I ventured out of my tent at six-ish this morning and under
the light from my headlamp everything sparkled like diamonds, it was so
pretty. It’s been the hardest frost we’ve
had so far and the temperature apparently got down to -4˚C; this is what I’d think of as winter back
home, not autumn.
Everything looks so
gorgeous when covered in frost, and I spent a chilly few minutes taking a bunch
of photos this morning, before venturing into the warmth of the farmhouse; far
too cold to stay outside or in the barn kitchen today.
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| Ice maple |
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| bit of an arty one |
Tasks on the farm this week have been quite varied. We’ve harvested all the potatoes, and with
the help of volunteers from Ecology Ottawa, it was a pretty speedy task. Having extra helping hands really makes a big
difference With only four of us it may
well have taken us all week to accomplish, but with the lovely volunteers we
got most of the harvest done on Tuesday and then spent maybe another three or
four hours on other days finishing up.
it feels good to know that it’s one more thing checked off the to do
list!
Early in the week we harvested Jerusalem artichokes that
have been growing at Bob’s, they are a relative of the sunflower and are native
to Canada. I’ve not eaten them before
now and one night this week we roasted them up and they were so delicious. They have a really distinct smell and flavour,
which to me is kind of smokey. They are
very easy to grow and are a perennial crop by the way that they will grow from
any tiny piece of root left in the soil, so even when they have been harvested
you’re almost guaranteed to get a crop the following year from the little bits
of roots that were missed. Provided I
have the room, I’m thinking of growing them when I’m back home.
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| the mighty sun-choke |
On Thursday the boys started on getting the solar hot water
panels onto the roof of the shed – this is what we’ve been waiting for, our key
to moving to the farm! They we’re in
place on Friday and now the system just needs to be connected up and
functioning and then it’ll be all systems go and we can move. Fingers crossed it’s going to be this week!
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| Matt was spider-man in another life |
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While the boys were climbing on the roof Leah and I cleaned
out the used bee hives that Zach aquired recently.
They may or may not be carrying a disease, so we scraped off all the old
comb and wax and we’ll be blowtorching the pieces to sterilise them. I quite enjoyed doing it, scraping off the
wax is an oddly satisfying job and it also smells really good.
This week was our final CSA veggie basket for the season,
what a short 16 weeks it’s felt like! Everyone
who we’ve asked has been really pleased with their veggies and many were sad
that it’s over already. It’s so nice
hearing how members appreciate the produce, especially when it takes so much
hard work. We have really generous CSA members
and over the season we’ve been given many tasty treats such as garlic scape
pesto, amazing zucchini crumble, muffins, cookies and more!
Today is Thanksgiving and yesterday evening Leah and I were
invited to go to Kylah’s aunts home for
dinner, which was lovely. There were
quite a few people there and we had a really tasty dinner and got to meet more
of Kylah’s family, which was fun.
Last night before snuggling up in my sleeping bag for the
cold night ahead, I took some more photographs of the stars…
Thinking warm thoughts,
Love always
Becky x
