Farm

Spring is usually a busy time of year for me in the garden. This year it's busy for a whole bunch of different reasons.

Without a garden I'm in a real season of "blooming where I'm planted" and being creative with what this looks like. Our housing situation is not exactly permanent right now, not even temporary permanent.

Our current rental arrangement expires the end of this month. We’re renting an apartment in Montréal for the month of June, and then “settling” into our next home the beginning of July. This is not my year to garden.

But I can’t keep my hands out of growing things, nurturing. Tending a little plot of dirt, even if it’s just a bucket of dirt. Or a dozen buckets of dirt.

I’m not the only one in the family like this. I’ve passed the gardening gene onto the kids. The gardening gene skipped Damien altogether, so it’s the kids and I who garden, even if it’s just buckets that take up precious real estate in our tiny cabin.

I have a thing for summer tomatoes (a love affair truth be told) so early this spring we started seeds for a container-friendly variety of cherry tomatoes. The kids and I also have a thing for blossoms. To meet that need we planted pansies.

Pansies and tomatoes, the sum total of our garden this summer.

I bought the seeds on an impulse on a cold day in February. The first week the gardening stuff was on display in the grocery store. I couldn’t help myself! Even though I had no idea where we’d be this summer - traveling or living locally - I wanted to plant something. 

My gardening, local-farm-loving soul has had an interesting time (read: sometimes difficult journey) since moving to the Gaspé. I miss Maine's longer growing season. Oh yes, the United States most north eastern state has a longer growing season than our peninsula. I miss the farm where we had a share for years. I miss our farmer.  

But we're making connections here. Finding the farms and tapping into the local resources, of which there are many.

Our friends (also our telemark instructors) work at the tomato greenhouse in town. It’s actually quite the production. Local, organic, soil grown tomatoes (not hydroponic) available almost year round in the Gaspésie, and beyond. I’m pretty sure they truck these babies around the province.

We live in winter wonderland here and tomatoes don’t have a long growing season in climates like these so a greenhouse like this is ingenious. And we happen to be friends with one of the genius’ who got it going.

Recently we’ve been given tomato “cast-offs”. The most recent pick up was 30 lbs. I’m in tomato heaven. We’re eating tomato soup, stocking the freezer and dehydrating them. Handy, as the dehyrator has been running all week for our backpacking trip this weekend.

There are two local csa farms to choose from for our summer vegetable share. They call them “baskets” around here. We chose the one closest to us, with a weekly pick-up location on the beach. The kids are going to love this. The first baskets will ready the week we get back from Montréal. That’s when the berries will be ready for picking also. I need to get a freezer.

During these winter months we belonged to a group that connects local producers and growers with consumers. We were able to buy frozen blueberries, homemade bagels and pitas, carrots, potatoes, cabbage, herbs, and (if we were into that) raw cheeses.

For the size of the population that lives here there’s a lot going on in the local food movement. (I’m wracking my brain to remember if there’s a traffic light in town, or the next town for that matter. Ah yes, there's one. Where a main highway intersects another main highway. We currently live on one of those main “highways”.)

Québec in general has a strong organic (biologique) movement and strong farm culture. I’ve very grateful for that. Even if I find the growing season to be frustratingly short. I want green leaves on the trees - now!

Speaking of local food, I’m a founding member of a food buying club in our community also. We place our first order this week. I’ve got to get on that.

If we stay at the next chalet for a couple years (that’s our desire) I may plant a small garden next summer. But there’s deer to contend with. Lots of deer. We’d have to build a 7 foot fence or something like that to keep those hungry ruminants out of our lettuce. We may just decide to let the farmers grow it for us and let them deal with the deer.

Farms, food clubs, tomatoes - these are a part of my food culture and I’m finding those pieces here in the Gaspé.

Now I just need to find some tomato-sitters for the month of June. 

Still no snow but at least it's cold enough to feel like winter. Today was December's farm pick up. Lots of good veggies but the scenery was what really captured me today.

The beauty of a nearly-winter late afternoon is simply breathtaking.

PS. After publishing I changed the order of the photos to feature the bird's nest more prominently because I really do love that photo also.

Now that the growing season is over we have said goodbye to our weekly farm visit.

It's always bitter sweet to be done the summer share pick ups. We've been there every week (except for vacations) this summer since late May. But in the end I am thankful for the change, as I love the shifting of seasons. And mostly relieved as I now have one less errand to run (a lovely errand mind you) during the week.

Starting November we will visit the farm once a month to pick up our winter share till next May when the summer shares start again.

We've been members at this farm since Brienne was a babe in my arms and the farm is simply a part of who we are and what we do.

The kids and I like farms in general. Damien is not a farming guy. He's an outdoorsy, backpacking man so I make sure the kids and I get our farm fill during the weekdays.

This month we visited three different farms, including our "own".

At the beginning of the month we went to see the last remaining active Shaker community in the world, Chosen Land at Sabbathday Lake, ME, a National Historic Landmark.  It was a homeschool field trip that just happened to coincide with my own reading and study of the Shaker faith.

I've worked bits of Shaker study into our homeschool this month including listening to Simple Gifts, Shaker Chants and Spirituals which I found at the library. I may be the only one who's really engaged in the subject matter but no mind. Mama wants to learn too and sometimes the things we study together, however informally, are simply because I'm interested in it. 

But back to our visit. The tour was unexpectedly cancelled so we didn't get to see much besides the outsides of the beautiful, old buildings but it was a nice morning at a working farm nonetheless. In large part because I was able to have a lovely, long (and unexpected) chat with a friend who was also there for the homeschool tour. 

The other farm we visited this month (other than our own) was a fiber farm. I've wanted to go here for ages, especially since I learned how to needle felt in the spring. I wanted to stock our craft supplies with raw materials for the children to use for felting projects and also I wanted to see the cool yurt they use as a studio. 

The twenty minute drive was well worth it and the visit did not disappoint. It was an extra special treat for the kiddos. Not only did they get to choose wool they wanted for their own projects, they also fed and played with the goats. 

The "kids" loved it and so did my kiddos.

I was a good month for farm visits. It's been a great growing season in general and now it's time to say goodbye.

I found this poem by Robert Louis Stevenson that is very fitting for this time of year as the growing season comes to a close and the fields (and our wonderful farmers) are ready for a rest. 

Farewell to the Farm

The coach is at the door at last;
The eager children, mounting fast
And kissing hands, in chorus sing:
Good-bye, good-bye, to everything! 

To house and garden, field and lawn,
The meadow-gates we swang upon,
To pump and stable, tree and swing,
Good-bye, good-bye, to everything!

And fare you well for evermore,
O ladder at the hayloft door,
O hayloft where the cobwebs cling,
Good-bye, good-bye, to everything!

Crack goes the whip, and off we go;
The trees and houses smaller grow;
Last, round the woody turn we sing:
Good-bye, good-bye, to everything!