Final word

I've been home for nearly three weeks now, and as promised I'm writing a final blog to wrap up my time of working on the farm. It's taken me a while to write as it's still difficult to find the words to sum it all up. When friends and family have asked me how my time was, I've almost been at a loss of how to truly express my thoughts and feelings; because, quite frankly, the experience overall has been life changing.

After having spent a couple of weeks catching up with family, friends and doing a little bit of partying, and plenty of sleeping; I'm now finding that I am reflecting on the experience more.  Some things have been falling into place in my head and in my heart as I start to understand on a deeper level the things I have learned and gained.

Working with the Earth day after day brought for me the deepest peace I have ever experienced and a very profound connection to what I call my 'True Self', or soul, if you like. I found the physical nature of the work therapeutic in a number of ways.  While I worked with my body, I found my mind to be blissfully quiet, which for me is a welcome state.  Having lived with an over active mind and spiralling thought processes for, well, ever; living fully outside of my head has been very productive for me in understanding completely what I should be, and want to be doing with my life time. 

The nature of the work has also, of course, changed me physically.  I think I’ve never been in better shape and I have been amazed at just how adaptable my body has been.  The first couple of weeks were painful, leaving me achy and slow, I will never forget just how much I hurt after the first day of work – the infamous onion planting day.  I couldn’t walk properly for a week!
As the season went on my body became stronger and more capable and I enjoyed the hard graft.  I love that blissfully tired and warm feeling you get after a hard day’s work, and I’ve never worked harder in my life as I did on the farm. 


Through this experience I have learned my most profound lesson and it really only just dawned on me the other day while talking with one of my closest friends. It may sound odd, but I have found a deep peace with myself, I completely accept myself now, and not just accept, but love.  It isn’t arrogance, or conceitedness, it is a state completely devoid of ‘ego’.  It’s a subtle shift, but also a HUGE one.  So many of us do not accept ourselves, let alone love, and I know I didn’t for a very long time.  It’s interwoven with self-belief, I’ve found my drive, the fire in my belly is burning bright and I feel capable of doing anything.

Of course I have learned bucket loads about farming and I’m eager and excited to put those skills and knowledge to good use, as I make plans to start my own venture in the not too distant future.  I’ve found the experience deeply inspiring and I’ve fallen a little bit in love with Canada and the amazing people I’ve had the opportunity to work and live with.  I'm already missing it, the deep blue endless sky, the quiet, the simple way of living... there are too many things to list.

Being home again is lovely, but strange at the same time. Not having any of my fellow farm buddies around me with which to reflect on the experience, almost makes it feel like it could all have been a dream.  Was I really away for seven months?  It flashed by in the merest blink of an eye, but there are memories that I will keep forever.

Exercise we did in the final few days, reflecting on our time spent on the farm.

 I have enjoyed writing this blog and thank you to all those who have said you have enjoyed reading it.  People have expressed that they would like me to continue keeping a blog, so I have set up another, which will mostly consist of things I get up to with growing food, plants and anything else related to working with the earth, and perhaps just inspiring and interesting things that occur.  I’m yet to post or pretty it up, but for future reference here it is Earth Work

Thank you to all those who made the internship so wonderful

Big love to you all

Becky xx

more mulching madness

This week, between the four of us interns we've shifted 22,000lbs of hay (by hand!) to mulch the garlic, here's the week in pictures... (because I'm too tired to type)

sunrise

breakfast

warming up with a brew

spear the dragon

Leah's behind there somewhere

 

mulching shenanigans

snuggly garlic

Becky xx

...the fire is so delightful

sooo, I guess I should update as it's been a while since I last posted anything significant. There isn't a great deal to write about as we've been doing much of the same thing, getting tasks finished and wrapping things up for the season. What mostly sticks in my head from the last few weeks is that it's COLD!  Harvesting carrots when it's snowing is not top of my most favourite tasks, I like to be able to feel my fingers thank you very much.

The big news really is that we finally moved onto the farm this past Tuesday.  I'm settled into my cabin, and it's really nice to spend time and eat meals with everyone in the farm centre.  Coming back to a roaring fire in the wood stove after working out on the farm on a cold day is such a joy.  being in the cabin is pretty novel, and despite chilly nights I'm all snug and warm in my sleeping bag and multitude of blankets.  I actually sleep better now in the cabin than I was in the farmhouse at Bob's.

The Farm Centre kitchen, it was my turn to cook on Wednesday

The woodstove burning merrily

downstairs in my cabin

 We're a bit behind schedual with our tasks due to a week of constant rain thanks to hurricane Sandy, we were aiming to have all the carrots harvested by the end of october but we've still got quite a lot to do.  It's not going to be much easier with the cold temperatures however - if the ground is frozen them carrots aint going to come out.  Zach said  that it was forcast to be above freezing for only four hours today, hmmm.  I suspect many days to follow will be the same; carrot icicles anyone??


anyway, it's been pleasant watching the snow flurries today from the warmth of the farm centre, and this morning I took a few photos of snowflakes;  I probably looked slightly crazy squatting over an icey puddle with my camera, but that's nothing new.

two weeks  'til I'm back in the Old Country, so excited!

Much love

Becky

garlic fever part deux

The jist of the last couple of weeks has pretty much been harvest, harvest, harvest.  The root cellar is filling up very fast and I dont think we've even pulled half of the storage beets and carrots.  I hope everything fits!
This week just gone our focus has been garlic and we've spent most of our time cracking garlic bulbs - that is breaking them open and then dividing the cloves and keeping the biggest to use for seed. Growing organic garlic on a small scale is very labour intensive, everything is done by hand. We spent an afternoon planting in perfect weather, blue skies and warm! We're now about half way there with getting all the garlic in the ground, just another 15,000 or so to go...

Cracker-Jack

just the tip of the iceberg

the crew

Not much else to report. four weeks until I fly home, looking forward to it, though will be sad to say goodbye to my chums here.
Been thinking quite a bit about plans for when I return home and have been pooring over seed catalogues and envisioning my garden for next season. There is the possibility that I may get my hands on an allotment, I was just thinking about it the other day and then today when i turned on my phone I had a voicemail from the allotment people back home saying they have available plots, weird eh?! Love it when things happen like that.

Big love

Becky x

Starry nights and frosty mornings

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.

Ice maple

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.

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!

Matt was spider-man in another life

 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

thirty days have September...

So, I’m really missing home today. I woke up this morning all snug in bed under my multitude of blankets longing for one of mum’s Sunday roasts; evoking the smells and warmth of a relaxed Sunday afternoon at home.

I’m not wishing my time away here, but at the same time I’m really looking forward to going home.  I’ve been here for five months now and I think that’s the longest I’ve ever been away from family and friends and I’ve still got another 7 weeks to go. 

I feel a bit disconnect from what’s going on with friends at home, I’m in a bit of a bubble here, and I wonder how that is going to affect my friendships when I’ve been away for so long and not been involved in their lives and vice versa.  I’m really looking forward to being regaled with tales of my friends lives from the past seven months when I get home; over a decent cup of tea and a slice of cake of course.

On the farm this week we’ve been doing a bit of clear up. a while ago we pulled up all the zucchini, cucumber and watermelon plants and on Tuesday we finally got around to picking it all up and moving it to the compost pile.  At the same time we pulled up the patty pans and delicata squash plants which had finished producing.  So that block is clear again now, looking like it did when I first arrived.

We’ve dug up the small patch of sweet potatoes, getting a modest harvest due to the fact that they were planted late, though there are still some good sized tubers.  I was surprised how deep they go, much deeper than regular potatoes and have a wider spread. Digging with bare hands in the soil felt like looking for treasure.

digging for pink treasure

pink beauties

We’ve carried on with the regular potato harvest this week and the next big push will be to get all the potatoes out of the ground.  It’s a very time consuming job as we do it by hand, and lifting heavy crates of potatoes certainly works the muscles!  I feel so strong with a season’s worth of work and lifting.

All the onions are now sorted and those suitable for storage have been bagged up and moved into the farmhouse basement, which again meant a lot of lifting; a good way to warm up when it’s cold!  On Friday, our day to harvest for market,  it was frosty out in the open fields.  It soon melted once the sun burned through the mist enough, but it was cold on the fingers when harvesting.

frosty clover

pre-frozen salad anyone?

The barn nestled amongst the maples

I probably warble on about this a lot, but I’ve been enjoying the autumnal colour around the farm very much this week.  It seems like the trees suddenly turned and there is a beautiful display of colour. I’ve been collecting and pressing fallen maple leaves, which the others poke fun at me for, to make some artwork with when I get home as a memento of my time here.  I’m such a magpie when it comes to autumn leaves,  the colours just bring me a lot of joy, I can’t help collecting them.

resplendant maples in the morning sun

The glorious 'Sacred Maple grove'

 Until next time

much love

Becky