Autumn is settling in here at Piebird, it's mid November and this week we are finishing harvesting our rootcrops for Winter storage. Just across the goat pasture from Piebird B&B is our newly opened Birdhouse Cottage, perfect for your Winter family getaway! We just finished building a new sauna down by the creek -- it features a bottle wall and has a suspension-bridge boardwalk leading to it. Call us about booking your Winter vacation or if you want to reserve a homegrown vegan lunch or dinner here at Piebird!

The above zucchini is one from our heirloom seed company, Soggy Creek Seed Co.

New signs we made, a heart-shaped campfire pit, our Purple Mustache Beans, and other recent fun!

What great fun at this year's Piebird Picnic Garden Concert!

We are honoured that Piebird's food and music scene was chosen to be featured!

Click to see more photos from the three days of filming.

The photo of The Good Lovelies on the left was taken here by the amazing Matt Barnes (thatsthespot.com) after the first annual Piebird Picnic Garden Concert in 2008 and became famous as their promo shot for years -- this photo is beautiful and magical so we took a quick little snap (right) in the same spot almost exactly four years later...

The gardens are full and overflowing with good food! The summer has been filled with such wonderful B&B guests, fun concerts, picnics and great garden feasts! Call us to reserve some nights in the Bed & Breakfast, a workshop, a seat at the table or for a concert. Excited to see you here for whatever reason brings you to us. Happy Summer!

June 1 2010

Hello friends!

The combination of early warm Spring weather, luscious perennials, overwintered root veggies and Yan's genious with planting seeds last fall have had us eating out of the garden for nearly 2 months already! It's been so incredible to have this gift of so much fresh food! Our trips to the grocery store are becoming less frequent as we learn to grow and to stockpile. 

We've had several concerts already -- JD Edwards, Brock Zeman, The Undesirables, Jenny Ritter and O'Mally, and many guests to share Piebird with. People are on the move to experience fresh home-grown food, country living and learn more about self-sufficiency it seems. Our workshops have been so fun -- sharing with people what we've learned over the years from body health workshops (spring cleansing, vegetarian nutrition, medicinal herbs) to practical life-skills workshops (canning, organic gardening and bread making).

The Piebird Stars of Spring -- the baby goats, Sunshine and Sadie, have brought much laughter and cuteness to the farm. The adult goats, Ginger and Billy are used to them now and are happy to have a herd dynamic. The sound of all their voices calling to me and one another are so heartwarming!

For the month of May, we were pleased to have Jenny Ritter here. She helped us in the garden, the kitchen and was also our resident goat psychologist (Ginger was having some trouble adjusting to the baby adoption). Jenny was working on some songs and we were lucky to get to hear them floating over the gardens and in our dining room when she played the impromptu concert with her friend O'Mally.

Click here to view them all

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.