the fair & fencing

This is the face of a one year old, but you can see what he'll look like when he's an old man.

Helping dada fix our gate fence post that someone hit about a year ago. 

Sad because he thought the hole was for him to climb in 

What am I going to do the first time Morgan has to wear shoes, due to cold or wet weather? 

On Saturday we headed down to the big city of Courtenay B.C for the Comox Valley Exhibition
http://www.cvex.ca/
It was the first time I had been there since I was about 10, it was fun to experience with children. Can't wait for our Quadra Island Fall Fair coming up in a few weeks.

Some prize winning hay 

I was hurried away from the sheep herding by the sound of tractors 

Ok, they are impressive 

He could not get enough of the tractors with lots of Oh, Oh "insert tractor noises". 

Hello Texal Ram nose I see you but I don't have any COB 

this girl is getting her flock ready to be judged 

Youngest tractor drivers 

having fun on the stage with a basket of plums 

Lyra's first carnival ride 

If anyone on Quadra has a lot of fruit these guys travel
Check out their website http://www.pressingmatter.ca/
Maybe something you could sell at the Local FOOD Market
LocalFOODmarket

My childhood flashing before my eyes, repeat with hunters and jumpers. 

These calves would like to know who's idea this fair was

garlic

Like always we have been busy with the farm and working on finishing our house. This past weekend Noah helped a friend slaughter chickens, we picked about five gallons of blackberries, made jam, pie, blackberry vanilla shrub, froze some. Made pesto, bread, and harvested and threshed some of our wheat. The only pictures that where on my camera where these ones. That means I was working more than photographing, or working photographing, either or.
I also have been organizing this Local Food Market running October- April at the Quadra Legion. I've been putting up posters and I have yet to write a press release for the Discovery Islander (look for it in the D.I before the Fall Fair). I'm also going to be at the Fall Fair with a Local Food Market Booth so come and visit me and sign up for a monthly newsletter. It will let you know what kinds of food you can look forward or reserve a monthly table or just bring me some icecream:)

About a month ago we harvested our garlic. Yum, heres to a healthful winter.

"MOM.... I'm making raspberry jam in my mouthI

Over the last few months we've been having a great time enjoying raising children and just scaling back  on our farm. I also updated my photography website and have starting booking again. You can view my page at http://www.pennyapplephotography.com
Sometime we even go the beach in the evening. We have time to crawl around in the shade with Morgan or jump on the trampoline with Lyra. We have our young children for such a short time and we're going to just soak it all in and when we are old they will say... my parents are nuts!

Morgan sits on a back drop of dirt co flowers eating watermelon

Over the last month Lyra and I prepared for the market doing various crafts which we sold today. It was fun to see her so excited and having a good time. We sold out of our pesto pizza's before 10am and   I loved watching Lyra give her pitch on the bath salts and have people smell the lavender sugar.  

Some of our market wares.

Sometimes I think of this blog and will take a photo thinking I'll post all about it. Sometimes I even write the whole thing in my head.  Here are some of the photos I have taken over the past few months. That have collected with mini captions on what they hold. 

The garden about a month ago, sage was great for our bees. We are pulling the garlic tomorrow.
Sadly without a cow the deer have moved right in. It's pretty discouraging, but we are finding food all over the place these days and it's just more letting go. We are getting few raspberries and are enjoying them, everyone. 

 In April - Lyra had her first garden this year, this was her first ever harvest about two months ago. We sat down and ate them all. YUM! 

In March -  she needed to make a flag for the garden in,  It reads "Lyra Grows the Good Food".

In April- We journeyed all the way down island to get our bees from  Moody Apiaries

A heavenly apiary image for you. The bees are very healthy and a good mix of italian and carniolan

Here is the youngest beekeeper bringing our bees to their hive. 

In April and May Morgan was so busy "helping" in the garden that we didn't have to do much:)
Or we didn't get much done one or the other. 

And this would follow. 

A beautiful harvest from our friend Paul's garden. I love heritage strawberries. Not one of them made it to the freezer or jam. Each was enjoyed on it's own. We also went down to Royston and picked about 50lbs at Ash Berry Farms. Those somehow made it to jam and the freezer. I think it's because I froze them all the night I got home. What strawberries??? 

The stress was to great the day we cut our cheese. I just couldn't bring my camera. But it worked out great.
We enjoyed a good swiss style dinner of potatoes and cheese, with a salad from the garden. Thanks to Edith for the photo and caring so well for our aged cheese. Maybe more cheese making when the milk flows again one day.

Say Cheese Yes Please

This is the cheese in my own house 

This is the cheese in it's native home 

 in her own home making cheese with her daughters
here is a link to their website.
http://www.quellehof.ch/index.php?page=leute

Last week a something of a ,dream come true, for me happened.  It was up there in my life with singing at Carnegie Hall. The excitement for me was making cheese, no ordinary cream cheese, feta, cottage. This is an aged cheese, something my friend Emily and I had been experimenting with over a year ago with mixed ,not always, successful results.  With questions like, what is it supposed to look like, taste like, feel like? We were always asking. Ordering ever single cheese book at the library didn't answer those questions for us. Then we both had babies. End of that cheese story. My friend Edith is from Switzerland (she makes the best bread) and she sent me a blog a while back about this cheese course you can take up in the alps where they make cheese over real fires all summer long with cows feasting on fresh grass and wild flowers. Amazing I know. Here is the link to the photo story she sent:
http://fxcuisine.com/Default.asp?language=2&Display=201&resolution=low

I told her one day I want to go there with her and take this course. Last time she was back home she connected with a friend from her town who has worked on the apls for the summer and she showed her how to make this cheese. Edith came back home and showed me how to make this same cheese. This may sound simple but it's a big deal to me. Thank you so much Edith!  Back when Emily and I where experimenting  I called Little Qualicum Cheese Works and tried to get in their factory just to see what the curd was supposed to look like. She said due to government regulations they couldn't let me in but I should go to Switzerland, because that is what she did.  So last week in my own kitchen Edith took me ,in a way, and taught me so much. We are both learning and are just in the wee beginning stages but thanks to Edith I learned a great many things.  Using video footage that her son took, we worked our way through our first batch of cheese  Here are a few things I learned. The milk has to breath, never cool below 10 degees, how to slowly cut the curd, how to slowly turn the curd, what the curd feel like before you cut, what the curd should look like, what the curd should feel like after you raise the temp, what it should feel like, hold like, how to time, when to go slow and when you can move the curd.  I could use the word curd again. I hope the cheese we make tastes at least something like the one we where trying to make. Amazing raw milk cheese from a biodynamic farm. Even the smallest bit added to an omelet brought the omelet to new levels.  I was so consetrationg on making cheese I didn't get to a good photos of us in the kitchen but I'm sure there is more cheese making to come. Thanks to Edith and Thomas, here are the links to the videos that we learned from.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agOofFanNF4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sT8qFkolcY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lHP2E0vB5Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoaHuee-ZGM

I think this was the last cutting stage 

 My daughter learning what the curd should feel like, yes we let her put her hand in there and feel.

 I had to attach this video Edith took of her son getting milk across the street for their morning coffee. Won't that be loverly.

Moments

First day working in the garden with Daddy

Over the last few days as I went about I thought about moments of my life, just little ones. Here they are not in any kind of order. As my life is. 

- It could smell like sweet breast milk on the cracks of my babies dirt covered fingers as he reaches for my mouth while nursing as if he where saying "aren't I the world and everything in it". 

- An unpleasant surprise of finding something soaked in pee an old shirt a cloth diaper that should have made it to the diaper pail and  forgotten, hopefully, outside. Unlucky in the laundry basket four days old. 

-That feeling of scrubbing porridge stuck to the side of the pan. I forgot to soak in the morning as we rushed outside to the sunny day.

- Mixing dirt for starts I'm pouring in cups of soured curd that has sat in glass jars outside beside green house for months it smells like sweet yogurt cheese. I almost want to try eating it as I stir it in with the warm dirt, food for plants.

- Cutting onions starting to charmalize in butter and salt, stir, stir. One arm holding 25lbs of infant  that is my sore arm by the end of the day every day, must remember to change sides. Every so often he lends over to look and me and smile. Food yes, very exciting. 

-Loads and loads of laundry washed and hung on the line to dry, cracking stiff carharts, towels that are starchy. Realizing that the laundry basket is full of toilet paper to refill the shelf.

-Eggs cracking in the bowl, so many eggs and piles of shells that make little leaning towers in little puddles of clear whites that turn to cement if you don't remember to clean them up right away. 

-Mostly joy that fills me right up to the top. 

If you find something while I have the camera it gets a picture. 

If you are a living thing while I have the camera you get a picture. Etc. 

The newest addition to The Farm are three ducks. Who are working hard to de-slug the garden. They are very tame and travel around the yard in a chicken tractor. They give us two eggs a day and are so fun to watch splash about in their bath tub. I take the girls out once a day and let them roam the yard. Chasing them away from the garden if they get to close to my starts.  Three laying hens left to make room for new beaks to feed. We are hoping to grow some of our own feed for our chickens and ducks on our half acre. 

A pile of eggs washed by Lyra. 

killing the cow

Thank you to Reo, Sacha, Hugh and Liam for all helping out with slaughtering.
Lyra put it best as Noah pulled out the liver she said,  Oh YUM, look at that nice big liver for Morgan. My babies never sleep so good as when they get liver for dinner.
I am looking for to cooking up our nice tender beef over the summer. Usually we slaughter in the fall so it's a nice treat.   I am so looking forward to summer cooking.

Paul gave us some spinach starts the other day.  We have  been late getting seeds in the ground this year, but are blessed with hundreds of voulenteers. I love finding them everywhere.  I've been planting them out evening bit of time in the morning and evening that I can get. Thank you heirlooms seeds. 

Another gift of kale, so good I just had to get a photo. This was the day we ate eggs for hard boiled breakfast, kale frittata dinner and custard for dessert. The next day I drove around gifting eggs. 

My little stander chatting with Sonora 

The sheep have been moved down to their posh summer home on the loop with an ocean view and plenty of fresh grass, as Lyra shows the grass is  good enough for bare feet running.