belanger, is trying to change that. She’s living her dream in Bear River by running the Bear River Café, a cute little restaurant that stands on stilts right in the tidal river.  The restaurant is mostly open for lunch and in the afternoons but lately Lynn has been featuring international cuisine once a month and a couple of nights ago Greek food was on the menu.

The opening day menu last May.

Our old neighborhood in Toronto was called Greektown and there were over a dozen Greek restaurants nearby.  Lynn’s meal was a definite contender with the Danforth. But even better, the food tasted like a home cooked meal, which is difficult to come by in a restaurant.  The music matched the food and Lynn borrowed some authentic antique Greek folk dance costumes from the former Bear River ethnographic Museum. (This massive private collection from an international folk dancer needs a BIG blog post.)

Larry and Emily missed the meal because they were in Halifax at a craft show where Larry was demonstrating his chasing and silversmith skills for the Nova Scotia Metal Arts Guild.

Larry drove 3 hours to Halifax, demonstrated and drove all the way home again!

Emily took lots of photos that Larry will use on our Green Willow Studio blog.

Chasing on copper.

Larry and I both thought that the special Greek dinner was the night before he left for Halifax and when he phoned Lynn to reserve our table, she said we should come over for supper anyway. She’d be happy to prepare us a grilled halibut dish because the restaurant crew was busy prepping for the following day.

We arrived to a candlelit dinner while soft jazz music played.  We had the whole restaurant to ourselves and the meal was delicious.

Our table waits.

The chocolate cake and whipped cream was the pièce de résistance.  It’s working out very well that our Bear River dream so neatly dovetails with Lynn’s.

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!