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.

Amanda Putz of CBC Radio One Bandwidth fame (Saturdays 5 o'clock!) played our special Valentines Day request, Old Man Luedecka's "Big Group Breakfast". She's so swell, tune in folks -- the closer we stay to our radios, the closer we'll stay as a community.

LISTEN HERE to the song and her funny commentary about our goats and cats. (thanks Bandwidth and CBC Radio 3)

Also, Eddie Orso's new album is out today!

Oh Winter! How I love thee. At Piebird in the winter Yan and I get to plot and plan about our next "busy season" with the B&B, the farm, the self-sufficiency workshops and the house concerts...interspersed with ice-skating on the creek, cross-country skiing, snuggling our animal friends who live here and reading very large books.

This Winter Yan designed the labels for our new project: Soggy Creek Seed Co. We are now a supplier of "renamed, Piebirdized" open-pollinated Heirloom seeds -- the favourite herbs and vegetables of Piebird gardens; the plants that we have found grow well in this Northern Ontario climate. The seed packets are each a tiny work of art, a delightful look into how we see the world and inside there is art too, just plant them and wait for the show! 

The launch of Soggy Creek Seed Co. is evidence of Piebird's natural evolution to a real organic farm...and so it is that we now offer FarmStays, for those who want to get more intimate with the land here during their visit...for folks who want to know how it feels to help the Earth provide nourishment to them. 

The symbiosis of this Earth-loving relationship is something we share through our workshops. The 2010 self-sufficiency workshop schedule will show our participants how to preserve food, how to bake and cook with a whole grain vegetarian focus and how to stay healthy by using the power of plants, plus lots more. 

Though I adore Winter, many will know I get pretty excited about what we get up to in the other seasons-- the house concerts we have planned are no exception! We already have a super talented line up of musicians on our roster. Oh--speaking of talented musicians, many will know this already but I have to put it in writing here about "our" band (most bands who play here become "ours", I guess I am possessive!) The Good Lovelies winning the Canadian Folk Music Award for "new emerging artist"  back in the fall and now they are touring with Stuart MacLean and the Vinyl Cafe! How cool is that? I can't take any credit for anything fabulous that happens to our bands, but I can be proud like a Mama Hen anyhow.

Looking over the snow covered fields on this day in February, it's amazing to think of what kind of blessings the next season will bring to us at Piebird. Maybe it will bring you?

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.

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...

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

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.

Our Canada magazine featured Piebird as their 'Dream Home' in a full page spread in the latest issue. In the article Sherry talks about moving to Ontario, starting the Bed & Breakfast and the vegetarian homegrown food.

Download the pdf here.

Spring has arrived here in Nipissing Village Ontario. The maple sap is flowing and trees are tapped. This year we tried putting the sap buckets higher in the maple trees to keep them away from the goats who love to slurp it up. ...but the buckets weren't high enough, check out the video below. Then we tried filling some buckets with vinegar-water and tying them low and easy to reach -- to get the goats to think that maybe all of these delicious silver buckets are filled with sour juice and not sweet sap. We learned of course that goats love vinegar, maybe even more than maple sap...

The Powassan Maple Syrup Festival will soon be here, we'll be there tending the Nipissing Museum booth - before heading home to get ready for our Revival Dear concert and the vegetarian dinner we are hosting that night.

March 18, 2009 - The crows arrived 3 days ago! Where I come from in Vancouver, the crows used to mark the sunrise and sunset of each day with their sky-blackening migration. Now here at Piebird, where home and heart solidify me, the crows migration is a stark seasonal one.

The crows re-appearance is as definite as the magical drops of sap from the maple trees making their rhythmic journey into our buckets; as expected as Yan's herd of earth-filled pots appearing all over our kitchen that hold the promise of this years garden. Calling gleefully from the tops of the big pines out front, the crows are as sure a sign of Spring as the bare patch of ground where the wood pile used to be.

As Yan and I wander the yard surefooted on patches of solid ground with our daydreams of fresh greens, the crows joyfulness accompanies us. With a certain understanding-- I know that they are as happy to be here as I am.

As the bounty of summer rolled into the abundance of Autumn and then into the delirious wealth of Winter' cellar, it's easy to reflect on our connection to this land we live on; this land that grows us the food we nourish ourselves and our guests with. Yan and I have both observed that the common modern diet allows people to lose understanding as to how food directly influences their bodies, minds, behaviour and spiritual connection to the Earth. That's why we grow our own food here as much as possible. We jokingly say to forget the 100 mile diet, we're going for the 100 metre diet! A joke with some serious truth in it-- self sufficiency is a lost talent to nurture and we are striving for it the best we can in this strong-willed climate.

We are delighted when some of our guests help harvest food for their supper-- this enhances their awareness as well as their enjoyment of the meal. Equally as good are the canning days -- when we are busy putting away the food to make our cellar wealthy. Sitting on the veranda shucking beans or cleaning carrots we have the view of garden and the path of the sun and moon...a direct link to the powers that help the food grow. I am sure most who are drawn here can understand the indescribable beauty of pantry shelves stocked with the rainbows of luscious preserves, vegetarian chili, sauerkraut and tomato sauce. It's the kind of beauty that gives a person a deep inner peace -- like the sight of a carefully stacked wood pile, or a long straight cedar rail fence, or 2 inches of glowing embers in the fire box at 6 am when it's blowing minus 25 outside. Or the shear beauty of those simple things like pulling back the bed covers and finding either a warm purring cat or a hot-water bottle placed there by my loving partner, or the sight of a handwritten letter in the mailbox written in my far-away best-friends curvy script. These are things that can make my heart sigh with delight. And now, in the depth of Winter I do not long for the season to roll into Spring too quickly, though it will be a joy as always to get ready for our next adventure with our guests, goats and gardens. I enjoy the peace that comes with this settled season, knowing I am home on the land where I belong...and that our cellar is stocked with the splendor of our fairly recent labours.  - Sherry

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.