The Fruit of the Land

It's been nearly a year since we've been living the farm life.  And we're at the best time of the year, when we can really enjoy the fruit of the land.

Our garden is in full production these days.  It's come a long way from planting day back in May.

The corn is officially taller than most of us.

We've been having garden fresh suppers that include foods like potatoes, dill, green beans and peas.

And we have a bumper crop of zucchinis.  I've already got enough grated zucchini in my freezer for a couple dozen batches of muffins.

We've enjoyed the first of many yellow plums.

And a few apples as well.

And the other night we discovered that there were ripe blackberries along the east fence that were waiting to be enjoyed.

And I would be remiss if I didn't include the beef.

 

Our big mama cows and their calves came back to the farm after vacationing at the neighbour's pasture for the past couple of months.

(Willy & Russell)

These calves are not little babies anymore.  And as cute as this face is, I can't help imagine the nice juicy steaks that we will be enjoying sometime in the not-so-distant future...

Home

I'm laying pretty low these days after suffering an outbreak of cold sores on my mouth.  It started with a big one last week.  One blistering mass on your mouth is humbling enough, but I pushed through it and tried not to let it get to me too much.  But just when I thought it was kind of winding down, I got hit with more.  Let me tell you, it ain't pretty.  And unfortunately there's not much you can do to hide your face (though yesterday I briefly considered those white mouth masks - as in H1N1-scare garb...)

But thankfully, other than school drop-off and shopping for the necessities, I don't really have any place  that I need to be this week, so I'm enjoying the comfort zone of my home.

And lucky for me, home is a pretty great place to be.

Our garden is coming along nicely.  The rain might be a bit dismal for us humans, but the plants seem to be loving it...

We've already been enjoying the fruit of the land: fresh lettuce and spinach for salads and fresh cilantro for salsa.

It looks like the strawberries won't be too far behind.

A little perspective shot - this fence separates our land from the neighbours.  If we hadn't had cows munching away in our pasture, our grass would be just as tall.

And when it comes to my comfort zone, this little dude is right at the centre of it.

Kids can be brutally honest (like when Micah greeted me with, "Hey Cold-Sore Face!" the other day)...

But they're also the first to look past your flaws and love you... just because.

Garden Party

Saturday marked our first annual garden planting day at the farm.

We started with brunch together outside, at which point the day was promising to be beautiful.

Then it was time to get to work.  Erik and the boys took on the task of potato planting.

And Grandma got the girls started with some smaller seeds.

Keziah got right to work putting peas in the dirt.

And Emerson got right to work un-planting many of those peas.

We were able to rescue most, but time will tell how many seeds escaped their rows when things start popping up.

Emerson had a great time anyway, and managed to get herself good and dirty by the end of the morning.

You gotta appreciate the Toews-style carpentry that went into this garden project.  While we planted, Doug was in the shop cutting some pretty solid-looking garden stakes, which Elissa then labeled for all of our rows.

Keziah was pretty proud of her row of sweet corn.  Mmmm.  I can almost taste it already.

And this next picture is mostly for my mom who wanted to know where we ended up planting the garden.  It's just to the south of our shop and double car-port.

I found this picture from a similar vantage point that was taken back in October.  You might remember this post about the old pig barn that used to live here and how we had this area cleared out.

Now the fun part starts as we watch and wait for our little green plants to poke out of the ground!