Clearing Land

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Well the blackberries are still producing and the result is that we've been able to identify our best (and most determined) picker: Christine. Once started, we can't turn her off.

It turns out, we're not the only ones interested in our berries. One morning we found a couple helping themselves to our crop (without even asking for the price of the "pick your own" option). The couple in question had me baffled at first. I thought they were Mallards, but the male just didn't look right (without the tell tale iridescent green head). It turns out they were North American Black Ducks.

Of course, this is not the only wildlife sighted on the farm. This week, we finally captured one of our "landlocked" beavers on camera. We also had a taste of his threatening. I had never heard a beaver flap its tail in the water before, but it is a rather scary noise. It almost sounds like a 20 pound stone being thrown into the water or a very large animal jumping in (perhaps 10x the size of the beaver itself).

Once you know where to look evidence of the beaver is everywhere. In fact, it leaves trails! All you have to do is follow the fallen trees or the remnants of immense lumber it decided it would attempt to fell. 

Wildlife in and around the ponds also provided an incentive for us to try to fish on the farm....long and behold we actually did catch something (albeit small). It seems our back pond has been seeded by birds....the results are an abundance of "sunfish". This gives me hope that I may seed that pond with a more worthwhile catch (like walleye). It has also driven us to make a commitment: Sundays are now fishing days. The Niagara region is actually abundant with trout, salmon, walleye and bass.

I have to add that the warm weather in Ontario has also brought an abundance of butterflies on the farm. They seem to love our lilac. These butterflies are large and encompass many species which eventually I hope to be able to identify.

This week, we also had a visitor from Switzerland, our friend Alois Dober. He brought with him our custom made family cow bell (no real Swiss farmer would be without one!).

I guess having land always gives a man the urge to clear it...and it was no exception with us. Alois being a Swiss forester by trade, turned out to be an excellent additional pair of muscular hands. As a result we decided to clear half of our old purple raspberries (in order to plant new black current vines). Little did we know how difficult it would be to remove iron posts from old trellises. Tristan's tractor and brush cutter turned out rather useful, until he and Alois lost the bolt linking the cutter to the tractor's power take-off!

Another area that needed work was closer to home...just in back of the house actually. We had a ridge overgrown in vines preventing a clear view of our land from our backyard or deck. I have to say that originally I was amused by having grapes growing 20 feet into pine trees...now I am thoroughly infuriated with these things. The grapes combined with Wisteria vines created a jungle like atmosphere that I'm sure even stressed Alois...eventually we decided that clippers or a machete would never be enough and had to take some vines down with a chain saw (their diameter easily the size of our forearms).

The end effect as shown in the before and after photos were all worthwhile!

Before

After

One aspect of a sustainable lifestyle is of course canning or preserving foods (for the winter to come). It turns out it's already the season. Farmers in the area are offering sweet juicy tomatoes at just $10 a bushel just for that purpose. Now we've never done this before, but we decided to get a starter kit and experiment on a couple of basics: pickles (small cucumbers) and beets...we'll see how they turn out in a few weeks.

A quick word on the "Ward Manor" this week. We're finally getting to grips with the restoration work. This week we did a final inspection of the attic (a real crawl space in this house) and the "widow's walk" (the tower in the front of the house). After a few dead flies and spiders all over our faces, we discovered an incredibly tall room which could be turned into an incredible second floor "skylight".

The house also has some very interesting landscaping. For any serious "green thumbs" out there, we'd love to know what these flowers are (someone has already mentioned hibiscus, although I thought it was smaller than that). We have them in a multitude of colours (pink, white and purple) and they get to the size of dinner plates.

I thought I would end the post this week with some of the magical aspects of the farm. The photos below are from my morning walk. This is the fairy tale wonderland of asparagus in the morning dew.