Farm School – Finally!

Reading the recent Spring issue of Small Farm Canada, I came upon an article that brought my buried hope to the surface.  Down in Fergus, Ontario, Grade 11 students are getting credits in Sustainable Farming.  It is called the Food School Farm and it’s located close enough to the high school that students can walk over and get to work.  They are learning to grow and cook food that’s in season and they are also learning how to build greenhouses and repair machinery.   Let’s hope this takes off all over the country!  Way to go Centre Wellington District High School!

http://foodschool.ca/

 

Be True Farm Spring 2013

 

 

Last Fire for Maple Syrup Season 2013.

 

My helpers.

Seedlings waiting for warm up.

As we clean pails and close up the shack this weekend, we look at our shelf of syrup and try to be content with our work.  Always, we want more.  But now it is on to the next.  Finishing winter projects and finding a place for all the seedlings while they wait, like us, for the spring warm up.

 

Time to start peppers and wire up the Maple Shack.

Time to start peppers!  Soon the house will be taken over and morphed into a greenhouse.  Our kind neighbour has offered his greenhouse and leftover seeds so we will have a wonderful assortment of peppers this year.  Some have names like: Monet.  Yum. We will have to grow those Hungarian ones again too.  Those plants were very productive last year.  Tomato plants are up.  Now it’s time to baby them.  This where I ransack the house looking for items that will boost up the trays to the light.  Usually the kids toy bins work the best.  And this year we have even more lego bins – perfect!  While I am at work, the boys are watering my baby plants and working to get the road to the maple shack open.  It is almost my favourite time of year.  The smell of maple sap boiling is delectable and the caring of these tiny green plants a reminder of the new season quickly approaching.  If you can visit a maple syrup operation this year and plant some seeds,  it’s a great way to acknowledge the end of winter.

Spring is coming!

Spring will come!

Looking through last year’s pictures I found this one and now I really do believe those little leeks and basil WILL have somewhere to grow in just a few months.  I like the winter but sometimes it is comparable to when you are feeling ill.  One can’t quite remember what it is like to feel well again.  I even planted some Tomato seeds today just cause I can’t resist.  Sammy and I had fun getting our hands dirty while the snowbanks loom.  To those who are shivering in the sun today look forward just a little…

Happy New Year from Be True Farm.

2013 will the year of many posts…I hope. We are excited about many things to come on the farm. We are hoping to add Bees, more great herbs, some Apple Trees, Strawberries, Asparagus and make more Maple Syrup of course. I am also curious to see if my HUGELKULTURE experiment worked with the rhubarb. Already the urge to start seeds is here. I might have convinced my family to let our wonderful dog Sunny have puppies too. She is such a good dog….it would be so sad not to have one of her pups. This way our other dog Babe can train up the new pup too. She did such a great job with Sunny. Well…cheers to all that help support us and our farming endeavours. Have a great year everyone!

Quiet Time.

I know…it has been a while.  Trying to keep up with NANOWRIMO (national novel writing month), I have been writing – just not here.  We are resting up and completing other necessary projects put off by the busy garden season.  Thoughts about next year are a stirring though and as always one thinks of how shall we improve things?  But right now, as the holiday season is quickly approaching, I think what is more important is to enjoy the quiet time.  At first I reject the dark but now I am liking it.  It means that I sleep in a little rather than waking at 5am with the birds.  It means that at night I am drinking my tea earlier and hopefully tapping on the keyboard before I read a little and go to sleep.  This time of year I don’t feel that I need to race outside.  The chickens and turkeys are not in a hurry to go out anymore and the wood stove does not need feeding right away because it isn’t that cold out.  So I am going to continue to enjoy the quiet time and not worry so much about keeping up with things.  The blog can wait but the relaxing can’t! Enjoy the quiet time fellow farmers.  Rest, Read,  and the planning can wait until 2013.

August and Everything After…on the farm

This album by the Counting Crows always reminds me of a road trip I took in University.  It was my first year and my first semester and I was missing my high school gals.  So we organized a trip to Montreal and they picked me up in Sudbury (which was not on the way at all as Mel knows quite well).  On this trip I sat in the back seat and Jack and I listened to this album pretty much the whole way.  When August rolls around I always think of this Album and I am even more happy to have those friends close to my soul.  This weekend Jack is coming up to the farm and I can’t wait!  She is already on her way and in a few hours she will be in my kitchen making it smell wonderful.  Recently, I had to write down how many years I have known her (passport) and I was stunned to write down 27 years.  Friends like that don’t grow on trees.  Thanks for the memories Soul Sistas.  Can’t wait to see you all in the fall again.  Maybe soon, I might need all of you on the farm again…