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.

A year in the life of Léo

World Environment Day came and went, and now Léo is 1 :)

A year ago, this little creature trusted us with his life, his care and his future, and we have been so lucky to have that honor.  Léo is always happy, loves to dance or play the bongos, he LOVES to play outside, walk or run behind his little push-mower toy and tease rouminou!  We had a little party for him last Sunday where he got his first taste of fairly traded, certified organic sugary and chocolaty goodness!

Back from Norway!

As some of you may know, we decided to take a little excursion to Norway for a few weeks in May and the trip was incredible.  Traveling via all the forms of public transportation proved very easy in this family-friendly country, and even though life is relatively very expensive, deciding to travel by couchsurfing and wwoofing made our experience affordable and all the more enriching.  For those of you who don't know what either of those terms are we have put links, and highly encourage you to try them out! 

En route we traveled to Iceland for a few days, went in the thermal pools and saw the Geysers.

old faithful, the most active geyser

Then in Oslo, we did the typical sight seeing musts, viking museum, norsk folk museum, the downtown area, national gallery to Munch's The Scream, the royal palace, the fortress, the food markets :), and stayed over at a friend's flat which we knew from university.  Thank you so much Beata!

holy pruning batman!

birch bark, check. sod, check. border of logs, check...now that is a roof.

Atypically, we befriended a senior advisor of the Norwegian Center for Cultural Heritage who gave us contacts of the remaining true blacksmiths in the country, we found and purchased an antique draw knife which has already been sharpened and put to use on the homestead, and posed with the FREE electric car ports that are scattered around the city!!

 Then off to the Fjords, by bus, to the village of Laerdal, at the beginning of the Sogn Fjord, the biggest and deepest of all the Fjords in Norway.  There, we rested a bit because Léo got a little stomach bug (and the hospital visit was FREE thanks to the public health care...we took notes to bring back to the states ;)!), took a walk around the beautiful valley sprinkled with cherry, apple, raspberry and pear orchards, and also visited the Borgund Stave Church, the best preserved of the last remaining 18 Stave Churches, it was quite a sight. 

We then got up at 3:38am (in a bit of a hurry...) to catch the only Sunday local bus to bring us to the plush hydrofoil ferry - Leo got to play with legos (thank you Scandinavia) while we got to eat hot dogs wrapped in bacon (again thank you Scandinavia).

 
The ferry sped for five hours down the SognFjord, passed gorgeous snow covered cliffs and small farms, to our next destination, the Island of Lygra. On Lygra we 'wwoofed' (willingly worked) on the only organic vegetable and sheep farm in the Hordaland region, just outside of Bergen, the second biggest city in Norway.  There our host grew all his own food, made his own cider, beer, sausages, sheep skin, and we shared many stories and much knowledge about sustainable living, community living, best farming practices and humanure.  Thank you so much Erik!

the orphans, and Erik's neighbor

We left Lygra for a quick walk around Bergen, but like most days of the year in those parts, it was pouring rain, and Léo was all soaked, so off to the airport we went. With only one day of the trip remaining, we flew to Trondheim, the most Northern city we were going to have time to visit.  Trondheim is the smartest city in Norway, with a large University population and therefore a very positive energy. Our host, being a young energetic biotech university researcher, was the greatest guide for us to discover all the great aspects this town has to offer in a short amount of time. 

From the alternative coop neighbourhood, to the SykkelHeis (cycle-moving sidewalk - the only one in the world! I don't understand why there aren't more of these. They are SO cool!), to the best vegan restaurant (which now also prepares food for the local Hospital to meet their demand for organic vegan options), to a local eco boutique 'Ethiken', to the great Salvation Army Shop where Alex found his sought after Rosenborg Soccer team paraphernalia :)! We really enjoyed our day of walking around, thanks Mali!

Lift anyone?!

The only remaining question is beginner or advanced?

Trondheim's coop neighborhood, sheep inclusive!

A lengthy but relaxing train back to Oslo from Trondheim ended the trip's in-country travel very smoothly. With a few hours remaining we visited Viggeland Park where one artist created a plethora of statues, all in the nude, depicting all aspects and stages of life. Very worth a visit or a google search :).

is this my future?

As travel always does, our views and perceptions of the other side as always being greener were in some ways changed. For those things that we had dreamed of being truly special, and turned out to be so, we will integrate them in our lives and communities as best we can. May all vacations have a reward as valuable as a pocket-full of life lessons.

Until next time...or should we say Ha-det!