Happy New Year!

Hello and best wishes from everyone at Riverglen Biodynamic Farm!

I’m happy to write that I had a fabulous time during my Christmas and New Year holidays. I was able to enjoy some well-deserved rest in the company of my loved ones and it was absolutely terrific! It’s nice to put aside a few of your more tedious responsibilities, if only just for a few days.

That’s not to say we’ve all been farting around over here. Just doing a little hiding out… You know how it is! So, since the last time I’ve entered a blog entry… well, the big field was plowed. I’m lucky to have a good relationship with my neighbour Kevin, with whom I often exchange favours. Kevin brought over his equipment in mid-November to turn over the soil in one of the garden areas. This will help break down both garden crop and cover crop residue, as well as expose the roots of any perennial weeds that are trying to take hold of the garden.

Kevin plowing

There has also been a good deal of wood cutting. Thanks to the generous help of my brother, my friends, Johann the mason and the good people from Canada World Youth, we were able to pack the porch with a few cords of wood. We’ll need to chop more to make it through the cold weather, but what a great start!

CWY gathering  CWY chopping

My neighbour Kevin also does another kind of plowing at the farm. Snow plowing! He does a fabulous job opening up our lane-way, as well as clearing out the farmyard and the barn entrances. He only comes out every now and again, however, and sometimes perhaps a little later than sooner… We got a tone of snow over the weekend and even my AWD Subaru (thanks mom and dad) had trouble getting through. Thankfully, it only took a little digging to get through the offending snowdrift. And not that I can complain about the snow. It has been an incredible winter for cross-country skiing!

subaru stuck

As for the critters out in the field, they have all been moved to their winter homes. The paddock on the North West side of the barns acts as the temporary home for my Highland cows and Shetland sheep. There they find shelter from the wind, a big heap of hay and a bathtub full of water. An electric tank heater keeps the water in the tub from freezing. A similar system of heated buckets ensures a supply of fresh water for my flock of chickens. I’m very impressed with the dozen and a half eggs I still collect daily. I’m also quite impressed, as were our Christmas guests, by the quality of their meat. Caro and I slaughtered, plucked and cleaned 4 roosters, on Solstice, to share with friends and family. The full-textured meat was bursting with flavour.

caro wire  indoor flock  plucking feathers

So what about buying harvest-shares of delicious biodynamic vegetables this season? Stay tuned; I’ve got a little something up my sleeve…

This entry was posted on 4. January 2010 at 21:34 and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.