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We spent a couple of days harvesting from the garden and getting the food ready for the 1st Annual Piebird Picnic Marathon and Garden Concert. Sherry's vegetarian food was great, the weather was beautiful and The Good Lovelies and Revival Dear were awesome! Below are some photos that Liz Lott took. Liz is wonderful, check out her site at www.lizlott.com or go see her at the Hibou Boutique (Main Street, North Bay). You can see the whole gallery here.

Above, spot the chicken on the workbench. Below, Thelma and Thelma.

Our goats have started their own B&B right next door in the barn, they call it Piegoat Break & Bedfest. I'm not sure how much business they'll get as the breakfasts are usually just raw oats and the beds are piles of straw...

It is nearly Summer Solstice-- just a few more days! This Summer, 2009, at Piebird promises an extremely large garden. It is mostly planted and we have been eating glorious fresh greens from it for weeks already, in combination with the feral dandelions, yarrow, leeks, bergamot, mint, comfrey, chives, etc. It is poised to provide not only us, our guests, our canning workshops, our friends who help plant and maintain but also a few families and restaurants who we will be supplying local produce when we have an abundance. Of course the garden will also stock our new root cellar when it is complete. When we are finished building it we will finish the greenhouse...we are working towards providing a CSA (Community Shared Agriculture) program from the Piebird Farm in the next coming years.

Another exciting thing here is our Hobo House being occupied by our First Official Hobo in July! We built a gorgeous out building for Hobo's -- our happy name for travellers who are here to help with the farm, or who are on writing, health or other retreat style vacations. In addition to our 3 Bed and Breakfast guest rooms, the Hobo house will provide accommodation to our retreating guests and our musicians who stay over after the concerts. You can see photos of it in production in our projects section.

Above: Sherry and our new big pig, rescued from a couch.
Below: Ginger and Billy playing

It's astonishing, actually, how much upset-ness an animal's assault on your garden can incite. This feeling is amplified when the animals are your own and not the wild ones. This year the brussel sprouts and beets were by far the weaklings of the garden - having been the favourite snack for both the goats and the pigs upon their escapes - they suffered severe cutbacks and we most likely will get no harvest-able beets or brussel sprouts this year.

Except for these moments, gardening instills into the gardener gentle thoughts, which do good - especially in an era characterized by restlessness and hustle. In this regard, this quiet garden is a good metaphor for all that we have to offer here at Piebird. I love it when our guests wake early and come to greet us in the garden.

As a perfect foundation for Sherry's vegetarian, whole-food based cooking classes, nutritional workshops and suppers (see HealThyHealth.ca ), we've put in a vegetable and herb patch about the size of an average city lot. We're learning from the locals about growing within this short growing season (compared to out west!), learning from the older folks about storing our harvest, and mixing in our own knowledge and experimentations of permaculture and organic soil improvements.

When we moved in there were still a few remnants of the old gardens that time had failed to vanquish: lilies older than Sherry and I... giant lilacs, red currents and honeysuckle... old fashioned roses that had made their way all around the edge of the field. We have been slowly expanding the perennial garden, as a relaxing break from the vegetable patch and constant renovations.