Nearing the end...

Well, it's been a long time. A lot has happened!

Gavin and Angela left the farm, the biggest picnic ever was a success with 49 people I didn't know attend, we built a new movable greenhouse, I planted tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, eggplants, tomatillos, and basil in greenhouses, I also planted 16 rows of corn along with both summer and winter squash, spent a day on a farm in east sooke and learned about dairy cows and how to make cheese, keifer, and yogurt in exchange for shoveling tons of wheelbarrows full of cow manure, my brother, Nick, and his friends visited me, had the first and last harvest of my carrots (56 bunches at 8oz each), the pigs became pork, visited my cousins on Lasgueti island, and made the decision to leave the farm!

Yup, that's right...it's time. I've been feeling a bit lonely and isolated the past few months (I'm such a social creature who loves people!). And although I love the farm and the lifestyle I've been living, I think it is time for the next chapter in the life of Natalie Constance Brubaker. It is really hard to leave in the middle of the season, but I have been here a full year. I really miss the landscape of the east coast...and especially the trees that live there. I didn't realize how important pines, dogwoods, maples, tulip poplars, hickories, walnuts, beech, hop hornbeam, and oaks are to me...and that rancid peanut butter smell of the Kentucky coffee tree. The trees have really developed a sense of place for me and I think it is time to return. Not to say that I don't love the douglas furs, cedars, and arbutus trees of the west coast...but it is just not where I belong.

I will be returning to Atlanta the middle of July...but more about that later. Check out my pictures!


Que guapo! How handsome! Greenhouse building.



Pulling the plastic on the greenhouse.



Me and my boys G-vinny (that's his rapper name I gave him) and Coolindell(just cause it's cool) - a good team.



Gavin and Angela (Gavin has issues with the sun...he doesn't normally look like that)



Exactly 49 people showed up to the picnic!



Marika, Holger, and I



The pigs before their big day-o-death.



The pigs finally graduated to pork.



Squash new born



Squash toddler



Squash adolescent



The Three Amigos









The Flirtacious Poppy (makes me weak in the knees!)



Lush Lupin Leaf



Radishes in all their glory


Saturday morning bouquets

Aye de mi!

It's MAY!!!

I can not even begin to express how happy I am that it is May. This means I made it through the winter! And, I can't even begin to express how much I hate January, February, and March. Except for the fact that some really cool people in my life were born in those months. But besides that, I really just can't stand the grayness of January and February. I mean, who really wants to start off a new year, cold? And lonely in a trailer?

The weather is slowly starting to be nice. We finally had two consecutive nice days last week, which was a big deal. The sunshine and rain have been battling it out and it appears as though there is not a single fan hanging out on the rainy bleachers. We are all ready to be dry and warm. Luckily, we are gaining more and more daylight...it now gets dark just before 9 o'clock! It's so wonderful to be able to sit outside or go for a walk after work.

The past couple weeks on the farm I've begun transplanting tomatoes into greenhouses, started my summer squash in pots which will be planted outside sometime this week, also started cucumber and basil seedlings. It has taken all of my might not to just eat the basil starts. They smell like sweet sweet summer and everything good in the world! I've covered almost half of my field in clear plastic to solarize the soil...heat it up for the corn to go in. Corn likes it hot to germinate. Market has started, which is great. This past Saturday we made over $1,000 in 4 hours! I'm starting to learn the names of the regular folks that come to market. It is such an amazing community of vendors and costumers.

Now, my biggest accomplishment as of late (other than the chicken bottom ordeal...which, mind you, I've become a pro at..I can now stick my hand under any chicken booty) is that I biked into town yesterday. That is 12 miles there and back. This is huge! I've been a bit terrified of biking the past few years - no thanks to Dr. Churchward who gave me one word of advice back when I was thinking of starting. His advice: "Don't." "You will get hit." Well thanks! Couldn't wait to start biking after hearing all of his horror stories. But now, here I am. I did it. I don't have a car anymore and I don't exactly want to surrender what little social life I have at the moment. So my only option is the bike and the bus. After, my twelve mile accomplishment I must say I feel quite free. I can go anywhere! And! No extra carbon emission coming out of me (well almost...I am human after all) and no money going towards gas! It's pretty sweet.

The only other thing I can think of that's going on at the moment is development of THE BIGGEST PICNIC EVER!!!!!! I decided that since this will be my first birthday away from my family and friends I need to take charge and make sure my day-o-birth doesn't turn out lame. So I decided to organize the biggest picnic EVER! Like in the world.

Here are the conditions:

1. People must invite AT LEAST one friend.
2. People must invite AT LEAST one stranger.
3. Those invited must follow all of the conditions as well.
4. Everyone must bring their most favorite food and/or drink.
5. BYOU - Bring your own utensils.

And I put out a request for things that would make this the COOLEST picnic ever:

Voluntary displays of musical talent, ebullient men and women on stilts, kites, bubble wands, drums, frisbees, a slip'n slide, balls of all colors and sizes, dancing, kazoos, giant hula hoops, pogo sticks, croquet, costumes (especially gorillas, sumo suits, and anything renaissance), badminton, sparklers, belly dancing, ferrets, a hot air balloon, a marching band, dodge ball, jumping beans, water guns, jump ropes, candy apples, spin art, a cake walk, juggling, cotton candy, harmonicas and banjos, clowns, face painting, mud wrestling, rhythmic gymnasts, henna tattoos, hacky sac, boom boxes with phat beats.

For those of you who aren't familiar with facebook...it is possible to create an event invitation and have it set up so that guests invited can invite other guests and so on. I started out with under 20 guests (all the people I know here) and in one day the guest list was up to 235! Then...482, 584, 1,012, and currently 1,597 people invited - 104 of which have confirmed they are coming. And it's only been 5 days since I made the invite! What have I done?! Is this bad? The picnic isn't until the 25th. And the guest list is exponential. I keep telling myself...it's gonna be in a public park...and so what if hundreds of people want to pic-a-nic on the same day? Eeeee....

The Case of the Broody Hen - Part 1 - Who's the Chicken Now?

The Case of the Broody Hen: Part 2 - Gavin Saves the Day

The Case of the Broody Hen: Part 3 - Easter Egg Hunt Gone Wrong

More Photos!

We've downgraded computers. The current one is a ten year old laptop which makes our highspeed internet work at dial-up speed. This is why I haven't updated my blog in awhile...sigh...patience. Here are some recent photos and I'll write soon!

Amber visits! She's my beautiful kindred spirit with whom I signed a contract to farm with someday. We're thinking somewhere around 2030.


Too bad all my friends get to do when they visit is weed.


Egg Stealing!!!


Total hippies.


Little Pigs - Beginning of November


Big Pigs - End of March - They are gaining a pound a day at this point and will be bacon in about a month.


We recently moved the pigs to the new piece of property adjacent to the farm. It was about time the pigs had a bit more space to roam around...and they are very good at tearing up weeds and roots and things...which makes less work for the farm when they plan to grow things over there. It was the hardest thing trying to get the pigs into the trailer to move them. They were too busy eating weeds on the path to the trailer to care about the buckets of food waiting for them in the trailer. Obviously, Marika was getting desperate and tried pushing them...and they didn't budge. Finally, after an hour we got them in.


Road Trip!


The pigs in their new grassy home with Mama Marika.


I call this "Thwartation of Spring" - A couple of weeks ago we had several days of snow/rain/sleet/sunshine/hail. It was miserably gross, cold, and wet.


A couple of weekends ago we went on a hike to Mystic Beach where there is a beautiful waterfall right on the beach.


Here, Colin was burning holes in black plastic to plant strawberries in. The strawberries are ever-bearing...meaning they produce strawberries all summer and will last for about 3 years. The black plastic helps prevent weeds and heats the ground up. We ended up planting 1,400 strawberry plants!


Farmer Colin


I went to a dance party last weekend where I won the limbo contest! I think this photo was taken just before I fell...judging by my ankle.

Photo Time

I got to cut off Colin's pony-tail. I've always wanted to do that!


Spring flowers!



Rat nest in the sofa with potato peels, squash seeds, and walnuts. Gavin and Angela had been reading on that sofa moments before.



Now it's here.



Now it's over there!



Got it! My job was to make sure it didn't get out.



Sucka!



Cars seem to kill rats better than us. And "trailer shakin" is our new favorite adjective on the farm.



Strawberry the rooster prefers this spot to watch over his ladies.



Tomato seeds on the heat table under the grow light...is this cheating?



The tomato seed didn't feel its job was done yet.



And the surprise visitor is Mikey Holmes! Just came to help me weed for a day...you know.

Tomato Transplanting

So far we have started around 800 tomato plants which will eventually take up the majority of our greenhouse space (we have 6 of them). After germinating the seeds in wet paper towels they were transplanted into rows in 6x4in trays. Once they were pinky size we transplanted them into 4 inch pots (4x4). Needless to say, 800 plants took forever! Several days worth of work. But we made it enjoyable with warm tea, a space heater in the potting shed, good music, and lots of laughs. We finally finished today...but only to start more tomato seeds for seedlings to sell at market. Ahhhh!!!

This past Saturday, Gavin, Colin, and I did our last Seedy Saturday in Cobble Hill (a little ways up the island) and made $700...on seeds! This is nothing compared to the Victoria Seedy Sat. where we made $3,000. That's 1,000 packages! And guess who packaged all those seeds!

What else...last week we planted Warba potatoes. Just so you know...you don't grow potatoes from seed...you actually grow them from another potato, called the "mother" potato. I'm sure you have all seen potatoes with "eyes" on them which could potentially produce long leafy shoots! We could grow potatoes from ones we harvested last season, but this practice has the potential for building up disease in the potatoes (not totally sure how and why...would be interesting to learn). So we get our seed potatoes from and organic supplier in Pemberton, BC (known for being good seed potato farming...not as much potential for disease there or something).

We also direct seeded (meaning you don't start them in trays and transplant them) peas and broad beans (fava beans)!

Mmm...today, I thinned the my carrots seedlings so that there would be about an inch between them. I also weeded them a bit. Carrots are very finicky in that they can't tolerate weeds very well. It is very helpful to plant radishes in between the carrot rows to take up space where weeds would otherwise take root...plus they germinate really fast and are out before the carrots get too big. I also spent some time weeding the beds around the trailer. I can't wait to plant flowers there. Once there are things in bloom I'll post some before and after photos.

Let's see...oh! We had a rat killing fest last week. Or I should say, Gavin, Angela, and Colin had a rat catching fest. A couple Saturdays ago we were eating dinner when someone saw a rat dash under the sofa in the living room. Since our traps had been unsuccessful we of course felt the need to trap this one and drown the sucker. Turns out they had been making a nest in our couch with potato peels, squash seeds, walnuts. Tres gross! I'll try to post pictures of the whole ordeal...it pretty much involved tearing the house apart trying to catch them (there ended up being two) and me screaming the whole time. I didn't realize I was that girlie until I saw them run UP the wall! Too much. I decided to take the job of photo documentation. We ended up catching one and drowning it, but the other got away. Gavin has since trapped 4 more, as we are getting a better sense of where they roam.

In the past few days I've had two bad chicken experiences. One, I went to collect the eggs one night, taking a deep breath before entering the coop. As soon as I stepped in I could sense something was not right. A rat scurried away from this dark shadow in the corner. As I got closer, I saw that it was a chicken lying on its side with it's neck curled under. Sure enough the thing was dead. Ugh. That was not something I wanted to deal with before going to bed...or anytime for that matter. Colin was kind enough to come down and remove it, while I screeched and did the squeamish dance (refer to November's post on eggs for the last time I did the squeamish dance). Again, tres gross. I think dealing with dead chickens is at the top of my list of things I don't like to deal with. Followed by live chickens.

The second incident occurred the next night when I stepped out of the movable coop and my foot slipped off the trailer hitch. I landed flat on my face, wrenched my knee, and smashed and entire dozen of eggs. I guess it was bound to happen at some point. I then had to carry the oozing egg carton back up the hill. Tres...you got it...gross.

Well, that's it for now! I have a couple of friends coming to visit. Stay tuned to find out who!

I've stolen the following photos from Colin. Check out his blog too for more photos.

Soil blocking in the greenhouse...me, Marika and Gavin


Seedy Saturday


Keep checking for rat catching photos!

January and February

Ok, I'm back! After a long hiatus I am ready to get blogging again. I've been inspired by our new apprentice, Colin, and his blog which I've added to my links on the left. I recommend checking it out because he's good about taking photos of the day to day life on the farm.

I'm going to give a brief synopsis of the past couple of months along with some photos to catch up.

January
Gavin (our new apprentice) and his girlfriend Angela moved onto the farm, spent a day shoveling chicken manure from a nearby farm to add to our compost (it smells like the flatulents of a big man digesting a block of cheddar cheese - no joke!), fruit tree pruning, pruning of perennial herbs and flowers, direct seeded spinach (soaked the seed overnight first)and carrots in a greenhouse, watered the carrot beds with warm water every morning to aid germination, became the master at pretzel making, Holger taught and Gavin and I how to make sourdough bread, Gavin, Angela and I instituted Sunday night dinners and Wednesday Movie Nights making for a very happy social Natalie. Yay! No more lonely nights knitting by the fire!


February
Seedy Saturdays begin (we travel to different locations on Vancouver Island to sell our seeds), packaged tons more seeds, had an excavator come and pull out huge stumps from the new property and we got to tend and feed huge fires all day! It was amazing to climb on top of huge piles of stumps and push them down into the flames...I didn't realize I am such a pyro!, began harvesting salad again (started out with 2lbs a week and now we are at 5...come the summer we will be harvesting close to 40!), my carrots and spinach germinated!, went to a workshop on biointensive farming on Saltspring Island, had a concert in the farmhouse to celebrate Bob Marley's birthday (Marika's band played along with a couple other folks...Gavin, Angela, and I also performed "No Woman, No Cry" in a bluegrass style to feature my spoon playin...poor guy rolled over in his grave), had a surprise dinner for Gavin's birthday, Colin moved onto the farm, soil blocked lettuce (to eventually be saved for seed), onions, leeks, shallots, mustards, broccoli, kale, peas, fava beans and put them to germinate on a heat tables in a greenhouse, germinated tomato seeds by placing them in wet paper towels in plastic bags on the printer for several days, I killed the sourdough starter by not setting any aside to use for the next round (I was viewed as a failure by all and labeled as a yeast murderer), went to West Palm Beach, Fl for my cousin's wedding and had a big family reunion, came back and seeded flowers in trays to germinate at different temperatures on the heat tables (65-70 degrees), and continued weeding the flower bed next to the trailer. And that's it! Whew! Big month.

Now for the pictures:





Weeding next to the trailer...come spring it will be full of flowers!


Gavin and Angela





Pretzels!


Gordy and Leslie (I knit with Leslie once a week)


Playing the spoons at our farm concert


Tool Sharpening


Gavin's Rat Trapping Extravaganza!!!