Vacation Preparation

Vacation preparations when you live on a farm can be a bit unusual.  There is the typical packing, taking out the garbage, and feeding the fish.  But there is also mucking the coops, training the pet sitters, last minute planting, watering the gardens, and even clipping chicken wings.

I know that it looks like the feathery aftermath of a fox attack but everything is okay -
we have just delayed flights for the weekend.

Our chicks have taken to flying out of the coop on a daily basis to free range around the yard.  I am not too concerned about it when we are home because they always eventually make their way back into their pen at dusk.  However, when you have pet sitters who I am sure will not appreciate having to chase 27 baby chicks around the yard with a fishing net, you try try find ways to make everyone's lives a bit easier.

That does not look like your coop.

After a very busy morning of preparing, we finally made it to the cottage for the weekend.  We were greeted by the most humongous rhubarb plant - guess what is on the menu this week...

and a huge thunderstorm.

Bye bye blue sky - the storm front is rolling in.  

Apparently we got quite the hail storm at home.  I will be so sad if my gardens are decimated.  Perhaps, however, the hail was enough to scare the chicks back into their coop making this evening's animal chores a breeze for our pet sitters.  

Regardless, we are happy to be at the cottage for some good weather, fishing, and family time.  

John and Kathy - best of luck herding the beasts.  If nothing else, you will make some interesting Canada Day weekend memories!  Thank you for helping us get away.

Biscuit Blunder and Three Cheers for Kale

I am still working on baking the perfect skyscraper biscuit.  My latest batch was certainly an improvement in height over last week's hockey pucks, except that these remained raw on the inside even after I doubled the baking time.

If you have a favourite tried-and-true biscuit recipe, please send it along.  I am obviously in need of some assistance.  Also, if you have a favourite biscuit cutter or cutting technique, I am all ears.  My leaning towers here leave something to be desired.

While the quest for the perfect biscuit remains ongoing, I am becoming a pro at preparing my weekly CSA baskets.  Very early morning harvesting is key to keeping the greens as crunchy as possible.  A big "Thank You" to Grandma who came bright and early this morning to hold a snuffly Alistair so that I could go complete my sunrise harvest in peace and quiet.

This week’s CSA basket included: green leaf, red leaf and endive lettuces, a huge head of butter crunch lettuce, spinach, arugula, watercress, chard, radishes, red scallions, young broccoli (head, stalk & leaves - all edible), kale, dill, flat leaf parsley, lavender sprigs, chives, pea shoots, sunflower sprouts, sandwich special micro greens, daikon micro greens, wasabi mustard micro greens, red clover micro greens, and a dozen farm fresh eggs.

This week’s bonus item was a jar of Gael Glen Farm's wildflower honey.

With the arrival of the hot weather, the time for sweet, crunchy lettuce and spinach is coming to an end.  Spring radishes are almost finished; they just do not grow as well in the heat.  The next wave of vegetables should be the broccoli, turnip, cabbage, peas, and beans.  I also have lots of carrots and beets in the ground but with the late spring all of these crops are delayed.  I am hoping that they pick up speed or we may have a lull in the garden between when the greens are done and everything else begins.  On the bright side, there will always be kale.  Three cheers for a basket made entirely of kale!  Who's with me?  What if I throw in a biscuit or two?

Rocket Riders and Runners

It is official, we have two bike riding boys.  Liam and Seamus have left their training wheels in the dust and are off like rockets.  There is no stopping them now!

Liam is beyond thrilled to be able to ride his two wheeler solo!

They are tough little monsters.  Both boys took some serious spills today but got right back up and kept going.  "Falling is part of learning to ride a bike, Mom", said Seamus when I picked him up from camp and commented on his new Bandaid and how his knees are covered in scuffs.  It seems that he does actually listen to me sometimes.

Not to be outdone, Ava has also been practising her rocket ship maneuvers.  She races around the fence line during our evening perimeter walk - partly because she loves running and partly because she is excited for her dinner awaiting her in her crate.  She always has time to stop for a belly rub, though.

I have been rocketing around the city during the time that the big boys are at camp, getting all my random errands done.  For example, I bought replacement mineral feeders after Charlie broke theirs, I finally got an eye exam and ordered replacement glasses for mine that broke ages ago, I have been grocery shopping (twice), and I have hit up a bunch of the end of season sales at the local nurseries.  I was looking for Borage and Autumn Joy Sedum for our honey bees but instead found great deals on Polaris blueberry plants, a Minuet Weigela, and Helenium Short 'n Sassy Sneezeweed.  

Lucky for me, Ms. Isabel across the road offered to let me transplant some volunteer Sedum plants from her flower garden.  I am still looking for Borage.  

Now I just have to work on amassing the energy to tackle my Weedy Well Garden in order to get all these new plants in the ground.  Normally this would not be a problem but look...

The Well Garden is all thistles - hundreds and hundreds of prickly thistles.

Do you know who did not do much rocketing today?  This guy (and his Daddy but we have an agreement not to post photos of each other sleeping).  

I guess accompanying me on my whirlwind of errands tired Ali right out.  What a sleepy head.  I am not sure what Ian's excuse is...a full time job coupled with life with three crazy kiddos and a menagerie of farm animals, maybe?  Just watching all these mini rocket ships scoot about their day is enough to leave the best of us exhausted.

Rough Road

Bike riding today went fabulously.  Two hours into bike camp, Seamus was riding a two-wheeler solo!  Liam is incredibly jealous that his younger brother beat him to this milestone, though he is actually doing very well himself.  I am fairly confident that at this rate they will have both mastered bike riding by Friday.

Seamus was so eager to practice his new skill that we took to the road for a ride after nap.  I must tell you, he was pretty determined to put the pedal to the metal because it is far from easy to ride a bicycle given the miserable state of repair of our road, especially for a brand new pedal head.  It took Seamus a few tries to get going and unfortunately, he got thwarted by more than a few potholes.  Both boys got some good practice in and are good and tired again tonight. City of Ottawa - please re-pave our road!!

Not to be outdone, Alistair also excelled at something new today.  He ate his first ever rice cracker.  He held on to it with an iron first and licked it into submission.

He did so well, we may venture into rice cereal in the coming weeks.  It was a busy day of firsts for Gael Glen Farm's trio of mischief makers.  Maybe that is why I am so exhausted?!

Sore Thumb = Day Off

After getting stung badly on the thumb during my morning bee hive inspection, I decided that I deserved to take the rest of today off.  I left Uncle Cam and Ian to weed the vegetable garden; meanwhile, the boys and I hightailed it over to Ms. Kerry's house for a delicious lunch and an afternoon of bouncy castle madness.  The boys had such fun - even Alistair.

Our afternoon of outdoor shenanigans successfully tired everyone out (I was already tired thanks to taking Benadryl for my bee sting).  All three of the boys were fed, bathed, in bed and asleep by 6:30 pm.  Victory!

Liam and Seamus will especially benefit from a good night's sleep as they start a week long, half-day bike camp tomorrow.  I am so excited for them to learn to bicycle without training wheels!

Thank you Ms. Kerry for the lovely start to summer vacation. 

The Persistent Gardener

I cannot get my directly sowed beans and peas to germinate this year. With Mrs. Cheryl's help, I coated another set of pea and bean seeds with legume inoculant and re-planted again. Hopefully second time's a charm.

Do you see any pea plants in this supposed row of peas? 
Nope.  Me neither.
Lots of weeds though.
Sigh.

I also harvested our third round of CSA baskets today.

This week’s basket includes: green leaf, red leaf and iceberg lettuces, spinach, garland, arugula, watercress, chard, radishes, red scallions, cabbage/broccoli/cauliflower leaves, kale, dill, curly and flat leaf parsley, mint, sage leaves, sweet basil, chives, Chinese cabbage, pea shoots, daikon micro greens, wasabi mustard micro greens, red clover micro greens, and a dozen farm fresh eggs.

This week’s bonus item was the chive blossom-infused vinegar.

Here is our favourite homemade salad dressing recipe in case you are feeling inspired to make your own special vinegar.

Lemon-Chive Salad Dressing

2 tbs lemon juice
2 tbs chive vinegar
2-4 tbs olive oil (depends on your taste)
2 tbs maple syrup
1 tbs Dijon mustard
2 cloves of garlic crushed
Salt & pepper to taste
Fresh herbs of your choice chopped

Shake hard to emulsify and serve immediately over fresh greens.

Finally, while I cannot take any credit for it, Liam is also practising persistence - not in the gardening department but in the tooth losing one.  He lost his second baby tooth today.  Very exciting.

Happy Summer Solstice everyone!  

P.S. Please keep an eye out for any debaucherous tooth fairies and send them our way.  Especially if you happen to see them stealing any pea or bean seeds - they may be white but those are not teeth!

Three Success and a Flop

My mouse melon plants have successfully come back from the (very nearly) dead.  With our very delayed spring, they were in the house much too long.  I eventually put them outside even though it was still much too cold for melons because I did not think they were going to survive inside any longer.  The existing vines all perished but the roots must have taken hold because they all have new shoots!  Woohoo!  It will our first time growing these grape sized melons and I am super excited for them.

Our second success of the day was Alistair's new ability to roll over from back to front.  He is getting better and better at rolling over and is working hard on tummy time.  He is loving all his new moves!  He is growing so fast - I feel like at this rate he will be crawling any day now and we will be back to having everything in the house barricaded off.  I do not miss having baby gates everywhere!

Ava is our third success of the day.  Her training is coming along very well (as long as we do not dwell on the fact that she still likes to chew on the ducks if she can get a hold of them).  She is now responding quite reliably to her name (unless there is a duck in the vicinity), she has pretty much learned "sit", "come" and "leave it" (unless she is preoccupied by a duck), she knows her perimeter walk (maybe because there are no ducks here to distract her), and she is working hard at not biting people with her puppy teeth (sadly, I cannot say the same for the ducks).  She is doing wonderfully well.  I cannot believe we have only had her a month!  It feels like she has been with us forever.

Not everything can be a success and that is okay.  Today my attempt at biscuits using a new recipe was a certified flop.  They were the absolutely flattest biscuits ever.  It is mildly frustrating when you follow the recipe exactly and instead of the mile high, towering biscuits like in the recipe's photo, yours turn out like crunchy pancakes (not even the fluffy kind of pancake).  Even worse, they kind of tasted like fish and chips (not in a good way) - I have no idea why, they just did.  Disaster.

On the whole though, I figure if I have three successes for every flop, I am not doing too badly.

Floral Infusion

Our flower gardens are exploding in floral goodness.

 

While these look good enough to eat, we decided to leave them as a feast for the eyes (and the bees)...except for one type - the chive flowers. 

As with all herbs, clipping the flowers is a good thing to do as it encourages leaf growth.  Much to the chagrin of the honey bees, we used the chive blossoms in our garden to make chive-infused vinegar.  Yum! 

In a week or two, this will be perfect for making homemade summer salad dressings for all those garden greens we have been eating.  We made a jar for our CSA families too!