Signs of Spring

 Spring is getting closer.

The Chic-a-dees are eating all the suet

The first snowdrops.

The catkins are leaking yellow pollen.

The eagles have returned to their nest.

Some Locals at Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary

 

We try to get to the George C. Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary at least once a season although we don’t always succeed. Since boxing day was so sunny and beautiful, we decided to take a trip there to see what birds were around this time of year.

It was a crowded walk. There were as many bird watchers as birds.

A Chic-a-dee in flight.

Gorgeous pin tail.

A waiting kingfisher.

Wood duck

Fall's Bounty

Greengage plumbs on the dryer rack.

Peaches from the interior of BC.

The Excaliber dryer with peaches.

Jars are ready

Done.

Late Summer at the Farm

All sorts of tiny frogs emerging

Late corn is  almost ready.

The garden is getting that late fall overgrown look.

Mystery of paralyzed birds deepens

The mystery surrounding dozens of paralyzed birds that were discovered in B.C.'s northeast has deepened after veterinarians ruled out West Nile virus but found wing and leg fractures.
More on Birds

Some Spring Garden Photos

It was a good year for strawberries this year. There was lots of rain at the start of the season and plenty of sun just before harvest. Our new beds are a little sparse this year, as we couldn't find new plants. All the garden centres were selling single bedding plants, and we couldn't find the packaged root stock liek we used to buy. Maybe next spring, we will have to buy plants.

We had to go to a You Pick and we picked about 20 pounds. We froze them whole, and we just thaw and blend them when we want to use them. They are great over pancakes.

Raised Starwberry Beds

Leveling the ground for the new beds.

Adding agricultural liner to slow down weeds.

New posts.

Upgrading an old bed.

The new soil manure mixture.

The completed strawberry beds.

A Jump on Spring

Planting peas, radishes and potatoes in the greenhouse.

Warba potato.

We try to start spring a little early, by planting potatoes, peas and radishes in containers in the greenhouse.

The greenhouse is not heated, but the light and the warmth gets things growing pretty fast.

We seeded these containers on March 4th, and the peas and radishes are up already (two weeks).

Tall telephone peas.

The first shoots of the peas March 18.

The radishes after two weeks. They should be ready in another week.

Our containers, planted with potatoes and radishes for an early spring harvest.

Signs of Spring

The first snowdrops.

Pruning the fruit trees in February. It is an act of faith that one day, the sky will clear, and there will be sun.

The first snowdrops came out in the middle of February. A hopeful sign of the spring to come.

The winter garden. Before we begin preparing for the spring.

The first rhubarb.

PopTactics

I was invited to speak on a panel about text based interventions in the public. Please see my website for examples of this work.
leannej.ca

Information on the panel can be found here
PuSh

 Presented with SFU Woodward’s Moderated Panel, Jan 19, 1-4PM Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema, Goldcorp Centre for the Arts (149 West Hastings Street) >>… a ‘commons’ is a space a population uses for satisfying its social needs; it is a space of collective independence; no one owns it, but ideally, all have use of it. It is in fact constituted by those users and uses …<< Stephen Collis, A Show of Hands: Art and Revolution in Public Space, 2012

Herring Processing: Part I

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What do you do with twenty pounds of herring? Well, you have to clean them first! We thought it would be less complicated to process the fish outside, so we pulled a table close to the fire pit, and got a bottle of skull vodka to keep us warm.

We were lucky enough to buy the herring right off the dock. The fish were so fresh and healthy. It was amazing. We stood in a large line for an hour, exchanging recipes with people from all sorts of culinary backgrounds. The sale, which was a fundraiser for the BC Children’s hospital, ran out of fish at 10:30 AM. We just got ours before they closed the line. We came very close to not getting any fish.

We spent four or five hours outside, cleaning and salting the fish.

By the time we were done, it was dark, the vodka bottle was seriously depleted, but we had all our fingers.

Chic-a-dee Quilt II

I have been finessing an old Kenmore sewing machine. It is a grand old machine, but I realized that it needed some work. I ordered a couple of new parts (a bobbin ring and a belt) and I have to buy some machine oil. I have decided to wait until I get the oil before I fire it up again.

Phase II

The best part is this machine still has a manual. And it has a lifetime warranty which Simpson Sears no longer honours. I read somewhere that the Sears brand is in trouble, which is a little sad. The big store in downtown Vancouver closed down.

However, the old Kenmore machine is still going strong. I was happily surprised to find there were parts for old sewing machines. I found the parts in an online store http://shop.SEW-CLASSIC.COM.

 

Strange November Light

The cranberries have been harvested,  and it is a bumper year. This means fall is over and the November rains and winds are here.

It was a cold rainy day yesterday. It had rained hard in the afternoon. As soon as the rain slowed, I went for a walk along the dykes.

The light was beautiful. The sun came out low on the horizon, and illuminated the cloud enacsed fields. Glorious.

Fall Scenes from the Farm

The last of the bounty

Halloween Prep

The treeline 

Cranberry harvest

Mouser

Opportunist