A Couple of New Things For Me!

This is my first experience raising chickens. Farmer Man grew up with chickens as part of the farm, so he's seen it all. This was a first for me: a perfect egg - without a shell. Both membrane layers intact, the shape perfect, just soft and squishy! Isn't Mother Nature amazing? Farmer Man says they would get one or two of these a year when he was young, but it's new for me!

Also new for me is the notion of chickens molting. The Leghorns were a year old in May, the Isa Browns were one year old in June, and both have been laying just a little over a year. We didn't go through molting last year - they were too young, I assume. But, boy, are we molting this year! The chicken coop is layered with feathers, the pasture is dotted with them and all the chickens are looking a little, well......dishevelled. Even the usually majestic Rocky the Rooster is looking a little ragged: he's got a definite bald spot on the front of his neck and he's 'wispy' here and there around his neck and onto his shoulders. Hopefully, they'll all grow some new feathers before it gets too cold!

Finally......Sweet Peas

I can't explain it, can't rationalize it no matter how hard my little horticultural brain tries. Finally, at the middle of October, my sweet peas have started to bloom. Around us, all the signs of fall are very evident! The garden renters have largely cleaned their plots and no longer come. The leaves are falling off the trees, we've had at least a few frosts - but my sweet peas are starting to bloom. The seeds were planted at the usual time - first week of June. They were planted in three spots: an arbor in the front border, a trellis for tromboncino squash in the garden and in a pot at the front door. None have bloomed until now, all have buds! The pot at the front door probably had the most attention, and everything else in the pot, including a tomato, herbs and nasturtium have done quite well. The tromboncino squash did okay, probably planted a little too close to the willow windbreak. And the arbor in the front border got quite a bit of attention because my 'Blue Moon' wisteria is planted on the same side of the arbor and I've remembered to baby it a bit all summer. We had consistent rain, good but not too hot temperatures. There's just no explaining what Mother Nature does, some times! But, I'm certainly enjoying my little bouquet!

Pumpkin for Everyone on Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! Even if you're not Canadian and are not celebrating on this day! Pumpkins are a classic for Thanksgiving and we decided to share some around. The chickens like chunks of pumpkin - mostly for the seeds, although they will pick at the flesh. The pigs just out and out adore pumpkin, every last bit. Farmer Man chose some with damage and soft spots that weren't salable. A feast for everyone; well, except the dogs and cats who really have no use for pumpkin in any form. Maybe I'll slip some into the food that I make for them and see if they notice!

We're Nominated, Again!

Wow, this is the best year ever! We've been nominated for a Canadian Blog Award, in a couple of categories! How exciting! You can vote for us, if you'd like to here! Feel free! Go now!

The Garage Runneth Over!

Harvest is almost complete. Just a few rows of potatoes left in the field, as well as carrots and beets, which are fine for a while. The carrots and beets we will continue to dig fresh for the remaining few Farmers Markets at the Green Spot Garden Centre. It's feeling quite relaxed with only one Farmers Market a week, and knowing that harvest is almost done! In the meantime, we've totally lost our garage. It has become the 'curing' centre. it's piled with potatoes and winter squash drying and curing before we put them in the root cellar. Getting ready for the Farmers Markets involved 'shopping' in the garage right now! Easy access! In our perfect world we'd have everything in crates, but we just can't afford enough crates. So, potatoes had to get dumped in piles so that we could return the crates to the field to continue harvest. It means having to load the piles back into crates, carefully, to move then down to the root cellar. That will be a bit of an effort, not something we look forward to! But, when the root cellar is filled up in a couple of weeks - then we know we're done! We've invited some friends for dinner the night of the last Farmers' Market and maybe, just maybe, we'll break out the champagne!

Hubbard Squash Soup!

'Tis the season for winter squash! We've had a great crop of Hubbard Squash this year; some of the best sizes we've ever gotten due to consistent rains. Farmer Man decided a nice soup was in order! Hubbard is an awesome winter squash; originating in South America, it is believed to have come to North America in the 1700's via the West Indies. It has dense, rich flesh, a little on the sweet side and somewhat nutty. It looks challenging, but is easier to deal with than you might think. Farmer Man's tip for cutting into any of the larger squash is to get a cleaver or large knife into the skin, than tap it down through the skin and flesh with a rolling pin. You could use a hammer or something, but your hits have to be a bit more precise: with something like a rolling pin you can't miss the knife. An elderly customer at the Farmers Markets' takes her large winter squashes and just throws them on the garage floor to break them up.

Farmer Man roasted the Hubbard first. Once cut in half, he scooped out the seeds and rubbed the exposed flesh with better. We roast ours facing up because we like the crispy edges to nibble on, and it's easier to tell when they are cooked! Roast until soft and the skin can be pierced with a fork. Our big squash took almost three hours to roast! We had some nice apples from Clayton Organic Orchards, and we roasted them, peeled, cored and quartered, with cinnamon until soft, about an hour for ours. Farmer Man removed the squash flesh from the skin, put it in a pot with cream and chicken stock and used the hand blender to puree it to a smooth consistency. Then he pureed in the apples, cooked bacon chopped fine, cinnamon, dried basil and oregano, salt. He added more stock and water to keep the consistency smooth. He simmered it until we were ready to eat. Yummy! So busy eating it I failed to get a picture (bad blogger, bad!) A nice dollop of sour cream was an excellent touch for serving - he used a chopstick to make a nice swirl design.

Frank Horvat and The Green Keys Tour Comes to Town!

Tonight was the Green Keys Tour stop in Brandon. Frank Horvat was a delight! What a wonderful concert! The setting was the lovely Knox United Church, which has good acoustics and beautiful light! The first part of the performance was a variety of Frank's original compositions. He chatted about each piece before playing it, giving us a very personal view of his inspiration and thought process. The second half of the performance was his hour-long composition inspired by Earth Hour. He shared his experience of performing at an Earth Hour event a few years ago, up on the fortieth floor of a building in Toronto and watching the lights go out at the appointed time. The piece was fantastic - moody and introspective at times, bright and vibrant at other points. All in all a fabulous evening; if you have a chance to catch Frank on his tour, please do! You can also download his music or purchase a CD from his website. Check it out here!

I find it so inspiring that Frank and his lovely wife Lisa have embarked on this cross Canada tour. Every concert is free and partial proceeds from the sales of all the new Cd's are being donated to the World Wildlife Federation. Frank and Lisa are travelling by Greyhound bus from city to city; just sharing the music and the inspiration across the nation! Frank's dialogue between songs revealed his composing 'juices' were motivated by things like a video on YouTube about solar power being brought to a remote school in South Africa, or the anti-poverty commercial where assorted celebrities were shown snapping their fingers every three second - each snap representing a child who had needlessly died in poverty. Frank and Lisa are on to Winnipeg next, Thunder Bay after that. Do try to find the time to attend the concert - and if you're in Eastern Canada and are in a position to help sponsor this great event, please do try to do so! It's a most worthwhile cause, on so many levels!

And Frank's way better looking than my picture indicates.......

We're Nominated!

We're nominated for a Golden Carrot Award from Food Matters Manitoba! The annual event is 'acknowledging and celebrating the inspiring work of Manitoba's Community Food Champions'. Wow! What an honour! We're nominated in the category Rural Community Food Champion - kind of amusing because Brandon is Manitoba's second largest city. But, we'll take it! The award ceremony is in Winnipeg at the Legislature on October 15th - and we're not sure we can arrange to go. Check out more of what this great organization, Food Matters Manitoba, is doing here!

A Rescue Mission May Be In Order!

Seems some little feline has had kittens in the old temporary chicken coop. No sign of any momma cat around now, but four young kittens seems to be living in the coop. Farmer Man has spotted them 'ghosting' around this summer, and we finally went looking for them. They seem to live in the coop, and hang around and play in the piles of old machinery and building materials not far away. They are extremely cute but very shy of humans! There is a short-haired blond with an amazing striped tail, looking rather like Loud Cat - a cat who has showed up in our garage on-and-off for a couple of years( hmmmm, maybe Loud Cat is a daddy). There's a short-haired gray and white, a fluffy brown, gray and white striped and an extremely adorable fluffy blond, who does look somewhat like our Blondie, who cannot be the daddy but could be an older brother. It's possible someone dumped the kittens out here - it happens, unfortunately, but we'll never know how they got here.

Thing is, within the next few months we're about to get cold - very, very cold. I worry about the little ones surviving. In the winter here in Manitoba, we can have temperatures of minus 35 Celsius - yes, that's MINUS 35 degrees! That's minus 30 something in Fahrenheit - killing cold no matter what scale you use! As frosty nights have already been happening, Farmer Man dumped a fresh bale of straw into the coop for the kittens to cuddle up in. We were bringing bales of straw for the pigs to burrow into, anyway - so what's one extra? I've started this week to feed and water them every day. I find the short-haired blond will come up to me, the gray will watch from close by and the two fluffy cats will scamper off and watch from far away. I have not tried to handle or pet them in any way yet. I'm just hoping they will get familiar and comfortable with me. I'm hoping eventually to get them so comfortable that I can entice them into a crate and get them over to our vet Dr. Sherry at Wheat City Vet Clinic. If anybody has experience with wild cats I'd appreciate any comments and info! In the meantime, I'll continue to sneak away from our dogs to go visit them everyday!

The Last Outdoor Farmers Markets!

Friday and Saturday when by in a blur - a grey, sodden blur. However, the Markets were certainly better than Thursday night at Riverbank Discovery Centre! The Friday Night Farmers Market at Shoppers Mall was well attended by vendors and shoppers. Friday's weather held great promise, and it was actually nice for a while in the early afternoon while we were harvesting and packaging. But, on our way there it clouded over, and shortly after start time began to rain quite steadily. it only lasted a while, though, and the shoppers continued to pull up and jump the puddles to check out the wares. Saturday morning's final market at Riverbank Discovery Centre was very grey: solid, gloomy grey but no wind and no rain. We were a little shy on vendors and customers, but it was a fine day! Now, we look forward to going inside for Saturdays in October! We'll be at the delightful Green Spot Home and Garden Centre where it's too easy to spend as much money as we bring in! I'll have to be careful and stay out of their store! And away from the houseplants! And the pots! And the trees and shrubs, which are probably on sale big time! Hope to see you there in October: Saturdays from 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM!

The Last Thursday Night Farmers Market!

This is the final weekend of outdoor markets, and with the weather the last little while - I can hardly wait for it to be over! Don't get me wrong; Farmer Man and I really love 'growing good food for our neighbours'. But I'm tired of getting rained on, frozen and blown over to the next province! I mean, really! The weather in September has been less than pleasant. And the perfect topper was the final Thursday night market at Riverbank Discovery Centre. It has been cloudy, cool and rainy for a few days, about noon it began to rain quite steadily. We proceeded undeterred: it has to be really awful for us to cancel a market. Besides, most of the time the weather clears before the market starts. But not Thursday! We went to Riverbank Discovery Centre to find we were the only ones who bothered to show up! Tent up first to protect from the rain, we set up and at start time, had a few of our hardy regulars and a couple of people just leaving some event at the Discovery Centre. And then nothing......for almost forty minutes! So, just before 7:00 PM we shut her down. I must confess we stopped to pick up the makings of a cocktail on our way back to the farm - for a wee celebration and to warm us up! Fortunately, the forecast is much better for the final Friday Night Farmers Market at Shoppers Mall and for the final Saturday Morning Market at Riverbank Discovery Centre! Hopefully, the work gloves have dried out as we get back to harvest and prep.........

The Girls Say It's Fall For Sure!

Finally, The Girls and Rocky are going to bed before us! It's kind of embarrassing when your chickens want to stay up later than you do. However, as the days get shorter, and cooler ( high of 7 Celsius today!!!), The Girls and Rocky are sleeping in a little later and going to bed a little earlier. They have also started to molt - a nice array of feathers decorates the coop every morning. And, egg production is down - way down. Now, commercial poultry people augment the light their chickens get to keep up production. They 'fool' the chickens into thinking it's still summer. We're letting ours go the natural way - although once it gets really cold we will put in a heat lamp, which will increase production somewhat. We've also noticed that the Leghorns (the white chickens) are laying smaller and smaller eggs. Now, we've always gotten the occasional tiny egg; we figured it was from Funky Butt, a chicken with a crooked tail. But all of a sudden, we've gotten two tiny eggs a day for a couple of days. We hope - and our loyal customers hope - that it's not the wave of the future!