Spring builds big muscles

It’s Monday evening, and I’ll set the scene for you:
Warm enough to be out in a light sweater, sun’s just gone behind the trees ringing the property but still shining on the tops of the southernmost trees, and the only sounds are birdsong, including a neighboring rooster, hummingbirds zipping around me, and the kids playing across the road (I don’t want to, but to be fair must mention the occasional passing car). As I type this, I’m sipping ambrosial mead bought yesterday from a bee farmer and mead maker down the road (I also bought some of his fireweed honey). We worked hard today, as I think we’ll be doing more and more these days, clearing weeds from beds to be planted with chard and strawberries. Got the chard planted but the strawberries must wait as we just got the holes cut in the black plastic by (or just after) quitting time. It was a gorgeous day, hot enough to want a sun hat and plenty of water on hand.
Last Friday was the first harvest day for the Moss Street market in Victoria. Off the top of my head, we picked rhubarb, leeks, parsnips, salad mix, brassica florets, Jerusalem artichokes, kale, mustard greens, nettles (ouch! But yum…), fresh and dry herbs, spinach, flowers for bunches. Mary and Bill went to the market (which is just a half market for a couple of weeks), then next weekend it will be Bill and I. It was a fun harvest day. Last week was a hard-working week in general. I finished planting tomatoes into the greenhouse I am responsible for keeping track of, which ended up being around 160 plants. Mary built a small rock retaining wall for one of the fields which is somewhat terraced, and I helped out a bit with that. We moved the second movable greenhouse (the first one being the one in which I planted tomatoes) and that is really quite something. It involves pulling with the tractor and chains and sticking logs under the rails of the greenhouse… excitement. I don’t remember what else we did right now, but it included lots of digging and moving stuff in wheelbarrows and lifting and general body building-type activities. I’m definitely getting stronger, and I can feel the work in my back. To explain these pictures a bit: the massive leaf I’m holding is giant winter spinach. Bill is the guy gathering daffodils.
You can see some of the lovely produce we harvested for the market, and it’s in the cool room where we store what we harvest. The flowers in the buckets we made into bouquets Saturday morning. There are some examples of the seedlings we’ve been raising, both for sale and to plant at the farm. My hand is next to the same size tomatoes as I was planning into my greenhouse.
So things are going well. Jesse came to visit this past weekend, which was so nice especially after my having gone to Vancouver for the Easter weekend. We had a pretty chill weekend. On Sunday he, Bill and I went to the meadery and had a tasting, spent and hour on the beach, went to visit the alpacas (who I’m falling deeply in love with) and had a great supper. Yay!
Take care all of you,
Love, Sasha

animal farms

Today I had a rather animal-filled day, so this is going to be a rather animal-filled post.
To begin with, each and every day, are the chickens. They are becoming an ongoing source of my amusement. I love how they come running every time they see me coming because they know me as a general food-bringer. I’m often also bringing them tasty insect treats I find in the soil. They have a really funny way of running too, it looks as if they were about to take off any second. Sometimes they do too, I guess when running just isn’t fast enough. Today I was also laughing at the poor rooster in the moveable chicken coop. He rushes out after the hens each morning, trying to pull the rapist-style copulation so particular to roosters. This one just isn’t fast enough though. I think his brain is actually sort of slower than it ought to be. I like it though, he seems gentler than Strawberry (the rooster pictured above) who aggressively pins the hens down on the head and jumps them. Oh chickens…
There’s also a pair of Canada geese that seem to have taken up residence in the farm’s pond. We’re hoping that they have babies there, that would be fun. They are also quite humorous, and I spent quite a while down at the pond this morning just watching them.
Later on I rode down to Kemp Lake for the first time. Beautiful lake, it’s going to be so nice for swimming in the summer. I almost went in today! It was so nice to have a sunny day, just not quite warm enough yet. While I was taking pictures a small furry animal came walking along on a log under me, and I was able to snap some photos of it before it realized that it should get moving, quick. A mink, maybe? I went for a long walk along the lake and down a logging road that paralleled a lovely creek. I was completely alone and heard nothing but water and bird sounds.

Cows!
In the afternoon, I decided to swing by the alpaca farm down the road from ALM. I first visited Barrie’s place (Forest Green Llamas and Alpacas) two weeks ago, and she was really welcoming. She walked around with me, introduced me to all the animals, had me help her out a bit with one of the crias (baby) and then gave me 2 pounds of raw alpaca fiber! Yeah!! She also said that I could come by any time I want, just to hang out or whatever. I think that the animals remembered me as they weren’t quite as skittish as before. They’re very curious, but normally don’t like to be touched. You’ll turn around and a group of them will be following you and looooking. Today they were coming up to me to check me out. One of them followed me around for a while and was snuffling me and having me scratch her. Her name’s Jewel and she’s my new alpaca buddy. Barrie sadly lost one of her donkeys since I last visited, so now there are only two and they seemed a bit out of sorts. I guess wondering where their friend is.
Other than my animal escapades, yesterday Mary held her tomato growing workshop here. I was given the task of teaching transplanting. I feel pretty damn qualified to teach it too, after having done several hundred. It was fun, the participants seemed to get a lot out of it, and I think I did too.
On Friday, we finally decided who would be responsible for which fields. I spent half an hour or so after work playing my guitar down by one of my fields, getting to know it. It’s exciting to imagine all the amazing food that will grow there.
Well that’s it for now, and enough I think. Hope these posts aren’t too long, I tend to ramble I think.
Take care, love, Sasha