Weeding, Cooking, Swimming

First project of the day: Pulling out lettuce from the front field that had started to bolt. Graham and I worked on this long enough to transport three carts to the pigs. When lettuce plants bolt, they change from small, compact heads of greens into tall, weedy, flowering plants. This is part of the normal life cycle of a lettuce plant, but it also makes the leaves bitter and unpalatable. However, the pigs won't turn their noses up at them:


The pigs are actually part of a very unique system that is in place on this farm. While Patrick and Colleen farm the majority of the land here, Brian and Rebecca own the farm and run a brewery on site: Crannóg Ales. It turns out that running a brewery actually partners quite well with running a farm. This, of course, makes sense when you remember that beer and cider are agricultural products. By having the brewery as part of a working farm, they are able to be fully organic and run a zero-waste operation. The spent grain that is fit for eating is fed to the pigs. The waste from the pigs helps to fertilize crops on the farm. Other organic waste that is not fit for pigs is composted. Waste water from the brewing process is used to keep the compost heap moist. Then, just like with the manure from the pigs, compost is used when growing crops. Finally, they grow their own organic hops on site, and in past years they have had a small flock of sheep that are pastured in the hops field. Sheep will eat lots of plants, but not hops. Hence, the sheep weed and fertilize the field! They've really devised an elegant system.

Here's a picture of brewery:


After we fed the sheep, we continued weeding onions (we're only about a third done) and we also mowed some pathways. Graham is off visiting his grandparents this weekend, so the rest of the mowing will be up to me. It's not bad work, except down really narrow pathways. Moving between the peas is tough because I don't want to damage the plants. Even the silly plants that thought to grow into the middle of the pathway. Plants are Patrick and Colleen's livelihood, so I don't want to risk that by mowing over anything that shouldn't be mowed over! Basically, that meant when the mowing got tough, I asked Graham to do it.

Finally, I ended my work day by cooking my first meal for everyone. Everybody takes turns making lunch and dinner. This system makes for some great sense of community and shared responsibility, and eating meals with everyone is one of my favorite parts of the day. I made a vegetarian shepherd's pie with lentils instead of beef, colcannon, kale, an a radish salad. Everything came out pretty well, but I made a little too much food. It's not the end of the world, we'll just see shepherd's pie at lunch for the next couple days.

During dinner, Patrick suggested that we all go down to the lake for a swim, which is exactly what we did. The water was freezing, but it felt very refreshing after a hot day out in the sun:

Coyote Urine: The #1 Defense Against Deer

This morning, we all started out by weeding the onions together. I had already done about a half an hour on them yesterday, so I knew how long they were going to take. There were a lot of thistles, tangles of choke weed, and tall stalks of lamb's quarter. I am not sure which weed is worse--the choke weed wraps itself around the onion stalks and if you just yank it off, you damage the plant. However, the thistles are painful, even with gloves on. This is what the bed looked like before weeding:



It took until lunch, but we were able to get it to look like this afterwards:


There has been some heat recently, which is helping the onions to bulb. Patrick said that when it's cool and rainy, the plants seem to put their energy into their leaves. However, when it gets hotter and drier, they work on their bulbs. Hence, there might be some onions soon! I am not really sure which ones are going to market or being grown for seed, but I hope we get to try some of the heirloom varieties that they are growing. One of the varieties is "rossa di milano," which is a rare variety that you can only get from a few seed providers in North America. They're supposed to be a tasty storage onion that is flat at the top, and pointy at the bottom.

After lunch, we came back and culled some garlic that has been afflicted by a nasty fungus. It seems to attack the bulb and the part of the stem that at or below the soil level. Here's what a healthy garlic plant looks like:



And here's a sick one:

When we removed these, we had to keep them separate from healthy plants. It was not safe to compost them, since that is just inviting the fungus back next year. For many people, this is the argument against organic growing--lower yields due to a farmer not having a full range of tools to fight disease. However, relative to the entire crop, we lost very few plants. It all added up to about 6 or 7 sacks that have to be disposed of off site. Since fungicide is not an option, their best defense is good crop rotation and making sure the plants get enough airflow. Across the whole farm, it's amazing to see how healthy everything is, and how few pests are affecting the plants.

One pest Patrick and Colleen have been wrestling with are a little bigger than garlic fungus. The deer have been sneaking into the field at night and nibbling on the lettuce. It doesn't appear that they've made off with too much lettuce as of yet, but if they don't get it under control, they're going to have some major crop losses. This is the first year they've had too worry too much about deer, probably because there used to be sheep on site, an electric fence around the perimeter of the property, and bison on the neighboring farm. The commotion from domestic animals and the fence most likely kept the deer away in the past, but no more.

At first, Patrick and Colleen tried sleeping in a tent at the edge of the farm where the deer appear to be entering:



Of course, this is only a temporary solution. They couldn't sleep out there forever. Therefore, Graham and I got to spend the late afternoon putting out some deterrents. We put out some 100% Certified Organic blood meal out in some plastic containers--the smell of a fresh kill apparently keeps deer at a distance. But we didn't stop there. We also got to put out some coyote urine, which also should keep the deer out:




We put the urine in some little plastic bottles that are tethered to wooden stakes at the edge of the farm. There are some holes in the bottles to let out the scent. And what a scent it is. Let me tell you, this is the foulest substance I have ever encountered in my entire life. But it was pretty expensive and stores sell out of it as fast as they get it in stock, so I think I might go back to Chicago to start a coyote urine dynasty. The stuff is liquid gold. Or golden liquid. Whatever. Here are the stakes:


Finally, if you were interested in what I wrote about local food and sustainable agriculture, you might want to check this link out: http://www.hardwickagriculture.org/. The movement is catching on! Here's another nice picture of the farm to end with:

Dabbling in Dibbling

Today, my morning started at 8:00am, bright and early after breakfast. Patrick told me that today our work would come in two phases. First, in the morning we were going to be working lettuce that they want to bring to the farmers market in the coming weeks. Also, they have some standing orders for lettuce that they deliver to local restaurants every week.

Speaking of delivering to area restaurants, this experience has really cemented in my mind the value of eating locally. It's been great seeing the role that this farm, and others in the area, play in the community. Being able to talk to your farmer every week at the market, being able to see where you food comes from, and knowing that is was produced in a safe, sustainable way--it all helps you connect with the land around you and inspires you to value the food you put into your body every day. Plus, local food means using less fuel to schlep produce across the world just because people won't pay a little more to get it from local sources. I feel like the CSA I've been doing (Genesis Growers) is a great start, but I can still do better. Community gardens are popping up in Chicago, but there certainly aren't any in my immediate neighborhood. Also, when I get back this year, I want to start going to the farmer's market more often to pick of the few things I need that I didn't get in my veggie box from the CSA. Finally, maybe I'll check out some more restaurants that serve up local food.

Anyways, back to lettuce. We started out by "dibbing." Essentially, lettuce seed was spread in some flats of dirt before I got here. Those have all begun to sprout, and we spent time separating the mess of little plants into organized rows in a separate flat. Then these little rows are given more time to grow again. Finally, when they are ready, they are transplanted out in the field.

Post-dibbling:

After Graham and I finished dibbling, we went out the field and transplanted some other lettuce plants that had already been dibbled and were ready to go in the ground. Of course, this meant we had to weed the bed first, which took a long time. I got quite a few thistle pricks in the process. This picture is a little over-exposed, sorry:


Here it is from a distance. You can barely see the little guys in there, but, surprisingly, they should be ready for harvest in about three weeks:

After we finished up the lettuce, we did some weeding in the onion bed and fed the chickens. The egg producing chickens are very agreeable little creatures. They are alert, interested in people, and pretty active. I do have to say, the chickens that they are raising for meat are a sorrier looking lot. They are large, slow, and not prone to movement. I guess they've just been bred to grow quickly and stay tender. I heard that they might be slaughtered this weekend, so I'll have to help round them up. Not a big deal as long as I don't have to eat them!

Here's another random picture that I took. I don't think I captured the image very well, but I tried:

The Lake and Picking Redcurrants

On Saturday evening, I decided to talk a walk to the lake to check it out. This whole area is connected by a series of lakes, this one being Shuswap Lake. The mountains, serene lakes, and perfect skies make for quite a view. Apparently this area is a popular place for Canadians to retire, which I can understand. In fact, these pictures were taken from a bit of shore line at a retirement community (it was the only public access road I could find around here to get to shore):





I stayed at the lake until it started getting dark. I didn't want to leave it too late because I didn't feel like it would be a great idea to walk down the Trans Canada Highway when it's pitch black. Particularly because there are not street lamps on the road.

Then this morning, I checked out a church service at St Mary's Anglican Church. I ended up being late because the time was listed incorrectly on the website. Oh, and also it was a UCC service. So really that whole operation didn't work out so well. But I caught the second half of the service. It does make me miss St John's in Chicago a bit, but I'm going to be home before I know it. Three weeks can go by very quickly.

Finally, between the breaks in the rain, I helped Patrick and Colleen pick redcurrants. They are getting married August 10th and then moving out to a new farm in the Kootenay region of British Columbia. For their wedding, the brewery owners, Brian and Rebecca, or going to make them a red currant ale to serve at the reception. Hence, we picked them 10 pounds of redcurrants to add to the ale. Patrick said that the currants give the ale a nice pink tint, and will make it suitable for a festive toast.

It took a lot longer to pick these than I expected! The last time I really had fresh redcurrants was when I was living in Oxford and I used to buy them at the farmer's market. They were a lot more sour than these ones, though. The main thing I used to do with them was cook them down, strain them, and add some sugar. Then we'd use the resulting sauce on vanilla ice cream.

The Farm

Okay, well it's finally time to start writing about the work I am doing on the farm. I arrived here at Stellar Seeds (stellarseeds.com) on July 2nd around noon. When I got in, we all had lunch and I met my WWOOF coordinators, Colleen and Patrick. They seemed great from what I had learned on the WWOOF Canada website, and they are even more pleasant in person. I also met their apprentice, Graham, one of the brewery owners, Rebecca, and a brewery employee. By the way, I'll write more about the Crannog Ales brewery and the hops farming on site after I learn a bit more about it.

The most coincidental part of the day was that the brewery employee I mentioned is actually from Chicago. She grew up in a nearby suburb to mine, and went to a rival high school. This seems to happen every time I travel--I go 2000 miles just to meet someone from Morton Grove or Crystal Lake! Anyway, everybody is extremely friendly, progressive, and thoughtful. We already had some great conversations, and I've started to learn a bit about this part of the continent.

As for the work I'll be doing--a lot of it will be weeding. In fact, we already started on Friday after lunch. Here's what the row looked like before I started:

And here it is afterwards. There was apparently some lettuce down there:



My daily routine will be starting work at 8am, working until noon, eating lunch, then working again until 5pm. A lot of times, I'll get to work with the rest of the crew, so that there's some good conversation. Every day, one person will cut out at 11am to make lunch for everyone, and someone else will cut out at 4pm to make dinner. Not everyone is a vegetarian, but since this is a vegetable growing operation, that makes up the majority of their diets.

Here's the house I'll be staying in:





After weeding for the whole afternoon, it was time for dinner. We had a nice stew that Patrick whipped up. Graham then invited me to go see some live music with him and another friend. The venue was really unique. It was an old yellow house tucked away from the road, and inside it was decorated with vintage items from old bowling alleys. The floors were formerly bowling alley lanes. The railings were constructed out of pins and bowling balls. The bands themselves were very talented (Steve Brockley and Old Mans Beard). I am often skeptical of live music, particularly when I don't know the bands, but this was a pleasant surprise. Old Mans Beard was unique because they are the first band I've ever seen where every single member of the band (including the drummer) can sing.

Finally, this morning I walked into town to check out the Sorrento Farmer's Market. Here are two views I saw along the way. I lightened the foregrounds up in photoshop, which made it look more yellow out there than it really was:



Okay, last map until I start driving home. I'm at 702 Elson Road, Sorrento, BC. Let me know if you want any seeds!


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Banff and Mt Revelstoke, 7/1 & 7/2

After dropping Kristin off at the airport in Calgary on 7/1, I was on my own to drive to the farm. Her flight was at 8:05, so we wanted to get to the airport by 6:30 since this was technically an international flight. We asked the hotel staff in Calgary how much time we should allot to get the airport, and they told us that even at 5:45 in the morning, there would be traffic and to allow at least 40 minutes to get there. But as we were driving at 5:45, we didn't see any traffic at all. The roads were completely deserted, in fact. Well, what we all forgot to consider was that July 1st was Canada Day and everybody was off for the holiday. Unfortunately, that also meant that I had a very hard time finding a place to get my oil changed... but it really was in need of being done, particularly because I didn't know how easy it would be to find something like a Jiffy Lube in Sorrento. I eventually found a Minit Lube that opened at 10:00am, so killed some time by having a long breakfast, doing some grocery shopping, and withdrawing some money at Scotiabank.

By the way, if any of you reading this blog do a lot of international travel, you might consider opening a Bank of America checking account. They have a partner bank in many of the countries Americans visit frequently, and there are no ATM fees, exchange surcharges, or anything else at those banks. Scotiabank in Canada, Deutsche Bank in Germany, Barclays in the UK, Westpac in Australia. Plus, a bunch of these banks have locations in other countries as well. It's worth it after the first time seeing what foreign withdrawal surcharges can do to your account...

Anyway, I eventually got on the road heading through Banff. My goal for July 1st was just to make it to Golden, British Columbia, which was only 3-4 hours away. Of course, I also wanted to take some extra time to stop and take some pictures and see the park. The traffic heading towards Banff was pretty heavy because of the holiday:


Once I reached the entrance to the park, there was a checkpoint where you either purchase a park pass or tell the attendant that you are passing through. It was funny--when I arrived at the checkpoint, the attendant started speaking to me in French. I am not sure if it was my license plate, her having a bit of fun, or some other mix-up of which I am not aware.

The park itself was great, though it was hard to compare to Glacier. I think if I had more time to do a few hikes, I would have experienced a lot more of what the park had to offer:



Bighorn sheep:


There were lots of views like this: I think I look tired after so many days of driving:

After driving through Banff, I settled down in Golden, BC for the night. It is a small mountain town that formed around the Trans-Canada Highway, and is completely surrounded by snow-capped mountains. I got in kind of early, relaxed, caught up on some sleep, and had a hearty meal. The locals were very friendly, and I had a nice chat with two guys that were heading even further north for some summer snowboarding:



Finally, on 7/2, I drove from Golden to Sorrento. The landscape changed yet again--Mt Revelstoke is the world's only temperate inland rain forest (and it definitely was wet), and then suddenly the clouds cleared up a bit, the mountains were a bit smaller, and I entered a beautiful lake district. Sorrento and the surrounding towns in the Shuswap region of BC seem like they should be one of the biggest tourist attractions in North America, I can't believe there aren't more people here:




In my next post, I'll write about the farm, the work I've been doing, and the people I've met so far. Here's my route for 7/1 and 7/2:


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Glacier National Park, 6/30

On our last day traveling together, we went to Glacier National Park. In a single word, the park was majestic. Of everything we've seen so far (and of what I saw the day after), Glacier was the highlight. Driving the Sun Road provides one with a continuous, uninterrupted view of natural wonder.



Eventually, we stopped pulling over to take pictures because the prospect of trying to capture everything we saw was simply overwhelming. We entered the park around 10:00am, and after a few stops for pictures, we parked the car and started a hike up to Avalanche Lake. This was an easy 2.3 mile trail to a mountain lake. The trail climbs 500 feet, following along a mountain stream. The water of the stream barrels down the hillside in a way that amusement parks have tried to capture for decades, carrying with it a brisk mountain breeze:

This is a popular hike because it's short, not too strenuous, and has a great payoff at the end:


Plus, after we had some snacks, a few hungry chipmunks swarmed our feet to get after our crumbs. Kristin screamed when one of the chipmunks tried to climb up her torso, which drew quite a bit of attention from fellow leisurely hikers. Some older ladies who had never seen a chipmunk before were pointing at them asking "What are those? Gophers?" I would be sympathetic to their inability to spot a chipmunk, but these thinks look exactly like Chip & Dale... Here's one of our friends:

The entire park visit took us about 7 hours, though we could have stayed longer. If I went back, I would certainly be interested in doing a longer trail, perhaps one that might have actually been deserving of the serious gear a select few of our fellow hikers were donning. As we discussed while walking back from Avalanche Lake, you'd think people would put away their bear-repelling jingle bells once they realized that the trail was as crowded as a moving walkway at the airport.

One aspect of the Sun Road that I really enjoyed thinking about was how the engineering and work behind the road represents our inability to truly conquer nature. Sure the National Park Service managed to build a road that climbs a mountain range, but the constant barrage of frigid, snowy winters means that they have to keep rebuilding the road just to keep it open. It's a perpetual reconquering of nature, a struggle that nature will eventually win when our species goes extinct.


Here's a picture that gives you an idea of the work that had to go into plowing the snow off the Sun Road:


After Glacier, we continued up to Calgary, which was a monotonous ride. I have to say, the letdown of leaving Glacier behind, the combination of Kristin's impending flight home, and the vast desolate landscape bringing us into Calgary had all taken their toll on my morale. However, I am over that for now.


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