The Return of the Kingfisher

The kingfisher is back! For years the kingfisher was a permanent resident of the farm, and then he disappeared about five years ago. I missed seeing him perched on the wire over top of the canal. Last year, we thought we heard him, but we couldn't spot him. Then this weekend, we kept hearing him, and then we finally spotted him. What a delight it was to see his bright blue body flying across the green canals.

The Winter Garden

Snow Goose

The snow geese came through in large flocks in the late fall. The would stay in the back fields, eating the corn leftover from the harvest. When I walked too near them they would all take flight. Then I would be surrounded by these large white birds, winging around me.

Snipe!

This fall we have encountered several snipes at the farm. They have a very distinctive call, hence their name. Even if you don't hear their call, you can identify a snipe by its weird zig-zag flight pattern.
People still hunt snipe although they are very tricky to shoot. I try not to think about that too much.

Let me presnt the Pelicans

I was so impressed by the pelicans summering at Floating Stone lake in northern Alberta that I had to make them. They are amazing birds. Huge. Beautiful. I have never seen anything quite like them.

When I look at these birds, I remember floating on the warm lake water, as a flock of pelicans flew so close overhead, I could almost touch them.

Garlic Season

I finally got around to digging-up the garlic patch, and today, I planted three rows of garlic. I used last year's garlic, although I was sorry I didn't get any new stock this year. Last year's crop was a little weedy looking. The cloves are a little on the small and thin side. It is still good, but I worry that the small cloves will yield an even weedier crop next year.

Hops

We just harvested the hops. We have a patch of golden hops growing against the back fence line. It takes some doing to cut a path through the blackberries to get to the hops, but well worth the effort. I usually incorporate hops into my French bread recipe. I like to make a hops tea and then use the warm hop infused water to proof the yeast. I ran out of hops in the spring so I have been experimenting with other teas but so far, hops are the best!

There used to be lots of hops fields in this area. They would grow hops on tall trellises that stood 12 feet high (so I am told). It became too expensive to keep up the trellises and farming hops is not as common around here. But I still like to imagine fields of giant trellises stretching up to the sky.

The Fall Garden

It was time to clean-up the garden. For most of the plants, the season has ended. The beans and the corn are done. All that's left is the kale, next spring's broccoli, and some spinach. As you can see in the picture above, I dug-up all of the plants.



Then we dismantled the greenhouse and harvested that last of the tomatoes. It is November after all, and we should have tomatoes ripening until the start of December. We take the greenhouse down, because we have lost a couple of greenhouses to the November winds. Scot built the greenhouse so that it comes apart fairly effortlessly. The most difficult part is getting the tomato plants out and making sure that there are no tomatoes left. Otherwise you can get all sort of pests and blight. Ideally we should move the greenhouse but it isn't that feasible.



The last of the tomatoes!