November in Bear River

This morning I woke up to a fairyland of frost that clung to each blade of grass in the fields around our house. It all crunched under foot and as beautiful as it was to see, it spelled the end of the gardening season.

The frost temporarily changes the colours of the grasses.

Right up until last week I had still been plugging in a few donated perennials, planting a few more tulips, harvesting the last of the carrots.

I walked around taking pictures because  hoarfrost is short-lived. As soon as the sun hits the fields, the frost warms and disappears. Surprisingly, even our now-you-see-me, now-you-don’t pond had a thin layer of ice forming on it. We may just get a skating rink this winter.

Last week's rain is still draining into the pond.

Two months ago, I planted some lettuce and spinach in the cold-frame and I was eager to read the inside temperature. I crunched my way across the lawn and was startled to see a thick layer of frost on the cold-frame glass.

The outside temperature was 6 degrees celsius. What would the temperature be inside?

Inside, the thermometer read 12 degrees which was double the outside temperature. Not too bad considering there is no insulation or heat source other than the sun.

Six week old seedlings.

Now I wish I'd started a batch 2 weeks before this one, but in the garden with a floating row cover.

The cold-frame is very exciting because it promises more home-grown food and means I can enjoy gardening for a little longer. I nibble at the produce every time I lift the lid. Although it’s slow-growing, the taste is delicious.

I’ve been cooking up a storm all day. Granola, Armenian lentil soup, banana bread, chili, tomato sauce and bread. There is something about the threat of winter that gets my nesting instincts going! That and having the chance to feed our adult kids while they visit us.

This afternoon, Emily and I visited a couple of local cemeteries to take some photos. Her photography is superb and here is a link to her flickrphotos.

Mount Hope Cemetery, Bear River.

The main cemetery here is Mount Hope. It’s very pretty and peaceful, set on a high hill and bordering a babbling brook. By Bear River standards, it’s fairly modern. The dates on the stones are mostly from the 1920’s and forward.

This ornate gate is part of one of the plots for the movers and shakers of the last century in Bear River.

A couple of days ago, we visited the small cemetery across the road from us. It was used for  100 years, from 1810 – 1910.

Old Baptist Loyalist Cemetery, Bear RIver.

Nature has almost reclaimed the space in the 100 years since the last person was buried there. The trees have grown up, many of the stones are broken and are propped up against the emerging trees.

This cemetery is at the top of a ravine and is very private.

It’s a kind of Bear River Stonehenge and in spite of its rough shape, it’s a very contemplative place with some beautiful monuments to people with names like ‘Cora Bella’ and ‘Ethelynne’. There were lots of people, especially children, buried in the 1850’s which made me wonder if they’d had a flu epidemic.

Both cemeteries have lots of evidence of Mason membership.

We walked home down and up the steep hills. I had extra yummy eggs from the free-ranging, organically fed  chickens of Pamela so I baked a cake and we ate it with our tea when we got home.

One of 'the girls' hopes I've got a handful of clover for her.

I figure we are very lucky to be able to participate in this rich experiment called life. I don’t want to sound too morbid, but  that combo of the killing frost and the abandoned cemetery that is slowly being reclaimed by mother nature are reminders of the impermanence of existence.

The kitchen goddess finds her home.

All the more reason to enjoy every moment and to be awake to the beauty of our surroundings and the people in our lives who we love and who love us back.

The sky over my garden.

I still can’t get over the beauty of this place AND that we get to eat fresh eggs and grow spinach in November. AND that our kids have travelled this far to spend some time with us, with their creativity and with the beauty all around us.

Putting the Garden to Bed and Visitors Arrive

October may be the most glorious time of year. The leaves are turning golden and orange; there is a crispness in the air and the season has definitely changed. It’s always tough to see fresh vegetables and beautiful flowers transform into black, dead plants.

The Maples have been ‘raining’ golden leaves this week.

There are still lots of jobs to do in the garden. It’s time to pull the remaining carrots. Last minute lilies, iris,  tall grasses and mint had to be planted. Today I pulled out the dahlias which have rewarded me with multiple bulbs. Each will grow into 3 ft high flower bush next year.

These Dahlia were red and prolific bloomers.

I planted a good crop of garlic last year and some of the bulbs that I harvested in July will grow new garlic for next season. It took me 2 long afternoons to clear the old tomato plants away, turn the soil, pick out more rocks, pull weeds. I finally planted the garlic cloves under drizzling rain conditions, while listening to my ipod reading of Guy Vanderhaeghe’s The Last Crossing. CBC’s show Between the Covers is podcast and there are readings of entire books available for download.

The soil looks so rich because it’s quite damp.

I’ve been in a bigger rush than usual to get the gardening priorities finished because we were expecting two important visitors. Our son and daughter have flown here from Toronto and LA for some family time and to help us with the finishing touches on the house.

Jesse arrived first and we’ve put him to work stacking MORE wood. The yard looks to me like we are going into the cordwood business.

Larry surveys Jesse’s woodpile stacking.

Emily is an anti-clutter expert and quite organized …way moreso than the rest of us put together. She has moved about 8 times in the last 3 years following the animation trail. She’s got great ideas and I sure don’t want to get in the way of sane living. She’s just got a few commissions to finish first which will give me a few days to redeem myself. It’s the same idea as cleaning up before the cleaning lady comes over.

She is precise and very focused.

Larry is still painting bedrooms, hanging tricky shower doors, sending back window screens for the 3rd time because the supplier custom-made the wrong sizes.

Yet another coat of paint in the dining room.

I’m cooking lots of home-made meals for the family, baking bread, pies and fussing over our gorgeous, creative kids. After all, it’s the first time they’ve slept in this house so it feels pretty important that they can be here with us.

The wood shapes and textures are inspiring.

I planted some more lilies and iris out at our pond too. The heavy rains this month are creating a steady supply of water to our home-made pond and she’s looking fantastic right now. I sat at the edge on an upturned pail for a while before I went in to make supper. (The final harvest stir-fried) I watched birds swoop by me. I found the colours, the smells and the reflection to be stunning. Once again, I could hardly believe what my eyes were seeing.

Cordelia, the willow tree is so far away, but still is reflected in the pond.

I wanted to go back in the house and bring Larry out here, when suddenly he appeared with a hot cup of specialty tea that our daughter had brought us from California. We both agreed that October is extra special not only because the colours are spectacular, but we also get to spend some quality time with our kids.

Larry points out the crossing to Jesse.

If you feel like taking in the sights, please drop by. You don’t even have to bring your own pail to sit on.

End of Summer Gardening

Where did the time go?

This summer has flown by and I can hardly believe it’s gone. Do you ever wonder where the time actually went? When I do, I look at my iphoto files and feel grateful that I take lots of pictures because I have a wonderful visual diary to help jog my memory, but also to remind me how many stories I didn’t get around to telling in this blog. There are simply too many. Still, I’d like to share a few with you about the last couple of months.

In spite of weeds, the garden produced lots of vegetables.

The garden was very successful – more than I thought it would be. Planting seeds or plants is a major leap of faith because there is so much that can go wrong. You can plant too soon and give the seed a ‘cold’ start, you can get too much rain, or not enough. You can come out to the garden to discover huge chunks of bean plants chewed down by wild animals in the night, as I did on several occasions.

Beans, zucchini, brocolli and yellow zucchini.

But the sweetest part of growing vegetables is the resulting steady supply of fresh produce. The home gardener can enjoy a greater variety of texture and flavor because of the broad diversity of seed that you can buy.

The perennials that I planted  just this spring, grew exceptionally well too. I was very lucky to start with large healthy root divisions from the gardens of neighbours.

Joe Pye Weed grows tall.

What I learned from this is that plants that grow well in a nearby garden will also do well in my garden. After all, the plant has already had years to adapt to the soil and weather conditions here and has literally evolved into one that can be successful in this microclimate. It also usually helps to have full sun everywhere!

Tansy kept coming all summer long.

I had trouble finding enough sun for nasturtium in my former shady city garden. These ones seeded themselves from flowers the former house owner grew and they have bloomed like crazy all summer. Yesterday I put some in a pitcher that came with this house and I loved how the afternoon sun lit up the red/orange bloom like a fire! I walk past them everyday outside and thank her for leaving this pretty gift behind. I’ve dispersed some of the seeds to other places in the garden for next year.

Nasturtium.

Larry spent time outdoors this summer stacking an enormous amount of wood for this winter and hopefully for the next one too! It’s a good idea to dry wood for at least a year before it’s burned. This makes the wood burn faster and hotter and reduces the creosote buildup in the chimney.  I think we’ll have some left over firewood for next winter too!

Larry covers the wood pile each time the weather threatens rain.

We’ve got stacked wood and we’ve got lots of blanched beans and zucchini in the freezer and delicious vegetable soup. We’ve got a winter’s worth of garlic and enough extra to plant some out this October for next year.

Garlic is one of the first plants to appear in the spring.

We’ve picked some apples from our old, heritage apple trees and I’ve baked apple cake and pie and added apples to soup and cooked up some applesauce.

Our trees aren't sprayed so the apples need lots of 'editing' and they are small, but very tasty.

We visited local farms to top up the fruit that we aren’t growing and a couple of weeks ago we visited a peach farm and bought a box of sweet, juicy fruit for about $1 per pound.

Peaches are easily skinned by dropping into boiling water for 25 seconds, then plunging into cold.

Afterwards, you can slice them and freeze them on parchment paper on a cookie sheet. When frozen, pop them into a plastic bag and store them in the freezer until you need a peach fix in the winter.

These are red haven peaches.

It was fun to prowl the backroads of the Annapolis Valley in search of harvest gold.

Peaches were hot sellers this summer.

One farm had a little animal farm beside the playground, but the piggy there kept getting out and mingling with the shoppers.

The nights are getting very cool and the tomatoes are still green on the vine and the brussel sprouts still need fattening. However, next year will be a new opportunity to improve the technique and effort. I’ll start the plants sooner and try growing the tender ones, like eggplant,  in a greenhouse.

In the meantime, I am trying to extend the season a little and I’ve started a fall crop of lettuce and spinach in the cold frame for November harvest. This is an experiment for me and if it works, we’ll have some of our own salad greens to eat in a month from now.

The gravel is the floor of the future greenhouse. The black mound is smelly, rotting manure and the coldframe is the white box.

Greens love and tolerate cold weather and are ideal for a cool weather crop. The cold frame has windows and I have a heating coil from an aquarium tucked into the sand cover in case we get extreme cold. I’m excited to see how successful I can be at extending the season.

After 2 weeks the seedlings have sprouted.

This fall and winter, my photos will be reminders of important details like when to plant and progress of growth. Maybe gardening can be a year round pursuit! It certainly will be fun to see how far I can push it.

Horses, Kitchens and Sunflowers

Horses wait to compete at the Digby County Exhibition in Bear River.

This weekend while we tried not to work like horses ourselves, we did watch some horses in Bear River working pretty hard.

On Saturday it poured rain so we went down our road to the Digby County Exhibition, a small, but sweet county fair where farmers can show off the pulling strength of their oxen and horses.

It is also a place where kids in the 4H club (head, heart, hands and health) can show off their farm animals. Here is a sweet rabbit, just for my daughter who has a special affinity for rabbits.

Last year we watched the oxen displays, but this year we watched the horses. They too were powerful and willing to pull enormous weights.

It was good to see such majestic animals up close and personal.

The horses seemed keen to perform.

Watching the horses work so hard was inspiring and we decided to work on our kitchen when we got home. I want to say right here and now that I LOVE our new kitchen. I’m having fun with the open concept because I can be doing kitchen things but still have a wide view of the rest of the room and out of several windows too. BUT….like every kitchen, the storage is already a  challenge. In spite of the fact that we got rid of alot of stuff when we came here 22 months ago, we’ve collected more stuff like yogurt containers, plastic bags, interesting empty containers and other bits of “might need this someday for something” type of stuff that doesn’t really fit anywhere. I’ve already rearranged the things in the cupboards a couple of times, which just confuses me as to where on earth the cling-wrap is?

This week our friend Peter made me some shelving for the kitchen to fit all my glass jars of lentils and beans and flour and rice and other dry goods. Today I coated them twice with a concoction that is 1/3 linseed oil, 1/3 varathane, 1/3 urethane with a squirt of earth green oil paint. I was going to carefully wipe the solution on the shelves. I didn’t think I needed any paper to protect the walls or the counter. Fortunately Larry, who is more patient and realistic than me, decided to help me out by taping the entire area with folded newspapers. It was a good thing too, because I still managed to drip some of the stuff on some of the wall that he’d not covered.

While it dried, I went outside to check out the garden and noticed that the sunflowers are growing rather tall.

They’ve survived two weekends of tail ends of tropical storms. The accompanying rain was actually welcome as it’s been very dry. Larry and I checked out the hole we had dug for a future pond and found a little waterfall happening as the rains continue to drain down through our field from higher places.

Our sunflowers aren’t that only tall plants on our land. We’ve neglected a huge section and the weeds have grown up to our shoulders. We wanted to see the shape of the land for planing future pathways, so I tried out our weedwhipper. The sound in this movie is poor, but please note the long linen smock I’m wearing. I bought it at Frenchy’s for $3 to use as a painting smock. The weedwhipper deposited plant bits on it from top to bottom! Who knew that cutting weeds would be as messy as painting!

So that’s my weekend report. Horses, rain, yardwork and a little reward for all the hardwork. Some really tasty vegetables!

Fresh, organic and homegrown.