One of my lavender beds, the double spiral containing about 50 plants, looks mostly rotted now, more plants in the octagon garden are in danger, but the main ones on the hillside seem to be surviving, more or less. On wet days like this some look dead and brown if the new leaves haven't appeared yet, and seem more vulnerable to rot.

The weeds are growing like mad as is the grass and yet it is too wet to get in the gardens to fend off the encroachment of nature or to mow the lawns, so they grow, and grow, not needing any sun..... unlike the seedlings I started indoors, now looking scrawny and leggy, and some deciding not to poke through at all until they feel some warmth! Looks like it's time to buy some grow lights.

But alas, I must not complain! For one thing, and a significant thing, we are not in danger of being flooded here on We Are One Farm, our little inland knoll at about 400 ft. above sea level, unlike a great portion of the western hemisphere at the moment: Manitoba and the Assiniboine River, the southern US along the Mississippi, southern Quebec & Northern Vermont on the Richilieu River, the country of Columbia facing it's worst natural disaster ever from flooding and rain, and goodness knows where else. And this is all happening on the heels of major tonadoes killing hundreds of folks down in the southern states as well. Weather is an unforgiving master that reminds us we are not in control.

I count my blessings every day that I live where I do, virtually immune, it seems, from most major natural disasters. I trust those will not be "famous last words".

But I must not complain either because it has been said by one of my readers (who is also a dear, but more perky and upbeat, friend) that I complain too much in my blogs, that they feel sort of "bah humbug!" and folks have enough humbug in their own lives and want to be inspired and uplifted!

Hmmm. So I have been pondering this feedback. I don't dispute that there have been some postings that have reflected the less happy side of life for sure....like my dog getting snared (but surviving), a cat missing since January, another cat keeping us up at night, the odd chicken passing on, and of course my annual fears about whether the lavender will survive another season in Nova Scotia.

There are a few things to worry about on the farm for sure, not to mention thoughts of natural disasters afflicting the rest of the world in increasing proportions it seems. Whether the latter is just a matter of perception due to the increased information sharing of the internet I know not. But it is occasionallly overwhelming when one stops to take in the magnitude of what has been happening in the past year or two around the globe.

But the fact is, I am not really complaining, about my life at least. I am merely commenting on the happenings in my daily experience, and offering my observations about the fragility and challenges of it sometimes. Admittedly, not everything is sunshine and roses. Usually somewhere in my blogs, I do try to reflect also on the bright spots, the parts that offer relief, the bits which give me hope. And in fact, in spite of the challenges, which we all face in some form, I am still happy.

And while I never actually created my blogs, at least the farm blog, to "inspire" anyone, I do try to to show that no matter what is happening in our lives, there are always moments of grace and gratitude, that ultimately help us keep going.

Complaining, like worrying, is like a rocking chair...that is, it gives you something to do but doesn't get you anywhere. And I have said before that the surest thing for me to get me out of a funk is to find something to be grateful for. So that said, I set myself a wee challenge, and that is to find 10 things about today's rain that I am grateful for. Here they are:

1. That it is keeping our well filled and the water table high so that we should have a good supply for the drier days of summer to come, both in the well and in the ponds which we use for irrigation if necessary.

2. The perennial herbs other than the lavender, like anise hyssop, lemon balm, catnip, chives and parsley, seem to be enjoying the rain, and leafing out nicely.

3. The colours in the woods take on an extra vibrance in the drizzle and fog, the mat of old leaves and pine needles underfoot and last year's ferns taking on a glossy, leathery reddish-brown, a rich backdrop for the punched-up greens of the new leaves and fresh mosses.

4. The wet rocks along the edges of the pond and gardens reveal deeper colours of red and purple and gold than they do when dry.

5. The feel of the wet and cool droplets on my face during my walk with the dog, which needs to happen rain or shine, sleet or snow, helps refresh me and wake me up from the mid-afternoon drowsies.

6. My moderately wavy hair takes on a kind of casual curliness that I like!

7. The sparse needles of the white pines in springtime each cling to a single droplet of the rain, looking like collections of bejeweled hatpins sparkling along the woods road.

8. The forest fire hazard level should be kept low for a while yet with all the water in the woods.

9. The chill from the dampness prompts us to build one more fire in the wood stove, adding a cosy atmosphere in the house.

10. And the inability to garden in the sodden, squishy ground means I am forced to stay inside and get some writing done!

Whew, I made it! I actually found 10 things good about today's rain! I could even find one more...it was raining so hard that I wasn't bothered by blackflies on my walk! But when it warms up in a couple of days, look out! They'll be back in force, gnawing a leg or an ear off as they did the other day. Oh, but I can't complain. Just don't ask me to find 10 things to be grateful for about blackflies!

It's warming up, but not warm, the frost is coming out of the ground, but it's not quite ready for me to be trampling on it in the gardens, the snow is gone but it almost feels like another storm could be on the way. I should have seeds started in pots as of two weeks ago but I only just picked up seed starter mix the other day. It's still too cold to do any painting outside to spruce up the front porch and mail box post but with the snow gone I'm anxious to get it done. I have a Wwoofer (Willing Worker on Organic Farms) coming to help me for a few days, but not ‘til the end of the month. And I have no workshops or classes on this month.

So I have this feeling of being in limbo almost. Oh, there's always something to do, always. Can anyone say "income tax"? Workshop planning? De-cluttering my office? Sometimes the limbo comes, not just because of not being able to get at a particular task due to some timing factor like weather, but because there are so many potentials on the "to do" list that deciding on which shall take priority is the tough part as they all seem necessary. Sometimes none of the to-dos is very appealing either, and it's a case of which is "screaming loudest"!

Maybe I should go read one of the blogs I wrote a while back on my other web site, Third Eye Soul Journeys, on the power of deciding, and how that frees one up from the stress of such undecided limbo.

In the meantime I am on the lookout for the signs of spring that can lift my spirits. There's a pair or two of ducks down in the pond in the woods that I think are looking to set up housekeeping and have a family, as seems to happen most years, if only I can keep Angus from plunging into the pond to chase them. I fear they will give up and go elsewhere, or worse, he'll find their nest someday and wreak havoc. Maybe we'll have to go back to the leash for times when we're in that area. There's a pair of mallards for sure, and I think also some buffelheads, lovely black and white!

The peepers are back in the pond making a wonderful racket. Of course Angus is snuffling all around the grassy edges looking for the source of those sounds too, pouncing and coming home with muddy paws and a mud ring around his big black nose from digging for moles or whatever he can find.

A bumblebee was buzzing along the woods trail one day about two weeks ago when I had stopped to sit under the older pines at the back. I thought, "I hear a bee!" and there he came, and landed on the ground at my feet to my surprise. "Hello bee," I said, and then he flew off. Just checking in I guess.

Speaking of bees, Edward is pleased to report that two hives are doing well. We did lose one over the winter. He thinks part of the success of the survivors was due to further modifications to his top-bar hives. One of them he'd made from thicker wood which he thought perhaps insulated better, since he decided this winter to not add outside insulating "blankets" and see what nature would do. Of course it wasn't as severe a winter as some, temperature-wise or snow-wise.

The other modification was in the entry holes. Instead of just a hole going straight into the hive, he made a kind of "vestibule" with a piece of wood overlapping so that there was a baffle for any wind and the bees had to fly under the overlapping piece and then turn in. This would be more "predator-proof" too against those rotten "robber bees" or the large black and white hornets.

Edward and I have been pruning shrubs and fruit trees, contemplating layouts for new garden beds in front of last year's addition to the house where we built a pitch or pit for playing "jeu de boules'" or "Petanque", part of my plan to create "ma petite Provence" here on We Are One Farm. Not sure when we'll have the resources and time away from gardens and critters to get to the real Provence, so for now, I'll continue to make my own! Rows of lavender, pots of red geraniums, jeu de boules, some good red wine and some bread and cheese, a sunny day...what more could you ask? Am I anxiously waiting for July? YES!

Don't know if it's a sign of spring, other than the fact that the chickens are getting some outdoor time now, but Red Fox was back harrassing them the other morning...."our bad" as they say, because we'd forgotten to shut them back into the coop the night before, although they were mostly protected by the high wire fence around the coop yard. Must have been a bit chilly with the door open overnight. We were awakened by Angus who barked when he heard the ruckus at the hen house, and we raced down to realize the coop door had been left open, but didn't find anyone missing. So Edward proceeded to feed the gang, and as he finished, sure enough, there was the culprit sauntering back up the driveway, a large and very fluffy red fox. He paused to look straight at us before disappearing down over the hill into the ravine.

And today we saw our neighbour the strawberry farmer on his tractor going up and down the rows with an attachment on the back that spun the straw mulch off the plants and into the spaces between. Things aren't greening up quite as early as last year when we had the mild, dry March, but we're getting there. No buds on my mayflowers in the woods yet and last year they were in bloom in April, but I've heard of some budding down the river where it's a little warmer. And alas, I picked the first tick off Angus yesterday, a small dark one crawling around, which makes me worry it was a deer tick, but am hoping it was just a baby dog tick. It hadn't bitten him yet, so that was good. The vigilance begins! Not all signs of spring are welcome, but I'll keep my eyes open for the ones that are.

Happy Spring to you!

There have been at least three days where the sun has warmed things up so much that a bunch of honey bees vacated their hive and dropped dead on the snow. It's normal, kind of a clearing out of the old, bringing to mind the Monty Python film, "The Holy Grail", where the fellow pushes his cart through the village during the Plague, calling, "Bring out yer dead!" One day I picked up a couple of the bees who were flailing their little legs on the snow and tried to put them back on the wee ledge at the hive opening, but they promptly rolled or crawled to the edge and fell off onto the snow below again. I repeated this futile gesture several times to no avail. Must have been "a good day to die".

Here, in the dead of winter, there have been some other casualties actually. Two of our sweet Barred Rock hens died, inexplicably, 2 weeks apart. Chickens expiring from time to time is not that unusual, sometimes they are victims of a fall, more often perhaps an infection of some kind, but we can usually detect the latter, seeing some signs of weakness or sleepiness or else greenish poop in the weeks before. If we can we then take the ill chicken out of the coop and try to medicate it with antibiotics, but often it is too late by the time symptoms are obvious.

But these two deaths were odd. Each time we discovered the hen, stiff as a board, simply lying in it's laying box, when the morning before she had been up running around and acting just like all the other hens. An unfortunate mystery. We are always sad to lose our sweet hens.

On the upside, this was also the month when, to my delight, one morning I went in to the coop to retrieve eggs and discovered a tiny perfect egg, about half the size of the other eggs, obviously the first one laid by one of the two "baby" black hens who were themselves only hatched in September! They have continued to produce regularly. These must be what are marketed as "peewee" eggs that I see from time to time at a local independent grocer.

There was a potentially fatal incident with Angus at the beginning of the month that kind of knocked the stuffing out of me. We'd been out for our usual romp through the woods, me sticking to the trail and Angus doing his usual zig zag back and forth across it, easily tripling the distance I travelled in a straight line. There are a LOT of smells out there of course, along with a multitude of hare and fox tracks, and one of them caught his Beagle-like nose and led him off across the woods, indifferent to my calls.

It happens, more often than I'd like, but normally he's back in 20 minutes or less. So I continued back to the house, calling along the way, then finally went in and got the boots and coat off and went about my tasks. Normally I would stick my head out the door every few minutes and yell, "ANGUS!! COME!!" and go back in. This time I "hollered" out the upstairs window that overlooks the back field and woods beyond, so my voice would carry far. I paused to listen to see if I could hear him yipping in pursuit of a hare but instead I heard a plaintive bark and whine in response to my call. Angus never responds vocally to my calls, he just shows up eventually. I called again and got the same. Something was wrong.

Worried, I raced down the two flights of stairs to the basement, bundled up in layers and boots again and flew out the door, stopping frequently to call for a response as I could not hear him over the crunch of my boots on the snow and branches. His yelps led me through thick forest with no trail downhill to the east, across the neighbouring land, finally to a stream at the bottom across which I could see his wagging tail. He looked fine!

I said, "What's the matter Angus, you don't want to cross a little stream??" And then I noticed that he couldn't, he was caught by something, I thought it was an old barbed fence wire caught in his collar.

I said, "Stay buddy, I'm coming!" and clambered over the rocks in the stream. I was SO happy to see him until I saw that it was not a fence wire he was caught on. His neck was in a snare! And each tug he made was pulling it tighter.

I had never seen a snare before, didn't know how they worked, but as I had no tools with me I was in a panic. My first apparent option was to unwrap the old stiff wire that was attaching the snare to the tree, which I did, fingers fumbling in the cold and my heart racing both from fear and from the run through the woods. I still didn't know how the snare worked and thought at least if I could get Angus unhooked from the tree I could get him back to the house with the snare still around his neck and then cut it.

There was no room to get a finger between his neck and the wire although Angus was still breathing alright at that point. Then I saw the simple clasp with two holes where the cable looped through and back. I was able to get just enough slack to shift it and loosen the cable. He was free! I hugged him and cried with relief.

I then led him back to the house, climbing through what seemed to be a much denser, darker and more obstructed landscape than the one I had run through on my way down. Going back I must have found a different route...well, there was no "route", but the way was clogged with dead, fallen trees blocking us at every turn, forcing us to climb, over and under and around, until we finally emerged, tired from the stress and uphill trek, in our own back field.

All the while Angus seemed oblivious to the danger he had faced, a few more tugs or any panic and he would have been choked. But no, I had to keep reining him in on the way home, pulling him back from smelling every track and mark on the way.

Now's the dilemma of keeping him safe. It is so nice for him to have the freedom to roam the property and to get a good run in, but not when it leads him beyond our borders. He has been off the leash often since then but has been quite obstinate lately, one day not returning for almost two hours then coming back looking decidedly "guilty". So the past few days he's been back on the leash, a challenge for both of us as he wants to GO and needs the exercise of running, but there's no way in the icy snow on the trail that I can get up enough speed and sure footing to give him a brisk pace.

And despite the shock of that day's events with Angus, things actually got worse when our sweet cat Smudge failed to return at suppertime. He had never been out over night before nor did we want him to be, so at 10 pm we were out, flashlights in hand, Angus on a leash, calling and searcing the field and driveways and road in newly falling snow. Any trails he might have made that day were quickly being covered up. That was on January 6, over three weeks ago, and we haven't seen him since.

It has been a sad time for me, especially not knowing if he has been suffering somewhere. He could have been taken by an eagle or coyote, possibly a fox as there are many tracks around lately. Or hit by a car. Since I placed an ad in the local paper I've had three calls, one from a woman who had a very similar cat hanging around her back yard, but it was not Smudge. The second call was about a dead black and white cat seen on the roadside not far from here. Alas it was not Smudge either and brought mixed feelings, first that someone else was suffering a loss that day, second, relief that it was not Smudge and third, that discomfort of still not knowing. And it was a horrible sight.

The most recent call came the night before last, minutes before midnight as we were crawling into bed. The people were so kind, they had seen a cat seeming to fit the description for several nights, coming to their porch and staying to eat and they said he was there just then as they called and we could come over to check it out. It was a bit of a roundabout drive, but perhaps not too distant if Smudge had made a big trek across country through the forest, poerhaps being chased by something. So we got dressed again, and left just after midnight, flashlight and a bowl of smelly cat food in hand. We got our hopes up, but again, it was not Smudgie.

It is however heartening to know there are people who care enough, not even knowing you, to call with leads regarding your missing pet. And then stay up past midnight to meet you and to help you out. The kindness of strangers.

From among my Soul Coaching® community I also had an offer of assistance, this one from an "animal communicator" who spoke with me by phone to help me connect with Smudge in spirit, living or dead. As far as she could tell, he was still alive but trapped somewhere. The best guess from the images she was receiving was the old barn on the hill at the strawberry farm across the road from us. I called the owners and checked it out, but no luck. And it was wide open, many exits easily available. I even went up in the loft in case he had climbed high and couldn't get down, but there was no sign of him. There were, however, other animal tracks in and out of the building into the woods.

So, we keep the porch light on at night and hold out a faint hope that he did get stuck somewhere but that there is an ample supply of mice to eat and hay to stay warm in and that at some point he might make it back home to us. Another "nor-easter" is on the way, promising 20-30 centimeters of snow tomorrow, just in time for Groundhog Day.  Stay safe, Smudge, if you're still out there, stay safe.

Happy New Year!

January 1st dawned clear and bright over We Are One Farm, and was lovely “sweater weather” for a few hours midday as we went to a friend’s cottage for a bit of a new year’s levee. On their south-facing porch we sat basking in the sun until some wind picked up and it was time to go in for a hot bowl of beef bourgignon...mmmm.

Our first real snow had only arrived last Monday, the 27th of December, and by our return from the visit this afternoon much had melted away leaving the tops of the lavenders bare but the roots well covered. Already it feels quite different from last winter although I can’t honestly remember how it was at the end of 2009, only that by Jan 3rd 2010 our hill was blanketed by a blizzard and I have the pictures to prove it! 

For those who have wondered what this place looks like I am finally including a link to a Web Shots photo album so you may see the lavender fields and Angus the Wonder Dog on our woods walk, among other bits and pieces. It’s not comprehensive coverage but is what I decided to include from 2010, a very busy year that wasn’t as well documented as some. 

It was so mild today that Edward let the chickens out of the coop to roam around, they might even have been able to uncover some grass under the snow as it melted. Edward had to rearrange the coop yet again the other day. He had organized it so that the fat Silver Lace Wyandott (sometimes known as Mr. Big Butt) was the “man” for the Barred Rock gang of hens (Button, one no-name girl, and the two young black ones who seem to be hens). It has become very clear that the lovely looking white-with-black-spots bird which was born of Button this fall is indeed another rooster...so beautiful, but so disappointing, as roosters tend to have a shorter shelf life on this farm, usually because they start getting nasty and beating each other up.

However the latest reconfiguration of coop dividers was due to Mr. Big Butt’s incessant boinking of the hens, to the extent that they had begun hiding for most of the day in their nesting boxes, not running around and scratching for food as they should be. So now the two white-and-black boys, plus the young red one which was hatched this fall and is also a rooster, are segregated in one part, while the year-old Rhode Island Red rooster gets to head the household of all the girls now, 4 reds, and 4 Barred Rocks. Edward says the Red is a “sensitive New Age rooster”. We can only hope. I hate seeing the back feathers worn off the hens, especially when the winter cold is coming! Sometimes I feel I should be knitting little sweater vests!

Of course whether the winter cold is coming may be debatable. I read that there were record highs of 10C in parts of Ontario today and we read 10 degrees or more on the thermometer at the cottage today as well. The sun was a nice change from the many cloudy, very windy and very rainy days there have been throughout November and December. I have worried a bit about the lavender getting too soggy with the ground so saturated, but it is beyond my control. We built friable, raised beds, the rows running downhill for drainage, and the rest is up to Mother Nature.

I am so especially grateful for our mild weather here, the more so as I read continuing reports of extreme weather disasters the world over. 2010 has been a year of fires, droughts, floods and wind storms and thankfully we have been spared any damage or difficulty in our little hamlet. 

The floods in Pakistan, the US, China, Eastern Europe, fires in Australia and extreme floods in Queensland happening right now, tornadoes in the US south, extremes of heat then cold and snow in Europe...what a crazy weather year. And even around our own province and Atlantic region there have been repeated floods, storm surges, and wind damage, just in December alone. I guess our biggest potential danger on our little hilltop is wind. As Edward says, “if we get flooded out here then the rest of the area is in reeeeallly bad shape!”

On this first day of January 2011 I stop to say a few prayers for all those people the world over and close to home who are suffering losses, of home, of livelihood, of life and well-being, all due to weather and natural disasters, and remind myself how we are not the masters of the universe, or even our own backyards, by any stretch. 

May you be blessed in this year with peace, prosperity, good health and temperate weather.

It's a Thursday evening, dark and chilly outside, cosy by the fire in the wood stove inside. One cat purrs next to me on the arm of my chair, two more are curled up across the room in separate chairs, one is, I think, upstairs in the bedroom. Charlie cat, of course, is out for his night duty, more or less. He still makes himself known at the bedroom window a couple of times through the night, usually once before midnight, then if it's pretty cold, probably around 2:30 or so, after which he may, if we're lucky, sleep inside ‘til 6 or 6:30 am, then meow to get out again for that pre-dawn hunting time....always interrupting that one last sleep cycle at precisely the wrong time. If we're not lucky, he'll be in and out once or twice more before that.

Oh and of course there's Edward, also not stirring, uncharacteristically. He came home after we had a quick bite at the local pub and immediately crashed on the sofa. Must've been some tough ones on the massage table today! Right now he is across from me, lying on his side, cheek smushed against the padded arm of the sofa. His feet are being kept warm by the tail of Angus The Wonder Dog, who now lies snoring, his cheek smushed up on the opposite arm. What a pair. It's a lovely sight with the lights low and the fire crackling away. My chai is simmering on the stove. Life is good!

As for what's been happening on the farm since...uh, September 10th and my last posting, well, we ended up with just the four baby chicks, none of the abandoned eggs hatched. The "kids" were so cute (they are still, sort of, but not like when they were tiny). There is one who is clearly a Rhode Island Red, and three who look like they've split the characteristics of the Plymouth Barred Rock...two are almost pure black, no markings, and the third is mostly white with some black bits, but not at all the usual all-over black-and-white or grey-and-white checks of the Barred Rock.

Button, the Barred Rock mom who hatched three, is the more assertive of the two mother hens, and wasted no time in training them all to be great foragers like her...marching the tiny chicks off to start digging and scratching in the ground. Once they were big enough to be moved back to the main coop with the others, the babies were first out the door in the morning, and while the weather stayed warm enough for foraging in the grass for plants and bugs and worms, these little guys shunned the conventional chicken feed that is always on offer. "No thanks! I'm diggin' for my OWN!" They are such good learners. By day three of their existence, Little Red Hen's blond baby was lying beside her, already taking a dust bath in the dirt, wiggling side to side and flapping it's tiny wings. So sweet.

I finally pruned back the last of the lavender shrubs in the first week of November. I was thankful for the long warm fall and the small extra harvest but was nervous about waiting so long to prune in case a sudden hard frost came soon after. Fortunately they had plenty of time to recover, although apparently they might have been at risk of drowning rather than freezing, since we were inundated with days of exceptionally heavy rain as soon as I had left town on the 5th for a week-long intensive course.

And as for the bees from the "bee tree" which were rescued by Edward following the tree breaking apart in Hurrican Earl, well, they seem not to have thrived in their new digs. Too much upheaval and possibly having their comb inserted rather hastily, they had a hard time getting the lay of the hive. Or, they may have been raided by the dreaded Robber Bees!!

Yes, the robber bees...not a new species (that I know of) but rather a phenomenon (I think). At some point between my last posting and the first of November, my husband was checking on "Hive #1", which had been, two weeks prior, absolutely loaded with honey. As it was late in the season and because Edward is really beekeeping for the bees and not for the honey, he chose not to remove any, leaving it for the bees to feed on through the winter.

When he checked the hive he found, to his horror, virtually NO honey, the combs were there, intact, but empty, literally sucked dry, and the number of bees had been decimated! Apparently it is not uncommon in autumn, when pollen is harder to find and bees seeking to shore up supplies smell honey in another hive. It's survival of the fittest! One of the things you can do in fall is to reduce the size of the hive opening or openings in order to help the residents defend their hive more easily. So he went to the other hives and did this too after this attack, closing them down to a single hole in each, only one "bee space" (yes, that's part of the lingo!) wide.

You can read more about these "home invasions" of the insect world here

One of the things Edward does as do many beekeepers is make a "bee tea" to supplement their natural feeding, especially in the fall, or when a hive is stressed, or when the beekeeper takes honey stores from the hive. It is basically a sugar syrup, but for their nutrition and to attract them he steeps in it some flowers from their favourite herbs, like lavender, chamomile and anise hyssop.

As he would replenish hives he remarked that it seemed the bees knew he was coming, they could smell the bee tea and come to greet him! And indeed it seemed more started hanging around outside the house near the kitchen, the more often he steeped this on the stove.

So one day he was simmering the fragrant syrup and said, "I'm gonna turn on the kitchen exhaust fan over the stove and see if any bees come up to the house." I stood by the doors to the deck outside the kitchen and watched, jaw dropping, as within about 6 seconds a honey bee came up the hill and flew by the window directly towards the fan exhaust. They are amazing little creatures. Hopefully next summer we will be able to enjoy some of their honey. For now we just hope they survive another winter, snug in their hives. I hope they are cosy enough tonight.

Post Script...the next day: It is Friday now, miserably wet with a freezing rain/ice pellet mix. I will have to look up, someday, the difference between freezing rain, hail and ice pellets. And what about sleet? What IS that?

Anyway, it appears there WERE some mice stirring last night, although not in our house that we know of. I had inadvertently left the bucket with some some chicken feed in it outside the coop last night after I spent 20 minutes herding chickens. I normally just wait until the chooks find their own way to the coop at dusk, but lately there have been a couple difficult cases, who linger underneath the coop (it's up a foot or two off the ground) and then once night falls, won't go in unless you can move them or catch them. Once the pitch dark of a November night falls it is hard to find them, and cold, and one doesn't want to be crawling around a muddy chicken yard. 

Although I had asked Angus to "stay!", he decided that he could legitimately chase chickens under the guise of herding them to help me. He has actually been somewhat effective at this on occasion although I did not want him to help this time. One had gotten outside the fence, so I opened the gate wide and was moving around the far side to shoosh her back along the fence then in through the gate when Angus went into gear. He did not, to my relief, try to attack, but actually went and pressed his muzzle on her back to hold her in place, quite gently. I picked her up and put her in the coop but she fell limp on her side. I thought he'd given her a heart attack! I tried to prop her up on the roost, but she wouldn't grab on. "Oh dear!" I thought, as I left for a moment and went around the other side to close one of the hatches to keep the rest of the gang from heading back out.

However once I went back in I saw that she had gotten up and disappeared across the floor and was hiding out behind the nesting boxes. All was well! Meanwhile in the fuss I forgot all about the bucket of chicken "layer mash" that I'd left outside. But it was a welcome surprise to someone at least...when Edward went to feed the chickens this morning he discovered three deer mice in the bucket staring up at him. I take it they were nice and plump by then but perhaps a little stressed. He released them some distance away. Happy US Thanksgiving, little mice!

We decided about a day after the last blog to proceed with our party, post-Earl, provided there was electricty to run water from the well. As it turned out, we fared quite well in Earl, little damage other than old dead trees being pushed over or broken off, a few sunflowers knocked over and uprooted and some bell pepper plants flattened. We had a brief power outage later in the day after the storm had already passed. Otherwise the only effect the storm had on our party plans was that some folks chose to stay home to clean up the messes they had experienced, from an ancient huge apple tree being knocked down, to simply having to get work done that couldn't be accomplished Saturday when the power was out in the city.

So a more intimate gathering occurred than originally planned, but as a friend wisely observed, I didn't let my expectations get in the way of enjoying what was a really great evening, playing a game of petanque (boules) on our new official pitch, and dining all around an extended table together until late.

We tried to eat as "local" and fresh as possible, with tomatoes, peppers, onions, summer squash, eggplant, carrots, basil and parsely straight from our own garden, garlic from a farm five minutes up the road, greens from Rumtopf Farm 10 minutes away, sausages from Kurt Wentzell's Wooly Mountain Farm a little further down the river, breads from local french bakers, blueberries from Lunenburg County Winery's farm, beer from two micro-breweries in Halifax, just an hour away. Oh and mussels from Indian Point Mussel Farm. Butter and cream were from Nova Scotian dairies. And our own plum sauce from our own trees on the sausages!

Some things like the lemon and chick peas and balsamic vinegar in the salad, puff pastry from the Superstore and wine from Argentina and France were our few concessions. Not to mention salt and pepper!

And in late-breaking farm news, Button, our eldest Barred Rock hen, has hatched three new chicks, one of whom is blonde and obviously is from one of the Rhode Island Red's eggs. They all started cramming into her box to lay after she started sitting! She abandoned two eggs which were pretty cold when I found them, and another chick had died at birth. A couple of nights ago night Edward hurriedly built them their own little enclosure to let Button raise her chicks without any harrassment from the hens. The chicks are so sweet. Meanwhile, a little red hen who had been sitting on a pile of perhaps 8 eggs, no doubt being surrogate for some other hens too, hatched just one yesterday and left the nesting box. Her baby is beautiful and very blonde and they are now ensconced in the pen with Button and her chicks. When I discovered she'd hatched I gathered the remaining eggs and brought them in to see if we could hatch any under a heating blanket as we did last year. But they were feeling pretty cool already when I found them, so we'll see. We don't have a proper incubator. Maybe we'll have a little miracle or two.

In the garden a few rows of lavender are blooming again quite a bit now due to my early pruning and continued warm weather. The main varieties are Hidcote and the types I got from the nursery out in Winnipeg, namely Maillette and Buena Vista, sort of greyish buds but very nicely fragranced. So back to the field I go I guess, hoping to make up a bit for my under-harvesting earlier in the summer. Then on to shearing all 600+ plants back before the weather cools too much. And only 6 more farmer's markets to go!

Oh and one more result of Hurricane Earl....Edward's "Bee Tree", a large dead tree by the driveway where he had discovered bees flying in and out of three or more entrances over the summer, got knocked over by the winds and split open, with the hive being exposed. So Edward decided to see what he could do to capitalize on these apparent honey bees.

First he climbed up to look into their hive and found honey comb running down the length of the tree trunk, so he started to pull it out. I wish I had see this as he said he wiggled the sides free and begand lifting it out, hand over hand...over hand, probably bringing up 4 feet of honey comb! He found more later below that!

He cut the tree trunk into manageble chunks with the chain saw and then moved them down with the tractor to where our other hives are located. He set up one of his spare hives (the Warre Vertical Top Bar Hive for you beekeepers out there), and stuffed some pieces of comb inside. Then he left the bees to see if they could find it. Later as it was getting dark we saw a big cluster of bees on the front of the hive. Edward scooped them into a box and dumped them inside the hive with their comb, and so far it seems they are taking to it, flying in and out of the hive doing what bees do, shopping for pollen, making honey and hopefully more bees!! The bees are loving the sunflowers right now, and the goldenrod. And perhaps they'll get one more taste of lavender for the season. Mmmmmmm.

I have been planning my "harvest party" for Labour Day weekend, a substitute for my "evening in Provence" theme which would have occurred during the July lavender harvest had I not been totally overwhelmed by both the amount of lavender and the ongoing renovations at our house, (renos now complete, except for a few things we are finishing ourselves.)

But alas, as I dreamed of a late summer evening feasting on veggies fresh picked in the garden, sunflowers with their happy faces towering high by the shed as the sun is about to set and a chance to appreciate surviving one of the busiest summers ever, we are now considering cancelling the party due to the approach of Hurricane Earl, currently a Category 4 storm making it's way up the east coast, not making landfall until it hits Nova Scotia on Saturday.

The latest track shows it smack dab up the centre of the province and if you zoom in on the map, the line goes, oh, a couple miles west of us through neighbouring Baker's Settlement. But it could change. Earlier today it shifted from minutes east of us to an hour further west, then back eastward again. Forecasts 4 days ahead can be as much as 200 miles off, but so far they seem to think this "guidance" is good. Oh boy. Well, last year we prepared for "Bill" who didn't materialize as forecast, but I am not smug enough to think they are always mistaken.

So I suspect the Saturday Farmer's Market in Bridgewater, which I have been attending all summer with my lavender wares and fresh cut flowers, will not happen, as the storm is expected to move through during the mid-day. I guess the lovely sunflowers I had hoped to sell will be but a memory. I should at least take pictures of them, maybe I can sell photos of sunflowers!

In other news, we had a bumper crop of lavender in this hot dry spring and early summer, but alas it overwhelmed me with the speed and quantity at which it arrived, bursting into bloom so fast I only harvested perhaps a sixth of what I had. I harvest for the buds as they retain more scent and keep thie color if still in bud and not opened into blossom. I was not prepared and dithered too long about trying to hire anyone. There's not enough money in lavender at the scale I am producing so I was loathe to hire help. So next year's plan is to assemble a team in advance who will work for a meal and wine to help me cut and bundle!

On the upside, the bees loved the open lavender blossoms, and each plant that remained uncut was vibrating with bees of all kinds, our honey bees, wild honey bees, various "bumble" bees. The bee hives, by the way, have gone from one to four due to Edward splitting them in antiicipation of swarming and indeed by catching a swarm or two. They appear very vigorous as they prepare lots of honey for winter. You can smell an almost burnt sugar fragrance as you pass the hives right now! We haven't taken any honey over the summer, trying to get them well established this year. Too bad, with all the lavender pollen they got I bet the honey would have been fabulous.

Much wildlife has been apparent on the farm and in the woods....saw a coyote one day while walking Angus. Fortunately Angus didn't see him as he'd wandered off in the opposite direction. Coyote saw me first I think as I just caught a glimpse as he turned off the trail back into the bush and silently disappeared.

There have been a number of snakes around, small green garden snakes, black ones, longer brown ones. I no longer fear them as there are said to be no poisonous ones in Nova Scotia, though I think they could still give you a little bite. Just last week Edward found a large brown one in a wood pile, who didn't really move as Edward looked at him. Then just the other day he came across his skin, white, fragile and totally intact, from eye holes to tip of tail! Amazing.

There have been painted turtles in the pond in the woods, a wee one was hanging out in one spot next to the trail for a while but has disappeared. Many green and gold leopard frogs are in the grass around the garden and by the woods pond too. Edward finds tiny salamanders as he moves piles of building materials.

There are rabbits (snowshoe hares really) that give Angus chase; a skunk that gave Angus STINK (right between the eyes last week)!! Porcupines that gave Angus quills right in the mouth! Ow. Baby porcupines that have given Smudge and Spirit, the young cats, tiny quills in their muzzles too. There's a fox that stole a rooster, leaving a pile of red feathers that trailed into the woods....(the roosters are no longer free-ranging needless to say!!) and then the fox had the audacity to return a week later and sit right in the middle of the driveway, in broad daylight, licking it's fur in front of the chicken coop, as Edward approached. "Uh, oh hi, who are you?" Angus finally noticed and gave chase.

The farmer's market has been a fun experience. I love meeting people there each week, telling them about lavender, the farm, even about Soul Coaching, my other love (besides Edward and the critters of course!) The market is not my path to riches although I do manage to sell a number of lavender products each week, sometimes eye pillows and neck pillows, some weeks it's herbs, like my Herbes de Provence (or Herbes de Newcombville!) and culinary lavender, and sometimes the fresh cut flowers do really well. Sunflowers are popular and it is such a disappointment to me that this week, which may be my best potential harvest of sunflowers, will be a bust due to the hurricane coming. I expect the market will be rained or hurricaned out! And then the remaining flowers in the garden will be flattened.

Oh well, that's farmin' for ya! Sure glad I am not a grain famer in Saskatchewan this year. I just heard that four of the past five years have been disasters for them, thisyear battered by rain and floods and hail. Wheat prices are going up due to scarcity. Russia has had a bad year, drought and fires, and is not exporting any wheat. People say, "Oh boy, global warming will make Atlantic Canada and other northern parts of Canada able to grow stuff that we couldn't before due to a longer growing season."

I kinda thought that myself for a bit until I heard a fellow on CBC this morning saying that is simplistic and likely false, as the land as you go north in this country is not arable, full of rocks, tundra etc. I am misquoting perhaps but that's the gist. It is not just heat that makes for good growing conditions obviously. And of course, if we get warmer and other southerly places get even hotter, then there is the issue of droughts, desertification, and then having shortages in places which would normally grow food in warmer climes. There is no panacea.

Anyway that's a long enough ramble, and not very positive perhaps. While folks who have time to vacation have been enjoying the hot summer and warm beaches this year, the same lovely weather, albeit great for my lavender, has meant watering more in the garden, more insect pests, and now the balmy coastal waters are making it ripe to bring hurricanes up to our shores. No happy medium it seems.

Batten down the hatches, perhaps I'll give a post mortem next week!

I started seeds indoors last weekend for tomatoes, broccoli (already up), eggplant, peppers, three kinds of basil, some other herbs and some flowers. Unfortunately I didn't obtain my Stella Natura Biodynamic calendar until this week so did not know that the stars were not entirely in my favour, except for the herbs....it was a "leaf" day when I planted. However now that I have it I am all set to plant flower seeds this Saturday for my cut flower garden, as it will be a "flower" day!

I do not totally understand or even know that much about biodynamic farming, a concept or philosophy promoted originally by Rudolf Steiner (creator of Waldorf Schools) and augmented by the work of Maria Thun. It recommends making the farm a closed loop of production, a self-contained system and also incorporates the movements of the moon and the positions of the constellations.

Ideally a biodynamic farm would have a variety, even a small one, of animals, so there would be ruminants to eat weeds and grass, create manure for fertilizer, and other animals who would graze the land in succession, like cows first eating grass, chickens eating other things left behind, and pigs coming in to turn up the sod and eat what the others didn't. The land gets naturally tilled and fertilized, waste gets composted and crops get rotated so that no outside sources of fertilizer is required. And there seems to be a certain amount of magic attached, or rather, a sense of the Divine really, based in the idea of the energy of the land and the beings on it being inter-connected.

"Preparations" are also used, for example, a cow's horn full of the manure of the cow could be buried in the garden for winter and then the composted contents spread in spring to infuse the whole area with its energy. When planting seeds, a farmer could put each seed in her mouth before planting (a little hard with tiny ones like for herbs and carrots!) to infuse it with the energetic connection that will make that food the healthiest for her to consume. A cross of manure or compost placed in a certain location on the farm where there are energy lines could impart its nutrients miraculously throughout the property rather than having to be spread on every bed of plants.

It is a system, if it can even be called that, that involves respect for the natural earth energies as well as the natural inter-conenctedness of all beings and life cycles. It respects and honours the local ecosystems. Edward and I had the pleasure and honour of being able to join a group to visit and tour the farm of Charles Hubbard in Colchester County, Nova Scotia, a couple of years ago, where biodynamics is practiced at a high level, with all those factors mentioned above, along with things like building pyramid-shaped greenhouses and even open pyramids of copper tubing to conduct energy to the plants beneath. Apparently everything grows amazingly well on this land. It is a sacred space.

Last year we planted by the calendar and moon phases whenever possible and certainly seeds sprouted really really quicky and grew well! If only we hadn't had a June and July full of rain and fog and cloud we might have had a stellar crop of tomatoes along with the other things that did grow well...actually most things grew well, just didn't have enough sun time to ripen as they should have. This was our advisory to build a bigger greenhouse this year, just in case, and to extend our season.
So rumour has it we're in for hot and dry this summer. Certainly it is still dry, relatively speaking, which while good for lavender, may not be good for the well if we have to water everything else.

And while we don't have livestock other than the chickens, we will use what we can on the land to self-fertilize. We have the chicken poop pile, along with our own kitchen scrap compost, augmented by the buckets of coffee grounds we've been bringing home all winter from the Wildwood Cafe in Bridgewater. We plan to harvest some seaweed and make seaweed tea and integrate some into the beds. (I guess technically that would not be biodynamic unless we actually lived at the seashore...)

We have had our property doused for energy lines, not specifically for where to put a cross of manure to send its energies outward across the property, but we have incorporated some gardens using sacred geometry, some spirals (more or less based on the Golden Mean), an octagonal garden containing a pentagram (star) and we built a medicine wheel garden, honouring the four directions, which has a cross of paths running north south and east west, near to an energy vortex. So we will see what all that brings to our land this year! We built those gardens last year to reclaim an area we had called "the Wasteland", a former logging yard that was hard-scrabble, compacted land.

If you wish to learn more about biodynamics, other than Googling it, you can order the Stella Natura calendar by contacting info@stellanatura.com or looking at   the Stella Natura website. Or if you are in the Bridgewater area you might be able to still buy one at Helping Nature Heal.
For information on the work of biodynamic farmer Charles Hubbard and to obtain his book, check out http://www.sacredstewardship.net

Tending the land is, as Charles' web site name suggests, sacred stewardship. Edward and I certainly regard our role here on this property as a stewardship role. When I bemoan the abuse that this piece of land had formerly suffered the message comes through that that is precisely why we are here now, not to inherit something already perfect, but to steward this place back to natural health and vibrancy and a sense of sacredness. We do what we can and we honour and enjoy this creative opportunity to regenerate both the land and ourselves in the process.

March is rarely a pleasant month in these parts, at least in my recollection. Usually there is rain, freezing rain, another good snowfall or two and some more rain, but here we are three weeks in, with mostly bare ground, the frost pushing out of the earth in sunny spots, some tulips peeking through, even an odd crocus blooming next to the house (transplanted by some squirrel I suspect...I know I didn't put it there!)

People along Rt. 325 have been raking the roadside gravel from their front lawns that had been pushed over by the snow plows. We need to do that ourselves on our own lawn....there's a great pile of our newly-resurfaced gravel driveway resting just below where we park our cars, scraped over by my very thorough tractor-man Edward. He's pretty skilled on our little red Massey-Ferguson, but there's a fine line between plowing low enough to avoid packing the snow into ice on the driveway and gouging out the surface itself. This year we had much less ice. ‘Nuff said.

Speaking of which, we were well into April last year I think before the longer driveway was ice-free and driveable. This has been a benign winter in comparison, and much better for the lavender so far. It looks much healthier, last year's plantings seem to be holding fast, some still have slightly green leaves at the bottom instead of dessicated grey, which suggests it was not as cold. And while temperatures are supposed to go down again this week to more normal average readings, below freezing at night, overall it seems we have survived the season much better (knock wood) and may have a robust harvest yet!

In that vein, that is, the lavender department, I have enlisted help. Feeling somewhat overwhelmed last year by the extent of the garden chores required to maintain all our plantings in good health, I received the "guidance" one day, if you will, that "You don't need to do it all yourself". I think that message may have come after I had already broken down and called on Beau, former gardener to the stars, to come and pull weeds in my lavender patch last Spring. At that point I needed no guidance other than the frightful observation that the weeds between the rows were higher than the lavender shrubs on the raised beds. HELP!

Beau to the rescue, at a fee I can only presume was far less than what he must have charged the movie stars he gardened for in Los Angeles before moving, with his lovely partner, to the backwoods of Lunenburg County of all places. Digging the weeds out here was no doubt somewhat beneath his expertise and might have been mind-numbing, had I not joined him in the work and engaged in some delightfully eclectic conversations. The work was, however, body-numbing, but we "got ‘er done" as they say, rows cleared, weed-matted and mulched to see if we could deter their regrowth. So far so good.

But the recent decision I have made regarding the lavender and delegating tasks was to seek out the help of a seamstress to help create the lavender-stuffed products I sell. I have realized that my passion and perhaps forte is in the garden, being outdoors tending, even weeding, selecting the varieties, harvesting and drying. And I do like deciding what products I wish to make with the dried buds and choosing fabrics for each.

But as the winter passed and I was out of eye pillows and had planned for months to make flax and lavender neck pillows and was getting no closer to the dust-covered sewing machine upstairs, I remembered the advice, "You don't have to do it all yourself..." So I got the name of a good seamstress who has done work for an artist friend for years sewing tiny clothes for sculptural puppets, and emailed her about doing or recommending someone to sew my products as piecework, hopefully affordably enough that there would still be some compensation for me for growing all this lavender and stuffing them!

We had an enthusiastic meeting, she is doing up a batch of samples for me now and is skilled at costing it all out so I can conceivably deal with this like it's a real business...wow! I have had to realize that I am not making these products as a personal expression of a craft, but as a way to use the lavender I grow, which is more truly my craft. So I can relinquish control of the actual sewing to someone else. Turns out she's an expert, with far more experience than I'd imagined and is keen to be involved! It has been an incredibly freeing experience, lifting a huge weight off my mind.

My block had been in having to pay for the help, as in, "how can I afford this if I am not selling much?" But if it is done more efficiently, both more quickly and with less waste, and frees me up for other kinds of work, then presumably it's well worth it, especially if we can then make more, of higher quality and sell more. I know, it's not rocket science, but sometimes it takes me a while to "let go".

I am anticipating a much better harvest this year after the milder winter and drier weather right now.The famer's almanac with the grey hair, that font of folksy wisdom that I call "my husband", has been forecasting a "hot dry summer" since Groundhog Day, drawing on some kind of magical foresight gleaned from his upbringing on a northern Alberta homestead. Probably been reading the wattles on the chickens again.

Speaking of which, I entered the coop the other day to find to my horror, a blood-spattered water dispenser on the roosters' side, although anyone with more than one rooster in a pen would probably roll their eyes. ‘Seems two of them got into a little spat on their own and wattles and combs were picked and pecked. The large Silver Lace Wyandott was not a pretty sight, his lovely neck and shoulders stained a dirty red. No doubt he was trying to overthrow the authority of Sargeant Major, the previous head of the coop, whose extensive wattles are now scarred. It will soon be time to ship the rooster gang off to the butcher. Roosters are sort of useless as a group. One is good for keeping an eye on the hens in the yard, not to mention making new ones, but too many are a nuisance, prone to scrapping, or wearing the feathers off the backs of the hens if allowed to intermingle.

We "did in" our own roosters the last two times. It's do-able, but hard on the nerves. We did it with ceremony, smudging and giving thanks, but at the end we still felt as if we had been beaten ourselves, and that's only doing about seven at one go. Perhaps if we had a team of people to be more production-line about it, it might be less stressful. Maybe.

But this year we decided to delegate in this department too, and hand the duties off to a pro. When we factor in the high cost of having fed them all winter on organic feed we figure an extra $3 or so per bird is worth relieving us of the task. Now I know why free-range organic chickens cost so much. And bigger producers must be getting a better deal on feed! Now if we just have mainly hens left we can perhaps recoup the cost of their feed from egg sales. We only have about four and a half dozen per week with 8-10 laying.

Tonight I am actually simmering some "rooster soup" on the stove, featuring broth from the last two roosters we had in the freezer (Rhode Island Reds I think) which were fricasseed recently. These fellows had free-ranged all last summer, and while deliciously wholesome and "happy chickens" (as several of my friends would say who now only eat "happy meat"), they were extremely lean with skin like leather. All that running around, hormone-free and not bred for heavy breast development like those Franken-bird "Meat Kings", produces a tougher bird. (You can't grow a Meat King past a certain time as they will literally fall over from over-development of the breast. That's the price of masses of boneless chicken breasts in restaurants and supermarkets.)

No, in our roosters, under all those fluffy feathers was a small-breasted 4 or 5-pounder, with stewing the most successful culinary option. A little wine, some "herbes de Provence" concocted from the herbs grown in our garden, and mmmmmmm. Dee-lish. That was the fricasee. The bits and bones I didn't stew were turned into the broth that is the base for tonight's soup, carrots, turnip, onions, garlic, celery, white beans and rice pasta shells. It's a cure-all, I am hoping, for the nasty Spring cold my hubby is suffering from, the first I've witnessed in the past four years.

Well, time to stir the soup, and then closer to dark, shut the hens back in the coop who have been out to play today in the field. They have been enjoying the sunshine lately, digging and scratching in the dirt, taking dust baths and likely appreciating some distance from the nine noisy roosters who each think he's Pavarotti in a crow-off.

Nine roosters in the freezer is not enough to get us through a year by any means, but it's a start. More and more we work to be aware of where our food comes from and how it was raised. It's very challenging and I know everyone can't have their own chicken coop or even vegetable garden, but conscious consumerism is a good start.

For your edification I propose two films, which we had already seen but which have just been presented publicly this weekend for free in Mahone Bay (not far from here) at a mini film festival sponsored by the Council of Canadians. One film is "Food Inc.", which is still in the new releases at your video store, a captivating look at where our "farm fresh" food mostly comes from, and where it can, with conscious effort, come from. It features author Michael Pollan (of "The Ominivore's Dilemma") among others.

The other film is a 20-minute amazingly concise take on how we function as a consumer culture, called "The Story of Stuff". We found it on the internet a couple of years ago and have been recommending it since then. You can get a free download of that short film here .

Happy Spring! Lush may your garden grow, loud may your roosters crow!

The sunny day was glorious, and mild enough to let the hens out of the coop for some fresh air and sunshine, and to have a wee bit of bare ground to scratch in. The "girls" were happy with the weather but I was apprehensive, hoping the thaw would be short-lived and that more snow would soon follow.

What, me crazy? No, just a desperate would-be lavender farmer praying that the freeze-thaw-rain-freeze cycle of last winter, which killed so many of my lavenders, would not be repeated. Happily, yesterday was a snowy day, a bit miserable with constant winds and gusts up to 70 kph, but enough drifting snow piled up to almost cover up all the lavender plants again.

Looks like we're in for a cold snap all week too, not that I need -17C wind chills, but at least I know the ground won't thaw for a while yet. So far winter has been pretty good, not severely cold but below freezing, consistent snow cover to protect the plants, no ice storms to damage trees, and not too windy.

Angus the dog has been loving the snow again and this year we're all having much more fun than last because he can now be left off the leash (and his "snow anchor") to romp freely, dig in the snow piles, eat the snow piles and lead us for happy walks down to the frozen pond in the woods. He leaps and bounds for joy when you say "Yes, we'll go to the pond!" and he stops and looks back to make sure we are following on the way. He has become a true companion, keeping me exercised as we navigate the narrow trail of our previous footprints down the logging road and back uphill again once or twice a day.

Every so often Angus will dash off the trail into the trees, tracking the hares no doubt, whose paw prints criss-cross the main path, back and forth and sometimes around in circles! Only twice have I caught sight of a snowshoe hare this season, when their white winter coat blends into the snow. One silently traversed the trail as I was pausing to listen to "Grandfather Hemlock" (my spirit tree), seemingly unaware that Angus was snuffling only moments behind him. And Angus was seemingly unaware how close he really was to Mr. Hare!

One warmer day as we passed the beehives on our way to the woods I noticed a number of bees on the surrounding snow, some still moving weakly, most dead. They were coming out one by one from the hole in the hive, flying a foot or so and then dropping. While it's normal for some to leave the hive on a warm day in winter, to relieve their waste for instance, I was concerned that something was wrong when it seemed so many lay dead on the ground. Not being the beekeeper in the family, however, I discovered later that sometimes it's just "a good day to die", and out they go. Overall the numbers were pretty small when you think of how many throusands inhabit a hive! It being our first year with bees we are just hoping we have done enough to help them make it through winter unscathed.

Speaking of the tiniest critters on the farm, Edward introduced me to some even tinier inhabitants of the woods one day when he said, "Look at the snow fleas!" At first I was simply incredulous thinking, "What is he trying to pull on me now?" But as I saw the little specks about the size of ground pepper start to jump around I got a bit panicked thinking we'd be covered in bites but for our multiple layers of warm clothing. As we trudged through deep snow under the pines, each footprint seemed filled with these leaping specks!

To my relief, when I Googled "snow fleas" upon our return home, I learned they were not actually fleas at all, and may not even be insects according to scientific classification, but are some other form of arthropod known commonly as a Springtail. To my relief they don't bite humans but do eat decaying organic matter, pollen, bacteria and other things, possibly consuming algaes that are in the snow under the trees. If that's not already more than you needed to know you can Google "snow fleas" for yourself!

What else is there to report? A front wheel fell of the tractor while Edward was plowing last week, necessitating a new hub and rim and fortunately no hospital visits! We're up to about 5 eggs a day from the hens if anyone wants some, all organic feed! And the fire in the wood stove burns hot on this bitter night, inducing great relaxation amongst Angus and the five cats who live in the house with us. The moon is full and bright and all is well on We Are One Farm.

Oh and as for this week's Groundhog Day, we're waiting to see if the one we have named Newcombville Nick (the groundhog we see poking his head out of a hole in the hillside across from the firehall) will see his shadow or not on Tuesday. Will it be six more weeks of Winter? Or only 45 days until Spring? Supposed to be sunny all week!

Oh and if you are interested in my Soul Coaching practice, please check out my Third Eye Soul Journeys site which also has it's own blog with a perhaps more "spiritual" and self-help bent, and also a newsletter subscription link.

Happy Imbolc!

What a change this week from June and July....all that rain and fog and mist and drizzle and cloud cover that went on for weeks, not to mention unseasonably cool temperatures several degrees below normal, has passed and the overhead fan now tries to push the warm air around in the bedroom. Hot and steamy.

In the past two months we didn't actually get more rainfall than normal but the continuous cloud and fog held the moisture on the plants, the cool temperatures stalled growth of the veggies we'd transplanted, and the darkness made everyone cranky and listless. The lavender was getting "Septoria Lavandulae," aka, Lavender Leaf Spot, and had the damp and dark continued a week or two longer I fear there would have been some more die-off from wilted leaves. 

And now Edward's words of mid-July echo in my ears, "Just wait, in a few more weeks you'll be wishing it were raining!!"  Well, almost. I can survive for the next two days of our now 5-day heat wave of 30C + temperatures for the rain that is to follow. I think the well will hold out that long for our cooling showers and more importantly, keeping the plants watered.

Although we might get a little more than just rain in a week's time -- the first named hurricane in the Atlantic this season may be headed our way. "Bill" is forecast to track west and north of Bermuda, and depending how it either bounces off the coast of the eastern seabord or gets diverted by the warm Gulf Stream slightly northeasterly, we may be in line for a hit ourselves. I have been following the hurricane season forecasts for a number of years now, after having sailed on some Windjammer cruises in the Caribbean and hearing of disasters affecting the homes of favourite crewmen (not to mention a Windjammer ship that was lost, including the crew, in a hurricane off Honduras). I followed, with apprehension, the approach of Hurricane Juan which was a rare and direct hit on Nova Scotia in 2003.

I remember reading the forecasts from the National Hurricane Centre in the US and going, "Jeez, why aren't they saying anything about this on the radio? It looks like it's going to be a direct hit and all they are forecasting is rain and winds!!" I set about to "batten down the hatches" as it were, although my home at the time was already 20 miles inland from the sea, and in a sheltered hollow, but nevertheless tied down the barbeque and put away potted plants and all outside furniture and garden tools. The forecast landing point was to be Mahone Bay, a town 20 minutes away but as I waited and watched until after midnight in the eerie quiet, the storm had moved northeast, landing squarely on our capital, Halifax, notably wiping out all the trees in lovely Point Pleasant Park at the entrance to Halifax Harbour, and causing much damage elsewhere.

Windy nights on our exposed hilltop farm, far as we may be from the sea, are quite frightening for me as the house shudders and shakes, our large, sharply pitched roof feeling a bit like a big sail. There won't be much sleep for me if Bill gets too close after the weekend.

And now as I type a little later than when I began this piece, it is 3:14 a.m. We have been roused from our sleep rather painfully, not by any pre-hurricane winds, not by the sticky heat, but by my cat Charles ("Charles" as opposed to "Charlie" when I am not happy with him).  Although a very cute and often sweet cat, Charles has made it painfully clear  in the last week that, like it or not, he's going out at night, and he will howl and pick at the door mercilessly until we get the picture. So, out he has been several nights lately. His habit, when he is done mousing around, or just wanting a snack, is to climb up onto the roof of the gallery from the patio fence, and meow at our bedroom window until we unhook the screen and let him in.

Normally I just throw some cat food in a bowl and roll back into bed. Not tonight. At about 2:45, as I woke to let him in, I thought I was having a "scent hallucination" in my grogginess.......sniff sniff, sniff sniff...."what the hell is that??" It was some strange blend of eye-watering onions and gasoline, maybe some rotten onions in that basket  on the counter or something? I noticed as I followed Charles downstairs to the kitchen it got stronger as I approached the counter by which Charles waited for a snack.

I put out his food and sniffed around the room, in the fridge, in the cupboard, the basement stairs...was there an oil leak?? Sniff sniff, sniff sniff,  what could it be? Charles ate his fishy goop and I went back upstairs with a knot in my face wondering if I was losing my mind. I made a stop in the bathroom and then Edward awoke to the sound of Coco the cat barfing nearby. "What  is that smell???" he moaned as he went to clean up the cat barf.

"Oh good, I thought I was losing my marbles," I said, thinking maybe I was having some kind of peri-menopausal hormonal moment with my olfactory nerves in overdrive. Sniff sniff, sniff sniff, we both went around the house, Edward heading toward the basement to check out what might have been that fuel leak. And then, as Charlie was on his heels I grabbed him, thinking, "don't go down there Charlie, " and then it dawned on me....

...maybe it was... Charlie. Yup. We'd been skunked.

So here I sit at 3:29 a.m. Tuesday morning, with Charles thrown back outside as my eyes still water after a quick shower, and Edward off in the car to Bridgewater to the 24-hour grocery to pick up some bottles of 3% hydrogen peroxide, some extra baking soda, and some lemony-fresh dishwashing detergent. We were all out of peroxide, which we usually keep to clean cuts & scrapes, we had a bit of soda, and I feared the "natural" dishwashing liquid we use might not be up to the task to deodorizing Charles.To my relief, I had saved an email from my sister-in-law back when we first got our dog Angus, in which she kindly shared her skunk remedy recipe taken from an article in the newspaper. Apparently this concoction creates a chemical reaction which neutralizes the parts of the skunk smell that make it linger. She says it works. I think "Great...but have you ever tired to bathe a cat ??"

Edward returns with the critical ingredients. "Charlie's way down the lane near the woods now," he says, "I saw him on my way up."  So we decide, "back to bed",  until he hollers to come back in.

It's now late Tuesday morning, another scorcher of a day already, and all de-skunking is complete. Charles appeared about 8:30 and we put our plan into action with military precision, ingredients and towels laid out in the bathroom, Edward got the rubber gloves and we set to work, one holding, the other shampooing. Charlie (my love and sympathy for him gradually returning) was a very good boy, a little howling after a few minutes of being doused and scrubbed, but all in all a good kitty. I wrapped him in a dry towel as he shivered from the bath and eventually he found his way to a sunny window sill to warm up and dry off with much licking of fur. We think it has worked as planned, although a visitor who hasn't been immersed in the odour may beg to differ. I'll have to see how it is after being outside awhile.

The only trouble is, with today's heat we have shut down the house, windows and curtains, after the night's cooling temperatures, trying to keep the day's heat out. So it is stuffy. And possibly slightly skunky. I hope not. It's not easy to sell lavender in a place that smells like skunk.

Now that it is drivable we are awaiting the arrival of the fellows from Bernard Mailman's, the contractors who will re-surface much of our driveway with "Class A" gravel, filling in that low spot as well as building-up and smoothing out the ruts that have eroded over the years from heavy rains and bad drainage, as well as the parking area in front of the gallery which hadn't been addressed since we backfilled after building the gallery addition. Necessary but unglamorous landscaping.

I am also waiting, with bated breath, to see how much of the lavender survived the winter. We never did get the rows mulched as we had considerable snow fall before the ground was frozen and for the most part it never left. Often there is a "January Thaw" but not this year, so I counted on that snowcover to be the protection needed for the plants. The older Munsteads, hardy to Zone 4, seem to have weathered it. I am not so optimistic about the Grossos and Twickle Purples, both Zone 5 hardy (we are 5b here I believe). The Twickles, (a type of lavandula angustifolia as are the Munsteads) that were planted last year grew well and quickly, but this spring I find many of them have split down the middle and are weak and/or dead. 

Such splitting is a problem generally with older plants which have not been kept pruned to a compact shape, but these were only first year plants and I had pruned them. So I am left wondering what happened.  I am also waiting for them to green up. A few of them, and a few Grossos (one of the "french" type hybrids, l. X Intermedia that are raised primarily for oil production and for their sturdy long stems for bouquets) are just starting to show a leaf or two of green near the bottom while the Munsteads are much further ahead. These do however bloom a lot later than the others as well. Patience is required, and restraint, as I am inclined to write them off as dead and yank them to re-plant. A mistake I have made before, and regretted upon seeing good roots and one little green leaf starting to emerge.

But right now my lovely lavender farm looks like a field of regimented porcupines, sitting very still. So I watch and I wait.

Besides this waiting and watching and wondering I am also weeding, something else that wasn't done well in the fall as I became overwhelmed with the number of chores here while wearing my multiple hats as lavender farmer, grower of our own food, producer of a (small) variety of products using dried lavender buds, photographer/gallery owner and now emerging Soul Coach ®, trying to get that part of my vocation off the ground. If you are interested in learning about that aspect of what I do please look at my new web site, Third Eye Soul Journeys.

I think I am going to have to get some help this year to keep on top of it, I am finally resigned to accepting, sort of, the idea that I do not have to do it all myself. Oh I know I have Edward, my wonderful husband, who is farm-hand extraordinaire, having been raised in this crazy lifestyle in a more self-sustaining way and under harsher conditions than I can ever imagine, but he does have his day job still, the one that pays a lot of the bills while all these other enterprises evolve. We're still at the capital investment stage on a lot of fronts! He does as much as he can on the days he's not at his own office, like yesterday, in the rain while I weeded, he moved the chicken coop to the other side of the driveway to a more sheltered place where they could have a better outdoor run now that we have given up on free-ranging them for the time being. 

Yes, I'm afraid we have limited their range quite severely, for two, no, three, reasons: First, we got a dog, Angus, last October, who it seems is still fascinated by little creatures that run around and wants to chase them. He hasn't managed to catch one yet so we're not sure if it's a herding instinct or a hurting instinct and we don't wish to find out. Secondly, the roving gangs did a number on many of my flower beds last fall as they got braver and traveled further from the henhouse. They tossed mulch on the gravel paths and vice versa, impossible to clean up. They are quite intrepid little beings but there always seems to be a ringleader. And third, besides the garden damage, they just roved too far afield this spring as soon as they were allowed out, I shooed them out of the neighbour's yard more than once. They were getting closer to the highway too, only a matter of time before the chickens crossed the road.

Our flock has dwindled to 5 as a result of the autumn rooster cull (tasty but really lean birds!) and a few sad casualties due to un-identified illness through the winter, one of whom was my little favourite, Skippy. Like they say, never name your chickens.

That said, the remaining Gang of Five consists of Sargeant Major, a pompous Speckled Sussex rooster; Number Three, a fluffed-up Barred Rock rooster; Button, a seemingly intelligent and brave Barred Rock hen; and the two Rhode Island Red hens, interchangeably named Little Red and Ginger. They are obviously the "popular" girls in the coop as they have many of their back feathers worn off by the excessive friskiness of the roosters. We think we'll segregate them soon to give them a break, but we had hoped one of them would go broody and hatch some chicks. No luck so far. Floozies the two of them.

The ruby-throated hummingbirds have returned, by the way, practically chattering "hello we're back" as they zoom by us in the garden. Edward got their feeder out just in time and they seem appreciative. 

So life is full and so is this blog post. I sometimes wonder how I got myself into this mode involving so much hard labour and constant attention, but as I work in the garden, blackflies permitting, I know I am indeed in my element. I am sure there will be more to write as summer nears and life speeds up.

Life here on We Are One Farm has been continuously full and active since summer, and since my last entry at the Autumnal Equinox. Poor Gimpy, the injured Barred Rock rooster, finally had to be put down, his good leg having frozen in the opposite direction to the first injured one so that he looked like he was doing the splits. He could no longer move nor feed himself. Poor chicken, it was a sad loss, even though we are in fact raising some chickens for food. As I had written before, he had been a calm and strong presence in his infirmity, a quiet companion and support to a couple of other chickens who’d fallen ill, and an outlet for mothering for me which I seem to need. Gifts come in strange packages indeed.  We still have six hens, five who are laying, and nine roosters, two of whom will survive winter unless we keep putting off the difficult task of doing them in.

In the garden, only some of the lavender rows eventually got covered with sandy gravel mulch after liming and weed-matting the rest of the 320 new plants. I had trouble keeping up by late summer. Weeds were running rampant, perennials had to be cut back, the veggie garden uprooted after we had gleaned as much as we could. There are so many jobs to prepare for winter.

Edward completed the woodshed construction, at least enough to use it. It currently has a tarp over the plywood on the roof where shingles will go next summer, and the vertical boards need to be overlapped with the battens, but it will do for now. Having a proper farm tractor allowed Edward to haul fallen trees from near the driveway, “junk” them up, as they say in these parts, with the chainsaw, then rent a woodsplitter and put up about four and a half cords for the winter. I love having a guy who was raised on a farm where there was no electricity! Talk about self-sufficient and a real can-do attitude. He is an inspiration to me. It all has to get done and he just does it, with ease and grace, no resistance or complaint.

Chores took a backseat for a week while we went off to Alberta to visit Edward’s family, both ancestors and descendants. And some “laterals” too I guess. We could really have used a vacation after the work of the season but perhaps we can find a reprieve in the winter. Family visits can be both rewarding and challenging, depending upon what you have taken with you on your journey from your family of origin and what changes you bring back with you when you return. 

Navigating relationships of any kind, especially long ones of many years or decades, is another test of your ability to find the grace in a given situation.  Sometimes you have learned all sorts of lessons, usually the hard way, and transformed yourself to some degree. Or the opposite, you haven’t perceived your life challenges as lessons at all and become even more entrenched in the way you always were. Sometimes one of you has changed and other hasn’t.

Grace, the guiding hand of Spirit or Universal Consciousness plays an interesting role. Originally it was thought of as “unmerited pardon” or forgiveness from God. That works maybe if you think of God as a singular being meting out rewards and punsihments, which is not my perception. I think of grace as more that moment of Divine insight or awareness of the inherent goodness in life, that spark of finding just the right answer when you need it, the unexpected gift in a situation where you can’t imagine there is a gift. Being “gracious” has that element of gratitude in it, accepting the gift of compliments perhaps, accepting what life is handing you with appreciation. Being graced with talent again suggests a gift of talent. Being graceful is expressing beauty, the beauty inherent in all life, being conscious and appreciative of the gift that is your body.

In our challenging relationships, grace says, “You know, we are all one in this together, despite our differences or perceived differences. We are all here to learn, to grow and ultimately to love. And to know that you are loved.” Finding the grace in each moment when faced with tests of our patience or our understanding of each other, and even finding the love for ourselves, is a gift.

Weather-wise we’ve enjoyed a long and benign autumn season although it is only two-thirds over, but it seems today winter has arrived with a bang. Just when I thought it was safe to have a pre-Christmas open house event in November instead of December this year, for my gallery and for Edward’s clients, a social drop-in for friends, art buyers and colleagues alike, our first snowstorm squelched the best-laid plans.

I had spent weeks getting ready, preparing some reprints of favourite hand-coloured images, making more notecards, sewing dream pillows, sachets and eye pillows for my collection of lavender products, then the past week baking cookies, house-cleaning, shopping for cider and wine & cheese. Our hours by invitation to a fairly extensive list of folks were to be Friday evening from 5-9, and Saturday & Sunday noon until 5. 

Then the forecast came out, “Major winter storm coming to Nova Scotia Friday night,” to start snowing around midnight.  Well, we thought, that means, if it does indeed happen as forecast (which, based on the past summer’s forecast record seemed questionable at least), that people will be more likely to show up Friday night as they’ll expect to be digging out and snowbound on Saturday and even Sunday, depending how long the snow flies.

So we got extra provisions in for Friday, finished decorating and awaited the crowd. “I think it’s going to be a good night”, I said. “Me too,” said Edward. Around 5:20 a couple of Edward’s clients arrived, a man and wife originally from Switzerland. “Are we the first?” they asked, looking around the room. Yes, we told told them, hoping that a few more would arrive soon to create a sense of festivity. After a visit and chat, some hot cider and a few purchases from the lavender table, they departed for another event. They were also the last visitors of the evening.

“I should have known”, I said, “from the way things were at the supermarket this afternoon.You know how crazy people get around here when there’s a winter storm warning, they expect to be stranded for days so everyone panics and floods the Superstore all at once the minute such a forecast comes out! Don’t people keep two or three day’s worth of food at home??” 

So I surmised that even though the snow was not expected to start until around midnight, that everyone was hunkering down, expecting the worst.  I was frustrated and disappointed. I had worked so hard. "What’s wrong with them", I wondered, "they could have come and gone easily before the snow started". As it turned out, the snow started closer to 10 or 10:30 at our place.

Feeling disappointed and somewhat sorry for myself, I opened my box of Denise Linn’s Soul Coaching Oracle Cards, shuffled and spread them out in a fan on the desk. I felt for energy coming off a card, asking the question, “What do I need to know from this?” The card I pulled was “Grace”. I knew immediately that it was indeed apropos. The guidebook with the card deck said, among other things, “Be gracious and understanding with yourself. [....] Kindly honour the reality of others.”   Thanks Denise, right on point as always!

It’s the morning after now and it has dawned bright and clear and absolutely beautiful here with the snow blanket on the ground. There’s hope for the last chance at the open house now with the roads and driveway cleared thanks to Edward’s all-day efforts on the tractor yesterday. And I have had a few more revelations that bring me back to the idea of grace working in my life. 

The past three weeks we have been adapting to having a new member of the family, a dog from the shelter whom we’ve named Angus. He's a German shepherd/collie cross according to the best guess of his origin, although sometimes it seems beagle might be more likely than collie, similar colouring but with a nose that knows no bounds, not to mention that soulful way of looking at you that only a hound dog can do.

We have felt slightly challenged with the new obligation to get up a little earlier every morning, earlier than the chickens need us, to take Angus out to relieve himself. And since we are fairly early-to-bed, we are also out somewhat later at night for this task than we’d like to be. With his super-smeller, living here surrounded by deer and other wildlife, Angus is not ready to be let off the leash, especially at night. There are too many stories of friends’ and neighbours’ dogs who’ve run off after a smell, gone for days sometimes, in one case getting caught in a snare.

So as I have been adapting and bemoaning the intrusion into my normal sleep schedule, I have also been presented with those “moments of grace” that remind me of the gifts that love and kindness, like adopting a shelter dog, can bring in unexpected ways, that is, beyond the affection an animal shows for it’s owner and the affection it is capable of eliciting from them.

Two nights ago, before the snow storm, I took Angus for his before-bed pee run. I had to bundle up in my boots, hat and warm coat, get the leash on and trundle across the lawn when I really wanted to crawl into bed. But as I grumbled gently to myself as Angus nosed around for the right spot, I looked up, and the starlit sky remined me that this was November, the time of the Leonid meteor showers. Maybe I would see a shooting star.

I just kept looking up, surrounded by quiet, and I asked the question, “Will I be a good soul coach, counselor and writer?” And a small shooting star silently moved across the sky, not with any drama, but it appeared when I asked.  I know the Leonids can shower even more than 100 of these per hour, but I didn’t care, that star was for me.

And yesterday, as I again grumbled quietly about having to leave our cosy bed too soon and go out into that first snowfall that I was protesting for ruining my open house, I was once more given that gift of grace upon witnessing Angus’s unfettered glee as he bounded and dove through the drifts, tossing the flakes up off his nose, springing in spirals like Tigger from Winnie-the-Pooh. What joy, what sweetness, what a gift to be out there with that great dog!

And once more this morning, although Edward pulled dog duty to let me sleep in a bit, it was futile. Charlie the cat started howling to be let out, Coco the Siamese started barfing something that disagreed with her sensitive tummy, and then one of them knocked something off the kitchen counter. “No rest for the weary here,” I muttered to myself as I padded down the stairs to view the chaos. 

What I was given instead was another opportunity to experience the joy of being up early with pets, not the cleaning up of the cat barf, mind you, but the chance to look out the window and see Angus once again plowing into the snowbanks with delight as Edward tossed the leather bone toy to him again and again. 

And from the guy who also, moments earlier, had complained to himself about having to go out in the cold so early, another beautiful gift: the look of childlike happiness and innocence on my husband’s face as he played with Angus, taking him back in memory, perhaps, to his own childhood dog who was not unlike Angus in appearance. 

Recognizing these moments, these gifts of the spirit, that manifest in the heart, when you start to doubt that you are blessed; to get the message when you need it, in unexpected ways; to appreciate the needs and differences of others when you feel things aren’t quite going your way; and to learn to be gentle on yourself in the process. For me this is grace, in its various permutations. It is a gift, and we must stay open to receive it at all times.  

Yesterday was the last full day of Summer. And boy were those summer days full, right up to the end.

The dawn came crisp and clear, with a little mist settled in amongst some trees in the distance, where I think the LaHave River flows under the highway. A white-tailed doe and two fawns were nosing around the crabapples before the sun topped the horizon. Either a crowing rooster or one of the restless cats on the bed had awakened me, so I wandered as I always do to the windows, starting with the one to the northeast side of the bedroom, to take in the view from our hill top. It reminds me daily why I love this place, one of many reasons. 

I opened the window to shoo the deer, “Don’t you touch my garden....get going!”  They are so elegant and sweet, except on the days when they have destroyed  the fruits of your hard work. We have been lucky so far this season although yesterday we found some hoofprints and nibbling around our pepper plants in the herb garden. They’d be gone in a hurry if they’d tried the jalapenos.

After the chickens were released from the henhouse for the day, we received a call from a friend who’d been over for dinner the night before. A retired commercial pilot from Germany, he invited us out for a tour in his ultralight, meeting at 10 a.m. The weather was perfect, clear and bright, winds light. As it only seats two, he took us up one at a time, taxiing slowly around the small lake before a short take-off into the wind. What a glorious view!  There are so may little lakes dotting this county, hidden from main roads, the secret treasures of those fortunate to have sought them out through realtors. My favourite sight was that of the many hill top farms, older and more established than our own wee one, with huge open pastures, still bright green and freshly mown, topped often with a white house and a red barn.  In other areas a few clear-cuts left their scars on the landscape, as did some of the hidden dump sites that I missed but my husband saw, revealing a disprespect for the land that we can’t understand. 

But overall the beauty of this place, Lunenburg County, is remarkable, rolling farms and hectares of forest spreading down in fingers to the the jagged coastline full of rivers and inlets, tiny islands and coves. The LaHave River on which I spent my teens looked quite majestic, glinting black and silver, backlit by the morning light, opening out to Dublin Bay and the LaHave Islands beyond. Then a turn to the east and out toward the coastline to the heritage town of Lunenburg, the sun lighting up the candy-coloured waterfront of red and blue and more, and a surprise, the Bluenose II sailing in toward the harbour, returning to it’s homeport after touring as our sailing ambassador.

Of course a highlight was seeing our own farm, recognizing the ones that were landmarks along the way until there it was, We Are One Farm, diminutive in comparison, and harder to see with our soft green house and even the purple sheds, receding into the earth unlike the white and red of other farms. The lavender beds were not so appealing from the air, half of them covered as they are right now with only the black weed mat, not yet mulched with the granite filter sand. And the field down back, which is not really a field but a wasteland formerly a logging yard run by the previous owner. It is starting to be reclaimed by nature with a variety of grasses and clumps of sweetfern, but needs some TLC. My vision is a lavender labyrinth although it might be a nice spot for an orchard, protected from winds and quite hot in the summer.

And the beaver pond, oh the beaver pond, far bigger than I realized, remnants of the original pond’s berm barely visible, more like an island, but the first of at least three dams quite visible, as well as the fine lodge.  Looking at photos later one can see that the pond now traverses almost the entire width of the property, cutting us off from the back acreage. 

It is simply one more thing we don’t have time for and is at a stage now that would require either major excavating equipment to destroy, or in my husband’s latest notion, the converting of the woods between our field and the pond, into a cleared pasture, effectively robbing the critter of his food supply, the trees on the north side of the pond being perhaps too large for his liking. Then, the theory goes, he would, by his own volition, pack his bags and leave, taking his toothy little family with him.

But there are enough chores to keep us busy for the time being, so perhaps he will winter with us one more season.

And after the beautiful flights we enjoyed, (oh, did I mention the bald eagle twirling at eye level as we banked for our landing?), and breakfast at a local diner, it was home for more end-of-season duties. Edward’s afternoon was spent on construction of a very substantial woodshed which he started last fall, mine on picking still more of the delightful plum-shaped yellow grape tomatoes which insist on producing still, another mixing-bowl full yesteday. Buckets have already been consumed in salads and sauces and prepared for the freezer. And I plucked some twenty or more acorn squash, some a bit small but ripe. We had so much rain in early August I think some things slowed their growth and then I stopped watering as it had been so wet for so long. 

The lack of a second bloom on the Munstead and English lavenders suggest that is indeed the case, it got so cool and wet for about three weeks they failed to produce new spikes after the July harvest and pruning, unlike last year. Last summer I got a fairly substantial harvest of buds, albeit on more stunted and irregular spikes, not good for bundles but fine for any use of the dried buds. 

I spent the rest of the afternoon doing some more pruning, starting on the Grosso which didn’t bloom until late July and also seemed stalled by the August wet spell. I have held off pruning them as they have been sending up sporadic spikes still but I think the best are done. There is no expectation of a second bloom with these under even optimal conditions, as far as I know. So I must clip them into tidy tight shapes before the hard frosts come.

A  gang of five or six Barred Plymouth Rock chickens gathered around me while I crouched and cut between the beds, some looking simply curious and enjoying the company, others apparently hoping that I was digging, turning up the odd earthworm for them. “No worms today, “ I told them.

I also spent considerable time with a chicken I call Gimpy, please excuse me if it is not a very “pc” name, I do alternately address him with Big Guy and My Handsome Boy.  Chicken rearing has been more challenging than I expected, to say the least. They say, “never name your chickens,” but somehow it is inevitable as some of them develop notable personalities, and unfortunately this summer the most notable ones have all been those who have succumbed to the odd condition and died, like Sleepy whom we thought was merely, and amusingly, narcoleptic, as it lasted for a couple months until he suddenly lost control of his motor functions and died. Then Peeper, a noisy and talkative little Barred Rock, who was always out front leading the pack of his contemporaries, finding the most worms and full of energy. He (or possibly she) regrettably recently died from what we now believe was likely Marek’s disease, as did a few others, one at a time, after being quite healthy. It has no known cure.

In Gimpy’s case, he is a most handsome Barred Rock rooster, beautiful bright red comb and wattles and white and dark grey barred feathers, beautiful feathers, the ones around the neck falling like a fringed collar. Gimpy somehow had an accident, a fall from a  roost perhaps, dislocating his hip forcing his left leg out straight behind him. It did not look like something we could rectify, and as he did not show obvious signs of pain, surprisingly, maintaining energy and an appetite, we have kept him in segregated quarters, with his own side yard off the coop, so he would not be assaulted by the merciless pecking order of other healthier roosters.

Gimpy has been stoic, and when we have had to separate other chickens who later died from their illnesses, he has been a fine and quiet companion, the others often sleeping pressed up to Gimpy’s larger size. Being slightly older he may have been immune to Marek’s or whatever has taken them, but his time seems to be rapidly coming as now the muscles of his good leg can no longer propel him around the pen. He did remarkanbly well for a while, even getting stronger for a while, hopping on one leg to get in and out of the coop on his own, over into some shade or closer to the feed. 

But he is having more trouble and cannot now balance well enough to feed himself and keep his head from nose-diving into the earth when he tries to move around. So yesterday I held him a few times to prop him up so he could eat and drink, as did Edward this morning. He can’t manoeuver himself in the coop anymore or get out into his yard so we pick him up and place him in or out as needed. And we’ve been taking him for “walks” to see the sights on the farm, cuddling him close to our chests. Apparently exercise is important to chickens, as their gizzard in which the grit they ingest goes, serves to grind up their food, but it requires their movement to work properly. As Gimpy slows down and has lost the ability to even hop or drag himself around, he cannot properly process what food he does eat. 

So regrettably and inevitably perhaps, his days may be limited and we are contemplating putting him down soon so he won’t have to die from wasting or starving. As he can no longer clean himself or tuck his foot under him, it would be a problem as the cold weather comes too for him to keep warm enough. He will not be a meat bird.

After teary prayers were said for Gimpy last night, on the eve of the autumnal equinox,  we did what may be one of the pardoxes of farm life, at least for a newbie like me. After pouring out my love and nurturing on a lame chicken for the day, we sat down to a meal of the leftovers from Saturday’s dinner with our pilot friend, ratatouille made with our own tomatoes, peppers, summer squash, eggplant, and herbs, mashed potatoes dug up that afternoon, and our first roast chicken, one of the Rhode Island Red roosters that we killed ourselves, with grateful ceremony and the smell of lavender and sage smudge in the air, on Saturday morning.

While those roosters were not yet fully grown, we needed to “do” some to allow the management of the other chickens within the structures we have and to permit the hens to lay. With the quantity of unsexed chicks we got in the spring we are “rooster heavy”, okay in one sense since we planned to consume some of the flock as meat birds, but difficult to get them to full grown first, due to their aggression towards the other roosters and hassling the hens who have been trying to lay. 

Our birds have been raised completely free-range, they have had the run of the field all summer, returning to their coop at night on their own to roost quietly together. But lately we have had to build an outdoor run for certain roosters, trying to determine who’s picking on whom in order to separate them successfully. One red rooster has run to the woods daily for the past week to get away from another, so now he gets “room service” down there with food and water rations delivered 200 feet away until he voluntarily returns to roost at night.

There’s officially just less than an hour left of Summer now, Autumn due to arrive I believe at 12:44 ADT. I think I will go down to the coop and check on Gimpy, help him feed and drink, put him out in his yard leaning against the hay bale. Maybe we’ll have a walk and a cuddle before I go to town. My Handsome Boy.

At the end of last summer I was thwarted in my effort to keep harvesting the chamomile flowers by the appearance of aphids clinging to the underside of the blossoms. My hand-picking method was labour-intensive enough without having to now turn over every head to check for aphids before picking. I finally gave up, wasting much that could have made good tea or added that soft, almost orange-y scent to my dream pillows.

Another sign of spring, a full two weeks before the Equinox, are the big ruts left in the softening driveway by the lumber truck which came yesterday to deliver wood for the new chicken coop. That’s right, there ain’t nobody here but us chickens....and cats and me and Edward and all the resident wildlife who might make free-ranging more of a challenge than I want. We have foxes, skunks, raccoons, red-tailed hawks, osprey, bald eagles. Reputedly the raccoons and skunks are only a threat at night at which time, I have been assured, the chickies will be roosting comfortably in their new digs. But foxes and hawks have appeared here in mid-day, prime chicken-scratchin’ time. 

Twice this week alone I have glanced out to see the red-tailed hawk flapping to hover low over the lawn near the lavender beds, no doubt spotting mice who have over-wintered under the straw mulch which is now free of snow. ( I am hoping they have not chewed the young plants to the nubs as happened to some last year.) Charlie, my smallish young cat, has been happily sniffing out the same area, bringing back a juicy vole last week in fact. But my concern is not for the voles but for Charlie himself, a tender morsel for a hungry hawk I fear, although the huge bald-eagle who came by last week looms as a bigger threat.

When I see the raptors and the cats are outside I fly out the door in a flap of my own, raising my hand and reminding them, “We have a deal! No cats!!” And now it will be re-written to be, “No cats and no chickens!!”  I try to persuade Charlie to leave the rodents and birds alone so there will not be some karmic lesson coming back to haunt him in this lifetime. I invite the hawks to check out the rabbits in the woods. Too bad they aren’t big enough to take on the massive beaver who’s been wreaking havoc down there at the pond.

And speaking of hunting, what escapade was it that somehow led Charlie to the roof of Third Eye Gallery this morning? I glanced out from upstairs to find the cat on the one-storey addition. I do not know how he got there and from his nervous demeanor as he came in through the bathroom window, it appeared that neither did he. I expect it involved climbing the willow chair on the patio and from there up onto the new fence around our courtyard area and up along the top edge of the fence to make a final leap for the eavestrough, the only explanation seeming to be that he'd been in hot pursuit of a squirrel. Now I have another place to look when Charlie doesn't appear at the door when called.

And where else is spring? It’s in the itch to get into the garden, the urge to purge the accumulated stuff from the past year that is slowing the household chi, the desire to clean windows.  It is in my list for Richter’s Herb Farm of the flats of lavender plugs I plan to order, as soon as we cobble together some kind of small greenhouse to keep them in until they are big enough and it is warm enough to plant out. Indeed, it is in the fact that there are three farm-related expos going on in the maritimes this weekend. We’re heading to the inaugural Nova Scotia Small Farm Expo tonight as it happens. Whoda thunk I’d ever be doing this?  And for Edward’s part, having left the family farm at 18, whoda thunk he’d being getting back to this?

And alas, spring is in the details that I must turn to now, as I continue dredging the seemingly bottomless vat of receipts and bank statements that need to be organized for the bookkeeper so that we can prepare for that other inevitable sign of spring, tax time.

I spent a good part of today sitting at the dining table, enjoying the view through the windows while sifting through old infrared negatives of mine, pulling out some to reprint for hand-colouring, images which had sold last summer. This is my season to do any darkroom work I wish to stockpile before the gallery opens for the summer and the farm delightfully takes over my days. I just received my supply of new paper for colouring, I chose Kentmere in a fine-grained semi-matte surface so I am looking forward to seeing whether it will do as well as the Agfa I used to use. I tried some Forte Warmtone recently and while the surface seems good for colouring, I decided I would like more neutral whites. I knew that if I sepia toned it it would be much too yellow.

But just as I get excited to print on the new paper I am met with news of another death-knell for film-based photography. I received an email this afternoon from my friend at the local photo store advising that Polaroid has announced the discontinuance of instant films although it may be licensing production of some to other firms for "diehards" like myself. However I got the impression that that may be just the consumer-level 600 film as they mention stopping production of large-format film in the next quarter.

This comes just two months after I heard that one of my other staples, Kodak High Speed Infrared film, was being discontinued in December 2007. I have tried to order some to throw in the freezer but it was out of stock, although apparently there is still some available. So every few months my favourite media are becoming more rare...first Agfa papers and chemistry, then SX-70 Polaroid, then infrared, now all Polaroid instant film. And what is available is getting expensive. I guess my days are numbered until I am forced to go all digital or learn to paint!

The only thing I can hope for is a sudden increase in the value of the work I have in stock here at Third Eye Gallery.  Hmmmm......  

Last week in my post I was talking about my resistance to getting down to the darkroom and knowing that once there in the flow I would wonder what had taken me so long. Well, I was right about that, although it did take me an extra day to begin printing. I was taking my time, cleaning the print washer, mixing chemistry, some new hypo clearing agent for washing the prints and more selenium toning solution. That doesn’t really take very long but I did manage to procrastinate for quite some time waiting for my water to come to precisely the right temperature for mixing the hypo clear....I had it too warm then had to cool it down. Excuses, excuses.

While waiting, but out of earshot of the phone, I had a call from a close friend, who left me a message saying her mother was in hospital, had taken a turn for the worse and was now nearing the end and removed from any life supporting measures. Although she had had a number of ailments for some time, this sudden deterioration in her condition was a sad surprise. So part of my delay on the day I last wrote was in waiting for a reply to my reply to that missed phone call as I was anxious to comfort my dear friend. As it turned out, her mother passed away three days later and we will be attending the funeral this week.

While I had met my friend’s mother on a number of occasions I did not know her well but for stories of her love for things pretty and pink, very much a genteel lady.  This is no doubt a very difficult time for my friend as she is an only child and this is her first parent to pass.  Her mother’s last few days in the hospital brought to mind my own’s parents’ deaths some years ago, two years apart, first my mom then dad, each one in the hospital for a few days at the end. They were difficult deaths, not the tv kind where everyone gathers around, has some nice sentimental words to share, good-byes are said and hands held as they pass. The death of a parent, whatever your feelings and relationship with that parent, seems a complex emotional process, not just them leaving your life but the things said or left unsaid, the manner of how they pass and the state they are in at the end. It can be very painful to witness.

It is also the first anniversary, give or take a few days, of the death of one of my brothers, so this week’s funeral will be only a day or so from the anniversary of his funeral.  His ashes sit on my windowsill with a view of the garden, awaiting this summer when my other brothers have assured me they will come to Nova Scotia to witness his burial next to our parents. I brought him home with me from Montreal last January 26th. 

And yet in this frigid January weather, today well below our South Shore normal for this date, with a minus 25C windchill and drifting snow, there is still hope of new life, creation and springtime.  When I finally made it to the darkroom to print last Friday I rediscovered that, once in the flow after remembering how to work the 40 year-old Beseler enlarger, a darkroom can be quite womb-like and comforting. It is small (or at least, mine is), warm, dark, humid and lit only by a red safelight while developing. And at the end of the process you are giving birth to your creativity, bearing new images out of the liquids. Certainly for me, being childless, my acts of creation in the darkroom or the garden are my way of giving birth to something that originates within then emerges in the outside world for all to see.

And then to inspire more hope for new life to come, we were surprised this morning to see a pair of handsome red foxes, trotting across the field behind the house in the breaking dawn’s glow. One of them was actually black (but which I learned through the internet was still a red fox although colloquially called a silver fox....go figure), and it was likely this pair were in breeding mode as their time is between late December and mid-March. We can surmise that somewhere in the surrounding 4 to 8 square kilometers there is likely a den being established for potential pups to be born in the spring. 

So the symbols and signs of new birth, new creations and the reminders of the universe’s regenerative nature can appear to us in sometimes surprising places and serendipitously at times when one most needs the hope that the cycle of life does indeed continue. I give thanks for that today.