Everything is going in for the winter

October has been that kinda of month, closing the garden, collecting all the apples, putting in all the garlic and getting ready for the snowy weather, which doesn't seem to be coming anytime soon in these parts... but we are all waiting for it with excitement anyway.

Harvesting our potatoes to put in the clod storage on a beautiful early October day

Our first ever Cidering Off party (the name was inspired by a short story in Robert Kimber's book Upcountry, a must read) was held the second weekend of October.  In order to save as much of the sweetness and flavors that nature has been storing inside our apples all season, we were joined by a few good friends in making enough fresh and hard cider to hopefully last a few months.

Everyone gathers round for the first drops :)

For the occasion, a good man lent us his press (and we thank you!!!), and also shared with us the idea of using a leaf shredder to crush the apples.  This turned out to be a life saver as we had done a mock cidering day with our family a month prior to our official day of production with the desire to test out how easy or demanding this cidering business would be, and those little hand powered crushers are sure exhuasting! :)

The leaf shredder gave us instant apple sauce, which meant we had plenty of time to sit around the big bath tub chatting away while thoroughly selecting, cleaning and cutting our cider apples (a very important step if you want your mom to drink your cider! Just as important as sterilizing all your equipment...).  This first cleaning step was definitely the most labor intensive (if I can call it that :)) and then we just had to press the apple sludge through the cheese cloth in the press and drink the elixir :) 

Sorting, cleaning and cutting out the parts that don't look so good.

our quality assurance crew keeping a look out from a distance :)

Everyone left with some cider for their family and we ended up with approximately 5 gallons of fresh cider which we froze immediately and 10 gallons that we turned into hard cider (separate post to come).

It is unbelievable to imagine that October 25 I was still harvesting eggplants, cherry tomatoes and peppers! I knew a killing frost was going to pass through that night, so I finally surrendered, and pulled out all the sensitive vegetables I had left out there.

Can you say Babaganoush!  And I was so proud to find those two fluke cauliflowers who made it just in time!

What else can you do with peppers!?! I have never had such prolific peppers, I don't know what to do with them!

Because of sheer excitement, we also decided to start bringing in some hardier vegetables into our very first cold storage: carrots, potatoes and beets were tucked away in boxes filled with sand, cabbage was either turned into saurkraut or stored in the refrigerator until the temperatures drop a little more in the summer dining room (it's the unheated side of the house so it will feel like a refrigerator soon enough), and squash and tomatoes are already laid out in the summer dining room awaiting there time to be used in the kitchen.  In hindsight, it might have been a little too early to bring them in as the cold storage was not cold yet, but they still seem to have made it through the transition.  Maybe we'll wait longer next year.

Beautiful straight carrots from the double dug bed that our wwoofer had prepared, Thank you Jon!

Tomatillos turned into salsa

Cabbage into saurkraut: first you cut into very thin slivers and mix with salt, 3 tbsp per 5 lbs of cabbage and let it sit to sweat for a bit.

Then you pack it in a clean crock pot and find a plate that will be snug enough to cover and press the cabbage down into the brine

Then place a large weight over the plate (we filled this syrup gallon with water) and wait for about 2 weeks, always keeping an eye out for mold and scum on the surface (not a big deal, just remove it as you see it) and to make sure your brine doesn't evaporate too much

Voilà! Saurkraut! Once it's ready, after a few weeks, you can put it in sealed jars, making sure the cabbage is still covered by the brine, and either store these in your refrigerator or in your cold storage.  Enjoy!

With the cold coming, it seems like the gears are shifting, the energy of the wood stove is drawing us closer to the comforts of the living room, and we must put the garden to rest, bring in the bounty, bring in all of our tools, the irrigation, and empty our rain barrels before their contents turn to ice.  But it is also time to start preparing for next year and putting into the ground the hibernating garlic bulbs that will hopefully survive the winter under their cover of soil, hay, leaves and snow, to give us some of the first green shoots come the arrival of spring. We planted our garlic in the ground this last week.

But even if the killer frost has arrived, there is still some food that is not ready to go in just yet.  More cold hardy vegetables like kale, cabbage, onions, leeks and horse radish are all said to survive hard frost and to actually improve in taste afterwards. 

The morning after the hard frost, the eggplants are freezer burnt but the kale, cauliflower and leeks look great!

We started pulling out the horse radish because we don't really want to fight with the soil once the frost starts making it hard to get to the roots.  Maybe we'll leave the rest to recolonize next year, but we have to be careful... that stuff is really prolific (others would use the word invasive, but how can you use that word for something that taste so good? Just keep harvesting it at the right rate and you'll always keep it in check and have as much as you want to eat and share :))

And finally another source of food we cannot forget, and actually should emphasize further, is the world around us.  As I walked to the end of the driveway this morning I was happy to make my yearly encounter with our delicious resident Oyster mushroom that lives in our dead poplar, and grows around these cold autumn days every year.  I harvested so much of it I couldn't even fit it all in the dehydrator, I also made wild mushroom risotto and I still have a good chunk left for 3 or 4 more fresh meals.

Today's harvest of Oyster Mushrooms from our dead poplar

I am thankful for the bounty this year has provided and continues to offer.  It has been a great year, filled still with more firsts; first cider, first chicken moat, our first own fire wood, first cold storage.  Everyday we realize more and more that We live to live, to learn, to choose... we choose to live life as fully as we can, and to give and to share as much of it as we can, to improve upon our own experience every year and to use those experiences to give back to our community big and small and especially to our beautiful and generous world... so we can always make it a better place than what it was when it was given to us.

And boy are we having fun doing it all!

Alex, Léo and I biking in Acadia during the furlough... wat are ya gonna do eh?

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Til next time,
Be well

An Ode to Rouminou (a.k.a Gros Minou, a.k.a Peaches) 2002-2013

A post to bid fairwell, and to honor all the smiles he put on my face for more than 10 years.

This is the sadder reason (there are more joyful reasons to come) why I didn't write as much this summer on the blog.  As Alex, Leo and I made our yearly pilgrimage to my grandfathers sacred blueberry patch in Lac Frontiere, Quebec, Rouminou vanished, never to be seen again.

Apparently there have been 5 times more cat disappearances this summer in our part of Maine, and some people have even witnessed a bobcat roaming through town. Although I wish he was still here everyday that goes by, I would rather think that his life ended so that the life of a bobcat could continue, than think that maybe he got squished by a car or locked into someone's barn by accident.

Rouminou was a true friend of ours, even though this might sound absurd to a lot of folks. When my neighbor begged me to take him, I didn't want to adopt him at first, as he came into my life just as my cat Cesar had suddenly passed away, but he was so friendly, especially to Moumou (our other cat), wouldn't stop purrrrrrrrrring and licking any one's face who agreed to let him.  For ten years, Rouminou followed me where ever I went, even when I lived in Ste-Anne's, he would often walk me to the Coop and then go back home, and here on the farm, he went with us to every corner of the property, never really leaving our side, if maybe only to sprint just for fun.  And he loved to remind us he was the best cat there is, by bringing us loads of gifts.  Socks, shirts, underwear, pants, whatever he could grab onto with his teeth, he would slowly bring them down the staircase, one at a time, sometimes several times a night, meowing as loudly as possible, and bring it to the feet of the person he loved the most that day.  Come on, let's go to bed! he'd be saying.

Ok, he did steal all of Moumou's food, all the time, and he did have a slight weight problem, but Rouminou was the cutest and I miss him.

bye bye Rouminou...

Trying to steal Moumou's food again!

Oh, and friend of ours wanted to post this picture in a comment, but I am not sure if you can do it, so here it is, thanks Marissa for sending it to us.

Rouminou and the hand of God ;)

Harvesting, processing, drying, fermenting, pickling and eating the bounty 2013!

Our apologies for not keeping the blog too active this summer.  we realise as the homestead transforms itself ever more into a functioning farm, and as the number of people who visit us during the summer increases, our time spent on the computer decreases.  Which is a good thing :) and there will be plenty of time to catch up and retell our season's stories during the colder days. 

Like today :) this morning is a beautiful but crisp sunny September morning, with the thermometer indicating barely 40F (4C), so I am inside with my hot chocolate, and while Leo takes his usual morning nap, I will start catching up.

First things first I want to send some big hugs to our friends who came to visit the homestead this summer, and were such a help in keeping on top of everything!  Chantale :) Zane :) Chloé and Nat :) thank you so much for taking the time to come see us even with the long distances that separate us, and for sharing some great meals, and hard work. We miss you and will think of you as we open every jar of preserved food this winter :)

Garlic, Cukes, Basil, Tomatoes and Rhubarb!

Leo and his best friend Chantale, cleaning beets and carrots!

Building the wood shed lean-to

mmmm, vegetable paella

This season had started very slowly, with all the rain and cold weather we received in June, but we managed to still have a pretty good harvest, considering that we have increased the size and diversity of our gardens six fold this year.

HARVESTING:

We regularly take a stroll into the garden for our daily harvest.  Leo is carrying the cherry tomatoes back to the house, in his hands and his belly!

The harvests started with field strawberries, regular strawberries, raspberries, kale, lettuce, radishes, cukes, zuchinnis and eggplants, and then went in full force with basil, chives, herbs of all sorts like lemon verbena, chamomille, red clover and mint, tomatoes, garlic, potatoes, celery, cabbage, oats, ground cherries, blueberries, onions, peppers, carrots, leeks, and winter squashes. And now we are getting into the end: we still have lots of production, the weather has been reasonable so eggplants, peppers, carrots, celery and cabbage are still growing, but we are finally able to start harvesting horse radish and dry beans!  I regret not growing more varieties of beans this year, as Alex and I are realizing that Leo LOVES beans! Oh well, next year.  We do have hundreds of jars of sauces, tomatoes, pickles, pesto, etc. already stored in our cupboards, but the tomatoes and all curcubits have been pulled out by now, as they were infested with septoria and cuke mosaic virus.  We are not complaining, everything else is surviving well.  The only tomatoes which are still growing are the ones in the greenhouse and the cherries, which I actually planted way later in the summer.

We added hay down in July, to suppress the weeds, next time we will do it WAY earlier, it really works, saves so much time and water and protects the plants from soil born illnesses!

The Schimmeig tomato that we are growing for a local seed company is growing strong and green

PROCESSING:

All this food needs to be dealt with in some way.  We grew oats, as a small test field, partially for us and partially to have local grains for our chickens.  Well once the oat kernel is no longer milky, the field needs to be scythed, and the kernels need to be separated from the shaft.  Lenghty process if you don't have access to special threshing equipment.  Chantale and I (mostly her!) ended up spending quite a few hours removing the kernels by hand from the straw (which smelt so good!), and when we ran out of time for this project, we gave the rest to the chickens, kernels straw and all, they had a party!  And it made some good scratch area for a while.  The kernels that were separated for us will one day this winter be turned into oatmeal, ummmm I can't wait to try them! 

 These are the tomato seeds I am growing for a local seed company this year, it is quite a lengthy process from start to finish.  Grow the tomato, when ripe harvest, cut tomato in two, separate the seeds from the flesh (at this point they are in their protective gel sacs), ferment the seeds and gel for one to three days, until the surface of the mixture becomes all white, then rinse so that you remove everything but the seeds, then dry as quickly as possible so that they don't germinate.  Redo this as often as your tomatoes become ripe!

DRYING:

We also have been doing a lot of drying, to perserve some of the harvest, like pears and apples, zucchinis and crookneck squashes, kale chips (I even did Ketchup Kale Chips, yum! a Canadian twist :))

Drying the summer squash for later use in soups and stews

EATING:

And finally eating :)

We have been eating a lot of the bounty right away, fresh from the garden is the best way :)

Leo loves all the veggies, or almost, he's not too keen on horse radish yet, but we are working on him, haha!  It is also hard I find, for him to eat leafy greens, so I have been making him a daily smoothy with banana, yogurt, pears (or any other ripe fruit from the homestead) and kale, and this way he eats plenty of greens.  And he loves his smoothy!

 

 Alright he is awake, so I'll leave it at that for this time.  I still have so much to catch up on (I even have to skip over fermenting and pickling!!!), but I'll be back.
Until then be well,

This photo is too cute :) but its true, he just wants to be outside, rain or shine

The barn doors are back! Structural projects of the summer

When this farm was first built, the barn was surely an important part of the everyday operations.  When we walked through it for the first times, we could tell what had once been, where the old chicken coop used to be, the old animal stalls, the old barn doors... Alex really wanted to return these more rustic, manually operated doors, and so he built them this summer.  We really enjoy being able to enter the barn without the sound of the garage door mechanism :) only the simple the rolling of the door on the track.

We painted our depiction of Turtle Island on them, a reminder of the constant relationships we have with the rest of the natural world

Alex also built an outdoor shower out of cedar trims and mostly salvaged wood.  Many people have enjoyed it already, but I am still waiting for the solar water heater :) Maybe next summer

Another structural project Alex worked on this summer was the wood shed lean-to that he connected to the porch, this way we wont need to put the wood in the basement anymore.

June at the Homestead

So much time has passed since the beginning of the season, I can hardly believe that this will be the first post I write this year about the gardens, and the vegetables that have been in the ground now for close to two months!!!  We have had a more than bizarre start this year, with ground preparations being delayed by our trip to Norway, a very late spring, strong heat wave in late May, then rain, rain and more rain in June.  But the garden isn't worse for wear.

End of June, the garden is finally starting to look full

What is that beautiful double fence around the garden you ask?!  Well it's a chicken moat!  This winter, while reading about permaculture and gardening, I found this idea in two different books (The Permaculture Garden and Edible Forest Gardens Volume II) and thought it would be a great way for us to expand the area in which the chickens can roam, without having to move them in a chicken tractor.  Plus, they can eat all the bugs trying to come into the garden, and the double fence stops the deer. Brilliant! Basically it is a 4 foot wide corridor all around the garden, made of black locust posts that Alex made from trees from the homestead and of 6 foot high chicken wire.  There is one entrance way for us to go into the garden, and there, the chickens have a little tunnel to go through to get to the other side.  Some people put a gate at the entrance, we haven't so far, and it is working very well.

Alex splitting the Locust logs to make the fence posts

Pounding in the posts in the ground

This year we expanded the main garden by 3 folds, so yes three times more work, and even more because we now have a separate garlic patch, fruit & berry garden, a (tiny) field of oats and two smaller veggie plots so more like 6 times more work! But it also hopefully will mean six times more veggies! :)

This is the old site of the garden, overgrown with weeds, mid-May

We pulled as many dandelions as possible and rented a rototiller for the weekend

Beginning of June, all the beds are made and all the veggies are in

We are still doing ok so far, and that is partly thanks to the fact that we have community and friends helping out in many ways. 

My best helper, ALWAYS there to lend a hand :)

poule poule poule!

The tiny field of oats, today they are much bigger.

Our berry patch, with currants, high bush blueberries, strawberries. raspberries, thornless blackberries and my favorite... nanking cherries!

Leo, Lila and Ruby together on Leo's favorite toy, the John Deer :)

One afternoon I spent 2 hours eradicating the poison ivy, its actually pretty simple, just don't forget to wear protective gear!

Besides the garden fence, Alex has also been playing around with different fencing materials for the area under the big maple, trying to find a good use for the smaller twigs and newest growth on the norway maples he's been cutting down for fire wood.

In a future post I will be talking a bit more about the bugs that are trying to colonize the veggie patch and eat all my veggies.  I am not letting them :) and it's in the most eco and inexpensive way I know so far: picking and squishing!

This will be the first year we'll be trying to put enough food by for the whole year, and it feels pretty amazing. We've already started blanching and freezing lots of kale, beet and radish greens, cutting up and freezing rhubarb, and now I am trying to harvest as many black raspberries as the mosquitos will let me :) We also already made a big batch of homemade kim chi (with young cabbage, bell radishes and celery). On our walks around the property and in the neighbourhood I also collected some medicinal plants, like yarrow, red clover and mullein (my favorite plant in the whole world, it is some beautiful... and useful) which I have dried and stored in paper bags.  And yesterday I saw the zucchini flowers for the first time, that means we will soon be putting to the test the amazing picked vegetable recipe we learned in Norway, and don't worry we'll put the recipe on the blog.  thank you Erik!

We hope your gardens are doing well, send us some pictures!

Until next time, be well.