Summer's Here

We had so much rain this spring that the farmers had trouble getting in the hay. Finally they managed to get enough dry days to cut it and let it sit in these Zen garden patterns for a day before it was collected and baled.

WARM WEATHER FINALLY ARRIVED, but much later than usual, around the middle of July. And even now it's cooler and less humid than previous summers have been. The rain and cool weather caused great fear for the strawberry crop. But, as you can see from the photo below, the strawberries did arrive as they always do, in time for "strawberry suppers" held in church basements all over Nova Scotia. So that you can have a taste of all this joy, I've posted information on how to make Nova Scotia-style old-fashioned strawberry shortcake at the food blog.

Nova Scotia strawberries in season. I rinse them, slice them, and mix them with a quarter cup of sugar per pint. Those that don't get eaten go into the freezer.

Beyond eating strawberries, Tim and I have become less active as the weather has grown warmer. It's a symptom of how lethargic I've become that there are so few pictures with this month's post. (What, no photos of the ducks and dogs? I'm sure you're all heart broken!)

I'm proud of having used my new-found skills as a blogger to help out two worthy organizations, both of which were in need of websites. The Nova Scotia Woodlot Owners and Operators Association is the oldest woodlot-owner organization in the province, dedicated to sustainable and ecologically sensitive management of our forests. Green Gatherings is a newly created local grassroots organization that wants to inform rural Maritimers about global warming.

Other than that, I kept working on the garden as long as the weather cooperated, and Tim created a very nice drainage ditch for us to take rainwater away from the house. I'm proud to say that Tim seems to have gotten healthier with every month that he's lived here since arriving from Los Angeles two years ago. It's remarkable what physical activity, good food, and low stress can do.

Now that the weather has turned warm, the tomato plants are finally starting to become worthy of their tomato cages. For more on the garden, see the gardening blog.

That long stretch of rock is the top of a very nice drainage ditch, dug and filled by Tim. The weeds are all mine.

But of course, the big news from the farm, already known to most people we know, is that Tim and I are getting remarried--or, as I've been saying, de-divorced--at the end of the month. It will be a simple ceremony with a justice of the peace and two witnesses, our dear neighbors and long-time friends George and Sharon O'Leary, in our own living room. The decorations will be whatever flowers are blooming, even if they're weeds. The bride will wear whatever's clean. The bridal party will be confined.* We'll repair to the local restaurant and farm market for a meal, where we'll be joined by another dear friend and neighbor who has invited us back to her house for cake. We will drink something cheap, celebratory, and fizzy.

If you would like to join us in spirit, please do. On July 28, lift a glass and have a piece of cake and know that we always have our friends with us in our hearts.

* As is appropriate for a bridal party consisting of two dogs, four ducks, and a 20-year-old cat.

Just Ducky

Wild Flora Farm Mid May to Mid June 2007

ONCE SPRING SPRUNG, I was spending much of my time in the garden and the rest of my time trying to recover from too much unaccustomed physical activity. So it's only now, when the days have turned a bit too warm for me to want to be outside for hours and the heat has brought out the biting insects that are my nemesis, that I put fingers to keyboard and report the news from Wild Flora's Farm.

Our lead for this installment is the arrival of the ducks. For details on the breed and how and why I got them, see the post "Old Frontiers in Pest Control" from my Wild Gardening blog. For sheer cuteness, see the photo above, which shows the ducklings on their first morning with me, May 22, when they were just three weeks old. (Click on the photo to go to a web album with more photos of farm life over the past 6 weeks.)

But they grow up fast, don't they? The photo below shows the same ducks less than a month later. In the intervening weeks, they have proven to be just as comical as I thought they were going to be, but a whole lot more work. They eat anything they can lay their beaks on, including any prize plants I'm stupid enough to let them get at. (And even though they can't fly yet--I dread that day--it turns out that those necks can stretch for miles.) They then convert everything they eat into large, wet messes that are produced (with a self-satisfied splooting sound) on an average of every 10 minutes. I spend a truly amazing amount of time feeding them and then cleaning up the results.

But here's the good news: 1. This is a great way to appreciate (by which I mean hate) the great circle of life. 2. Duck poop is good fertilizer: My perennials are starting to look like shrubs. 3. At last I have a theme for the comic novel every writer is obliged to produce after moving to the country. Working title: SNADU. That is, Situation Normal, All Ducked Up.

A footnote: I finally gave in to the requests of one dear friend who wanted me to post a photo of myself to this blog, and you'll find it below. It's the photo that accompanied my application for Canadian citizenship--news that would be more exciting than the ducks except that it takes about a year for the application to be processed. I am happy about this development, however, and looking forward to being a full-fledged Canuck.

This is What I Look Like When You're Drunk

ONLY KIDDING. Actually, this is what I look like when I'm drunk. OK, still kidding. This is the photo Tim took to go with my application for Canadian citizenship. They require two identical photos; hence the duplication. This is the other big news for April, by the way: I did submit my application to become a citizen of this wonderful country. No wonder I'm smiling. It will be about a year before I find out whether they're willing to have me.

Feet on the Floor

Wild Flora Farm for May 1 2007

APRIL WAS THE WACKY MONTH. We started with cold, including something like a snowstorm (the only one this winter) on Easter Sunday, then had sunny days that sent me rushing out to the garden, followed by spate of weather so cold that certain muscovy ducks (who were sitting on eggs that were supposed to hatch into my next group of pets) abandoned their nests. So Huey, Dewey, and Louie (and possibly Donald, Daisy, and Scrooge) will not be arriving for at least another month and a half.

The change(s) in the weather inspired activity, nonetheless. Vegetable and flower beds and native plantings were weeded. Spinach was planted. Poplar stakes were moved from the refrigerator to a bed in the vegetable garden, where they quickly began to bud out. Muskrats were photographed. We finished painting the breakfast room, installing the laminate flooring, and putting up shelves. I gave the Wild Gardening blog a slight redesign and managed to keep posting every day or so, starting a series of items about the transformation of my front yard from forlorn, weedy lawn to (one of these day, I hope) fabulous native woodland. Oh, and the blog received its first press coverage; the gardening columnist for the Halifax Chronicle-Herald quoted me and mentioned the blog in a column about gardening for pollinators. Yay!

Most of these achievements are documented in the web album that accompanies this post. As always, you can check out the gardening blog at Wild Flora's Wild Gardening. The column in which the blog is mentioned can be viewed, at least for the time being, at the Halifax Herald's website.

April 1-2 Web Album

Wild Flora Farm, April 1 2007

Here's an album of photos taken at the beginning of April. For the latest news, see below.

Late March Photos

Wild Flora Farm March 29 2007

Here's a Web album containing a few photos taken after a late March snowstorm. As you can see, Tessa has declared undying enmity toward her own tail. Keep reading for the latest news.

Rolling Over

MARCH DAWNED WARM and sunny and ended the same way, but in between we had frequent bouts of snow and cold weather. (I guess that’s why wonderful garden blogger Jodi DeLong calls the month Farch.)

In other words, Mom Nature in her infinite wisdom sent us frequent reminders that outdoor weather is on its way, but did not in fact allow much outside activity. Thus were we stirred from slumber—if not gently, at least in stages. Mother Nature: Inventor of the Snooze Button.

The critters are getting busy, for sure. We've seen a baby beaver (possibly a muskrat, but I'm going with beaver), a large American mink (fur still on the original owner), many deer, and lots of new birds. The squirrels are chasing each other, the goldfinches are sporting yellow feathers, and birdsong is loud and boisterous--nookie time is here.

Around the farmhouse, we began to apply ourselves to various chores. While I worked on Web projects, hoping to get them running before gardening season arrives, Tim undertook a desperately needed home-decorating project: fixing up the room that my parents had used as a dining room.

Time out for some backstory: When my parents bought this place in the early 1970s, the old farmhouse, built in the 1930s, was little more than a shell. They spent summers up here for about a decade, fixing the place up, doing the work themselves with the help of neighbors and local handymen. In the early 1980s, my dad retired from his job as a university professor, and they moved up here. (My intrepid parents did all the moving themselves, too—hauling all their possessions, including a painting that’s about 5 feet by 5 feet—here by making repeated trips in their blue Ford van.) By the time dad died in 1993, however, the place was already starting to show its age; the years from ’93 to 2000, during which my mom lived here alone and in declining health, were even less kind. All of which is to say that when I arrived here in 2002, the house needed work. I’ve been slowly picking away at these jobs as money and time allows, but the going has been slow. These tasks have been progressing faster since Tim came to visit, however. Let’s hear it for Tim!

For a photo of the work done on this room so far, see the Web album for April 1, 2007. For evidence of at least part of my Web work, see the gardening blog, which acquired quite a few new entries in March. For those who would like to start blogging, there's introductory material on the tech blog. And don't forget the food blog: There you'll find a new recipe and a funny story.

An Update on Goats: Goats have quite a fan club. After I mentioned The Goat Question (whether to have them or not, that is) in last month’s post, I was surprised at how many people wrote to tell me about their experiences. (I was even more surprised to learn how many people have owned goats!) The mail was entirely favorable: Goats are universally regarded as smart and enjoyable companions. Unfortunately, everyone who wrote to me is a former goat owner. Nothing against goats themselves: The problem seems to be the difficulty of providing them with adequate living quarters. Then I found out that the dairy goats Joe has tentatively lined up for me are probably not the best breed for someone interested in keeping goats as pets. Sad to say, I’m probably going to pass on Joe’s goats and wait until I can afford to buy some miniature goats and build the fences that are required to keep them from roaming away. This is only a minor setback in my Neverending Quest for Barnyard Animals, however: Now I'm looking for someone who will sell me a rare breed of ducks.

Update on Trees: Thanks to the generosity of “The Tree Guy,” Charlie Baird, the bottom of my refrigerator now contains a plastic bag in which can be found a bundle of hybrid poplar cuttings wrapped in wet burlap. I called Charlie to ask him whether he’d sell me hybrid poplars, and instead he offered to give me the cuttings for nothing. I’ll stick them in a nursery bed as soon as the soil is warm enough, and with any luck they'll take root. By next year I’ll have young poplar trees several feet high (hybrid poplars grow blazingly fast) to plant out in one of my fields. In just a few years (3-10, depending on who's talking), I may be able to start providing my own firewood. In the meantime, at least I'm storing carbon. Charlie, thanks--I'll be back to buy native trees from you in another month or so.