Apricots and Other Culinary Delights

I feel like I am in a race against time. Today we were finally able to finish thinning the apricots - it had to be done. The fruit have grown so fast in the two weeks since we started the thinning job (as you can see above), that it could not be delayed any further without risking bruises and damage to the apricots. I am sure that the urgency to get jobs done on the farm will continue to increase as the months progress and our fields start gearing into high production.

In the meantime, I my roomates and I are enjoying the organic products available to us on the farm. I must admit that in comparison to most people I would consider myself to be very knowledgeable when it comes to the uses and origins of most foods and their ingredients. However, my knowledge is being put to shame on the farm. Every day I am being exposed to new foods.


Garlic scapes: these are the immature flower stalks of our garlic variety and can be used in cooking like garlic but with a milder flavour.

Kefir: Kirsten is the fermenting queen. This is her kefir jar containing the kefir mother (a large bulbous looking mass with a thick gelatenous consistency), fermented goats milk and the separated whey. She harvests the kefir every two days and then feeds the bacteria mother fresh milk to keep is alive and happy. Kirsten and I are sharing the products of this wonderful bacteria, and so every two days I find a new jar of kefir in my section of the fridge. Being lactose intolerant, the bacteria takes care of all the lactose in the milk on my behalf. The consistency of the kefir is like liquid yogurt. I use it in all dishes like milk or yogurt - I add some stevia and cinnamon for a dessert or I add some tablespoons to my idian curry dishes to make them milder and creamier.


Burdock root: Burdock is native to most parts is seems, and there is certainly enough of it here. I am under the impression that burdock is considered by many 'a poor man's food', but food is food right? On the farm I have seen the root sliced up and cooked or sauted like other root vegetables and served with different sauces.


Honey: Living in an agricultural valley, what we cannot grow here tends to be easily available. Honey included. Orchard Blossom is a honey distributor up the road. If you bring your own container, you can get liquid honey at $6.50 CAD a kilogram - for those of you who are not avid honey buyers, that is a very good price. I have already filled four jars on behalf of some Vancouver friends of mine which they are anxiously awaiting to receive.

You may be wondering then what a typical day of meals would entail on the farm living on the low budget that we are living on. Right now, the farm is certainly still in early production mode, but we still have enough food to see us through our workday. Generally, each day we are currently eating salad, mixed greens, eggs, kefir, apples, and squash. For our grains, sugars and legumes we put an order into Discovery Organics to get bulk (and farm) prices.

I am eager to see what eating organically for the next six months does to my general health, energy levels and overall mood. Good things I hope!

73rd Annual Keremeos Rodeo

I like to think of myself as a country girl - I love being outdoors, I'm strong willed and down-to- earth, I work hard and expect to get my hands dirty to get a job done right, I feel comfortable in my cowboy boots and hat, and I love country music. (I have also developed a pressing need to start riding again since moving to Cawston to rekindle my love of horses. To date, I unfortunately have not yet been able to locate a horse to ride.)

Personally, the decision to attend the Keremeos Rodeo was immediate and instinctual. However, accompanying me were three to whom the decision to attend was not so natural - Bonnie, my long-time friend of Canadian-Chinese heritage; Linda, a twenty-year-old German traveler (who happens to be a vegetarian); and Mary Jane, the recently hired live-in-nanny from the Philippines. I got the impression that each of these three were both nervous and anxious to see what the rodeo was all about, and I am glad to report, that it was a positive experience for all involved.

I feel fortunate to live in a place where there is a rodeo circuit. The British Columbia Rodeo Association (BCRA) hosts rodeos all across the province. These are primarily amateur/semi-pro competitors that are hoping to improve their performances to compete at higher levels. The rodeo did however have professional bull riding on the third day. It made me wonder what other provinces have rodeo associations. It turns out BC, Alberta and the Prairies (Saskatchewan and Manitoba) each have a circuit.

The rodeo was held on a local ranchers property, the entry fee was $10 CAD, the concession was cheap (most impressive was the fact that they had farmers in the back of the kitchen hand slicing the fries to meet the high demand), and the competitions were great! We watched barrel racing, bull riding, wrangling, team roping, bareback riding, saddle bronc, and tie-down roping. During intermissions, we were entertained by an onslaught of country music, a fabulous rodeo clown and even a children's calf chase - where every child in the crowd steps into the arena, half a dozen calves are set loose and the kids have to chase the calves down to capture a ribbon from one of the baby animal's tails.

Linda, being a vegetarian, was very concerned about the well being of the animals, especially the calves in the roping events and the steers in the wrangling event. Though once she was satisfied that the animals were being treated well and many times were able outrun their captors, she was able to set her worries aside. At the end of the weekend, Linda asked me why so many people refused to attend the rodeo when it was such a fun experience. I explained that many people have a negative opinion on 'cowboy culture' and look down upon anything to do with it.

We both agreed that those people are missing out.

Poetry

One of the advantages of not working in a city, is that you do not need to allot commute time into your daily schedule. In Vancouver, I was commuting about two hours a day to go to and from work and run my errands. Here on the farm, if work starts at 8:00 am, that means I need to leave my house at 7:59 am and walk out my front door onto the farm to begin my day. When work finishes, my personal time starts instantaneously.

There are a number of ways you can look at the benefits of this added time. First, financially, I am gaining about 10 hours a week of my time, to which I can allot a financial value. (Time is money don't forget.) Second, I have 10 extra hours, to pursue personal passtimes that I enjoy. Lately, that has been reading.

One of the best lessons that has come out of my trip to Haida Gwaii, is learning about Canadian author and poet Susan Musgrave. I learned about her meeting Michael from Masset, who is currently filling the position of caretaker for Musgrave's B & B in Masset, on our hike to the Pesuta shipwreck.

I really enjoy Musgrave's work because it is to the point, starteling, unusual and creative. She is able to articulate emotions and ideas about society with a wit and charm that I have never yet come across. Her work is both dark and humbling, hilarious and eye-opening. To top it all off, I am absolutely fascinated with her life story and am constantly seeking to learn more - for instance, she married a bank robber in jail after falling in love with the words he wrote for his autobiography which ended up on her desk for editing back in the 1980s.

So far I have read two collections of her essays and memoirs, both of which I would recommend - The Great Musgrave and You're In Canada Now...Motherfucker.

I would also like to share a poem that I really enjoy from the current collection I am reading, What the Small Day Cannot Hold: Collected Poems 1970 - 1985.

My Boots Drive Off in Cadillac, by Susan Musgrave

Always when I am dreaming
my boots, with my socks inside them,
drive off in a Cadillac
and I have to go barefoot
looking for nightlife.

The car, has California plates -
I'll never forget it.
I'll never forget those boots, either.
They were handtooled in Italy.

They were always too big for me,
they slipped off easily.
I never did think they were meant for me.
They were made for someone who was
far less flighty.

The socks had a special significance,
they were given to me by a sailor.
They were a size too small but he
wanted me to wear them.
He wasn't what you'd call a sophisticated
person.

I don't know what it symbolizes,
this dream where nothing fits properly.
It's almost as if I were going around naked
or worse, with no body at all
to make the old men wet their lips and ogle.

The men think they can buy me.
Up and down the strip I walk with a
hard line for takers - I'm no bargain.
I'm looking for a good time, a change
won't do it.
I'm dreaming of something more than a change
when my boots drive off in a Cadillac.

Money Poor and Isolated

Currently we are working with six people less than when I arrived. Steve, one of the apprentices, has gone off with one of the other workers from Klippers to Alberta to look for higher paying work together. Coming from the oil rigs, Steve was a good worker and knew his machinery well, however he expressed that he was not capable of living on such a low monthly budget. He doesn't cook and so the plethora of free produce we have at our disposal from the farm held no value for Steve. Further, he was not practiced in being frugal, like those of us who have remained, and so his solution has been to get a job that pays for the lifestyle he would like to live.

Next, both Moosely and Manon are currently away because of illnesses in their families. In both instances, the fact that they are isolated from their families has resulted in them returning to the city to be with their loved ones. Manon will hopefully be back this weekend, but Moosely situation is worse, so we don't know how often she will be able to work for Klippers.

On the flipside, we had a volunteer come from Germany this week to start work for two months - he lasted one day. It turns out that he was looking for something more low key (isolated) with far less people involved in the operation. (He had somewhat of a social angst of too many people.)

And last, Eva has packed up her bicycle and cycled off to Nelson to start her time at the ashram.

All this change in the three short weeks I have been here certainly highlights some of the major issues preventing young people from being farmers or living in rural Canada - the ability to make money farming and the social strains put on individuals who are trying to live apart from their family and friends.

So far I do not feel any of these pressures, and I hope that this remains the case. I know I will discuss these issues further in the coming weeks because they are vital to knowing if I can make Cawston (or another rural part of Canada) my home.

Tractors 101

Though my family has owned a number of tractors since the day I was born, operating a tractor is not something I would have included on my list of abilities. Luckily, this week was tractor week.

First, I learned how to lay the plastic mulch that we use to plant most of our ground crops. It is a fairly simple device that is pulled behind the tractor that lays out the mulch, but still needs the human touch at the outset and end of every row. Essentially, you tie the drip line (which is being wheeled out behind the tractor with the plastic mulch) to a wood rod, you then pull out the sheet of plastic from the roller to just before the wood rod and then carefully press the plastic with your hands flat against the earth as the tractor takes off making sure not to have your wrists or chin slammed by the equipment. The device works such that the wheels will catch the plastic and through a series of earth moving panels, will tightly bury the sides of the mulch to keep it embedded and flush with the ground. At the end of each row, you must also pull the plastic taught and bury the ends with earth, so the wind is unable to take the mulch away.

I later mowed two fields of cover crops which was certainly a more significant job with the tractor. Again, this being Tractors 101, there was a lot for me to learn. I think the most important though was finally understanding what a clutch does - in not so many words, disengage all the element parts of a engine so that you can add or remove another part. With the mowing tractor the parts included the gears, the rotator take off, and the breaks if I remember correctly.

I really enjoyed being able to operate the tractor and look forward to more complex jobs!

Seeds, Seeds, Seeds

spinach

snap peas

sugarsnax carrots (purple)

white beets

red carrots

rainbow carrots

parsnips

Seeds have always held a fascination for me. I remember as a child loving to go to the bulk store the run my hands (and arms) as deep as I could into the bird seed we would eventually buy for our yard. The tactile sensation of thousands of seeds running through your fingers is wonderous, and individually these little pods of life are mystical as well.

I am impressed that each seed family is unique, and within that family, though it is difficult to tell the varieties apart, each seed group can produce such a different plant. Take three seeds that look for all intensive purposes identical, plant them, and you could pull out a red, purple, yellow or orange carrot if you are not careful in keeping your seeds separate.

The fact that life, nutrition and our sustenance can come from such a small spec is impressive. More impressive are those seeds that can live for 20 or 30 years in the ground before they germinate. Or those that require the heat from a fire (forest fire) to start their growth cycle.

Someone told me this week that if all the insects on the earth were to die, humanity would perish quite rapidly. However, if all the humans were to die, nature would thrive. Knowing what little I do about insects and seeds, I believe this statement to be true and consider my personal ignorance (and society's collective ignorance) on both to be quite a shame.

Now back to memorizing seeds!

Annamarie demonstrating how to use a seeder for us to seed rows of carrots and beets in an outside field.

Organic Debates: Hepatitis A Vaccination

Sometimes, most often after I return from travelling, I wonder if I am part of a society that is too afraid to actually live life as it comes. We speak often of liberties and freedoms, but in reality, we have created so many rules, regulations and barriers within our daily rituals and performances, that true freedom is hard to come by.

The best example I can think of at this moment relates to horseback riding. When I was in Costa Rica in 2006, some friends and I decided to go horseback riding at the local eco-ranch at which we were staying. It was inconsequential if you had ridden or not, each person who wanted to ride was given a horse that 'best matched' their experience level. We then set off into the jungle on our creatures that certainly had a lot of spunk and character - you got the sense that the animals felt free in their wilderness. On the ride, these horses listened to you, galloped throught the mountain tops and rivers on command by no one else but the rider on their back. It was exhilirating.

Hoping to recreate this same feeling in 'Beautiful British Columbia', I decided to take a good friend horseback riding for her 21st birthday. We drove up to Squamish where we were first handed a booklet of waivers to sign saying that we would not sue the horse ranch should we come to any harm. Then we were assigned horses, also based on our ability, but from the start you could see these animals did not have the same spark in their eyes as the ones from the south. The trail ride started, and to my frustration, the horses would not listen to their rider and had instead been trained to follow head to tail in a specific order - for safety's sake. My girlfriend had a fabulous time, but I could only ponder how the risk of liability and danger had sucked the fun out of horseback riding for me.

Currently a similar situation has arisen on the Vancouver Farmer's Market scene. It is being discussed as to whether or not vendors should be required to have their Hepititis A vaccination in order to sell at the markets - to protect consumers as it were. However, despite all the logistical nightmares this may create in the future, the discussion begs to question: when is too far, too far?

The members of society who are most likely to question the use of vaccinations in the first place, I would argue, are those who live an organic life. Though much of society believes in Western Medicine, I have argued in the past that the institution is merely that, a belief system - people must believe in western medicine in order to head the prescriptions and advice of medical doctors. There are many that believe that natural remedies and the food we eat are the answer to curing our health problems in the first place.

So then, back to the ethical dilemma. The farmer's market is discussing the possibility of imposing the requirement to have all vendors vaccinated. If individuals choose not to be vaccinated, because of their beliefs, they will no longer be able to sell at the market. (Does this not sound like discrimination?)

I must admit, that I do take vaccinations for traveling, and have never researched what goes into the vaccinations recommended to me for travel. It has come to my attention what is in the Hep A vaccine, and I was curiously surprised and discouraged to know that the compounds are not what I would under normal circumstances want to put into my body (Formalin (aka Formaldehyde;)Aluminum Hydroxide; 2-phenoxythanol; Polysorbate 20; Human diploid cells from aborted fetal tissues). I encourage you to research these compounds further.

And so I leave you with something to ponder: Should we be imposing rules, regulations and barriers on people in order to protect the freedom and safety of others in society? Has this become the Canadian way? Or are we able to individually accept the risks that come with living and allow each individual to live their life as they see fit?

I put it to you to decide.

Harvest Day

Friday for harvest day, I started off the day bunching spinach. A fairly simple job because of the way the seeds are planted for spinach. Earlier in the week when we were weeding baby greens, I remarked that the spinach was growing much more sporadically than the other greens – I thought that this was as a result of poor germination. In reality, the spinach are seeded quite far apart to allow the plants to grow big and makes harvesting them for bunches much easier. We pull the plants entirely out off the ground, bind bunches and pack them in boxes ready to go.

The day consisted of getting a lot of items ready in the greenhouse and then packing up. These are some of the items we sent to Trout Lake for the market: rubbarb, lettuce heads (romaine, butter, red oak, green oak, red leaf and green leaf), mesclun mix, baby spinach, spinach bunches, eggs, lilac bunches, heirloom tomato plants, squash, apples, and apple chips.

We harvested so much lettuce on Friday that it was decided Nadja would go to the Penticton Market also on Saturday to try and sell off some of the load. She sold out – of eggs too.

Destruction - Wind Storm

Maybe it was a jinx of mine to talk so highly of the weather here, but the last two days have been a whirlwind, almost literally.

On Wednesday morning, the clouds had covered the valley. We took advantage of the cooler conditions to get into one of the greenhouses with the young greens to weed out the grass. It is usually best to weed when plants are young since you can see the unwanted matter more easily and the plants are relatively resilient to damage. In this case, it would also be a logistical nightmare to either wait until the greens had grown large enough to fill the rows to try and weed out the grass, and at the same time, we can’t exactly sell ‘greens and grass’ as a specialty food at the market - though I’m sure if you marketed it correctly people would claim it to be the new super food mix and eat it up like rabbits anyway.

Once it got too hot in the greenhouse, we headed over to the strawberry field. The irrigation system had been laid over the land we had weeded earlier in the week, so we set to planting the additional rows with strawberries. At Klippers we have sable strawberries that are ordered from Ontario. Though it seems that that is far for our little bundles of strawberries to travel, it is one of the closest organic sources in Canada, and an existing and good relationship between Klippers and the sender sealed the deal if you will. (Plus after living in Haida Gwaii and seeing how far their plants needed to travel to get to the island and at what cost, the mainland systems seem relatively affordable and well connected).


After lunch we transplanted tomatoes - 3900 of them. It was a hard day getting all of those tiny plants out, but it was done. We were sweaty, our faces were covered in dirt, and our hands had been wicked of their moisture from working in the dry earth.


Then it happened. That evening, around 8.00 pm, a windstorm picked-up with gusts that had not been seen around these parts for some time. As we looked out of our apprentice building, we could see the soil from our tomato field being ripped from the earth and sent to the heavens. Think dust bowl – a jet was streaming over our tiny plants and through the entire farm ripping everything in it’s path – at times we were in a complete dust whiteout. To give you a sense of how strong these winds were, there is a pile of 4’ by 5’ sheets of plywood that are outside our building. The wind was systematically lifting these sheets into the air which would then crash against our building in a loud thunder. The wind was strong.

Thursday was time to evaluate the damage.

The tomatoes, which I understand are usually traumatized from transplanting in the first place, were devastated. They looked so sad. Many of the plants had been blown under the plastic, so we had to go through and pull their limp and brittle bodies out into the sun again. Some of the plants had become so fragile that their leaves were crumbling to my touch. The whole while I was thinking that if these plants pull through, which I still want to believe many of them will, I will have a deeper appreciation for the resilience of vegetation. However, Annamarie thinks that we may have lost up to 50% of our plants because of the beating they took, and so we spent the afternoon in recovery mode.

We had to compensate for our lost plants. Luckily, when Annamarie seeds her plants, she uses a method called broadcast seeding. This is where you toss a bunch of seeds together into a small container to let them sprout. Once they have germinated (started to grow), you then go about pricking the little plants (separating the individual plants from the cluster of sprouted vegetation) into their own individual cells to get stronger. Annamarie joked that she almost always grossly over-seeds, but in times like this, she is glad that she does. We now have backups for our field plants in the event they don’t pull through.

We then had to do damage control on the strawberry field as well. All the mulch (the protective straw cover laid between the rows to retain the moisture and protect the field from weeds and erosion), had been blown away. Luckily much of it was scatter up against the fences surrounding the field, but we still had to peel it off where it had been wind blown and relay it between the strawberry rows.

That was all the recovery tasks we had for the day, but we also got to do a new job, one that I really enjoy – apricot thinning. Apricots are going to be one of the first fruit that we harvest. Right now the trees are covered in immature apricots. The sooner you thin the trees after the fruit have started to grow, the better harvest you will have, since the tree will have poured everything it has into growing the fruit you have left on the tree.

Some people have a challenge with thinning and pruning, because it seems like a waste to reduce your fruit production. With the apricots I can certainly understand since we would thin a branch covered in about 20 tiny apricots to maybe 4 or 5. However, if you do not do this, more damage will come to your harvest than if you ‘over thin’. First, your branch will be too heavy being weighed down with all the fruit and might break off the tree; second, your tree will grow many fruit that will be much smaller; and third, the clusters of apricots will grow into one another and thereby misshape and bruise each other. So, thinning is necessary.

Weeding and Planting; Washing and Bagging

The sun is out, the sky is blue and weather warm (25 C). In my experience, the weather here is something that belongs to late summer days, where the sun is still strong enough to change the colour of your skin, but its warmth is welcomed as a solace from the cooler nights. Yet, it is not August, it is May! It is raining in Vancouver, flooding in Montreal and in all likelihood snowing in Calgary.

I start with this meteorological anecdote, because it is the warmth and beauty of this place that make it not only a unique and fruitful agricultural climate, but it also is what makes working mundane jobs totally worth while. The weather and the place are the motivation I need to weed, plant, wash or bag for hours on end. Whenever I get tired of the work at hand, I think about stuffing envelopes, data entry or email blasts, which are to me the business world alternatives to the repetitive work that needs to be done on the farm. In the end, I am always 100 times happier to be here, under the sun, working the land than in an office peering from my desk enviously at the sunshine beyond my office window.

This week there is a lot of planting and preparation that needs to happen for the season. On Monday, I started off the morning weeding the onion field. So far this is my least favourite job. Essentially, we have a large field covered with 18 rows of plastic, and each piece of plastic has been punctured with six holes across and I would estimate 150-200 deep. In each of these holes is planted an onion. If my estimation is right, that is close to 19,000 onions! Weeding the onions meant reaching into each of these little holes and pulling out the weeds. Working two people per row, it took my partner and I almost 3.5 hrs to do 3 rows. Needless to say it was a lot of work.

The reason that the plants are planted under the plastic is to retain the heat and soil moisture because Cawston is such an arid environment. Also, the cover is supposed to help with preventing the weeds from growing too savagely. We'll see how that works out.

That afternoon, we moved to the next field to plant tomato plants. There are an enormous variety of tomatoes being planted at Klippers Organics, and I look forward to getting to know all the varieties. It appears that tomatoes do best when they are seeded inside and allowed to grow in a green house until about 4 inches. The trays of tomatoes are then taken out of the protective greenhouse environment and laid outside for a few days to toughen up before being planted in the ground. The tomatoes too are planted beneath plastic rows, however the tomatoes are only planted one across and require about a foot spacing between each plant. For efficiency sake, the plastic and irrigation (which is a drip line underneath the plastic) was laid in the morning, then Annamarie punctured the holes in the plastic one foot apart, we then laid the tomato plants out by each of the holes and the final step was to push the plant deep into the ground. With tomatoes, you want to plant them very deep because all the furry bits on the stem of a seedling will become roots if covered in soil. This will allow each plant to have a more extensive root system and be better stabilized from the elements.

While we organized the plants, Annamarie took care of keeping track of which varieties were planted where. (Definitely a log book day!)


Tuesday was similar. I started with weeding the strawberry field of cooch grass. I don't know much about this grass, but it's roots were plenty in our strawberry field. After 3 hrs of raking and pulling, it appeared that the situation was better, but to an onlooker they would not have believed we had accomplished anything!

The spaces between the rows of strawberries that were already planted were being mulched with straw. In one of the straw boxes we had a nice morning surprised and found five little quail eggs. Kirsten ate them for lunch.

In the afternoon, we started bagging 4lb Spartan apples still left from the fall for the upcoming Trout Lake farmers' market. Again, it is important to know how to put all the produce to use, so those apples that were too bruised or rotten to be bagged will either be dried, made into cider or fed to the chickens. I have already sliced up six of the apples and they are drying in our kitchen dehydrator as we speak. Yum!

Opening weekend last year Klippers sold around 210 bags of apples at Trout Lake. Since the weather is supposed to be a little 'damp' this year, we only bagged 160 bags which we completed in just under an hour.


My last job for the afternoon was to finish washing the chicken eggs for the market. Eggs are always a popular item at farmers' markets. Klippers sells their eggs for $6.00 a dozen and today we finished packaging 210 dozen to take to the market this weekend. Hopefully they sell!

Essentially, we start with the oldest eggs (which are really only a few days older than the newest), dump them in a big bin of water, and scrub off any dirt or crap that may be on the egg. For the most part they are pretty clean, but we also have to watch out for eggs with cracks or eggs that are broken. If they are completely broken, the eggs obviously are useless and get tossed. If there is a crack in the egg, we keep them for, you guessed it, the apprentices! Also though, I have learned if the egg is broken but you can see that the inner membrane of the egg has not been ruptured, you can still eat the egg. Having learned that membranes are designed to allow substances and particles to move in and out of it, I have decided that I would prefer not to eat the broken eggs that have their membranes intact. However, I am more than happy to eat the eggs with cracks in their outer shell or ones that or just too massive to fit into the egg cartons - I am always filled with joy when we find really humungous eggs.

In our storage trailer, we have hundreds of egg cartons that people have been so kind to return to us to use or reuse. It always makes me wonder what kind of people remember to turn in their egg cartons on a weekly basis. Who are they? What are they like? What are the life values of these people? I know it doesn't seem like a very difficult thing to do, but I have been so trained to recycle that as soon as I have emptied my egg cartons or reusable bottles, they are out of my house ready for pickup. Today, packaging the eggs and seeing all the different brands and companies of egg cartons people had donated for us to use, furthered my curiosity on this subject. I am interested to meet the 'egg people' at the market and see what they are like.

In other news, Klippers might be getting a cow! I really hope that this happens because it will definitely be an awesome supplement to our current diet and decrease our monthly food bill. But a cow does need to be milked EVERY DAY. It is definitely a commitment.

Exploring Cawston: Mountain Climbing

Cawston is a small town in the narrow Similkameen valley with a population of about 1000. Cawston is located 8km west of Keremeos and 40 km east of Osoyoos on the Crowsnest Highway 3. There is an elementary school, a post office, a grocery store, a mechanic shop, a community center and a corner store in town. The valley is surrounded by barren mountains and filled to the brim with fruit trees, ground crops and farm animals. I would definitely consider this another one of British Columbia's spectacular landscapes and look forward to living here for the next six months.

Since arriving, I have had my mind set on summitting one of the many mountains that enclose the valley. Today Bonnie, Manon, Kirsten and I accomplished this goal. At 10.30 am we started our journey by cycling up Daly Drive to the trail head. Though all the trail heads say 'private property' or 'no trespassing', we have been advised that we should just ignore these signs. So we hopped off our bikes, led them up the trail 100 metres, and locked them to an old wooden fence. Our initial destination was a waterfall up the Barcello Canyon which is supposed to be about a 45 minute hike.



Since it is spring time, you can still see patches of snow on the tops of the mountains here (or if you look in the distance you can see full fledged glaciers). This means that the creek that divides the canyon though small was running high and fast. As we hiked up the trail, we had to cross the creek on several occasions. Having long legs (and quite a bit of practice as a child) jumping across creeks, I was luckily able to jump across on certain parts, but for a good portion of the crossings, we did have to be creative finding crossings using branches or trees that had fallen across the waterway. By then end of the day though, I think each of us had feet that were a little bit wet if not completely drenched.

We did reach the waterfall in relatively good time. It appears that both Kirsten and Manon's fascination for natural remedies, holistic cooking and gardening extend into the wilderness. Consequently, my fast paced ascent (needed to get a 'good burn' going) was miles ahead of my companions - they were like children in a candy store with every new flower, herb or tree we came across. So we made a deal, on the way up would be exercise, and on the way down it would be plant biology time.

The waterfall was impressive by my standards. You could hike up under the waterfall in a cavernous space to watch the water fall heavily in front of you, feel the mist on your face and hear the thunderous noise of the rapids passing over. I then crawled out the other side of the waterfall to go to see from where the water was coming. The girls followed. Pleased with our success so far, we stopped to have a relatively poor mans lunch consisting of a chocolate bar, almonds, some apple chips and some home made carrot cake. We got to enjoy the food with a relatively nice vista of the valley below.

After recharging, I proposed that we continue to the top of whichever mountain we were currently on and luckily the ladies were up for it. This is where the trek got a little bit more tricky. We found a peak that was relatively open so that we could see our destination - it is important to note that because the valley is so dry and warm, most of the hilltops are primarily covered in low brush, grasses, and flowers that can survive under these conditions and at high altitudes. In addition, the mountain range is extremely rocky (which will hopefully prove useful for my rock climbing ambitions), and therefore doesn't support much plant life.

The climb up was certainly challenging. We had to zig zag up the mountain trying not to cause a rock slide or to even loosen a rock that could tumble down and hit one of our team members in the head. I think one of the best peaces of advice for the day was 'to follow the poop' - basically what this meant was to follow the piles of deer poop up the mountain because the deer usually took the easiest or at least the most travelled paths up. For the most part, 'following the poop' worked well.




The summit was well worth it. We had a beautiful view of Cawston and the valley below, the winding Similkameen river and the mountains extending far into the distance. We were 1100 metres above sea level.

On the way down, as promised, was biology time. Here is a summary of the plants I learned about and their medicinal properties:

Mullein - This plant is a green ground plant in it's first year, and then blossoms into a 4-8 foot tall flower in its second year. You can use the flower of the mullein to make a tincture that helps with ear infections and a tea with the leaves of the plant in its first year can be used to help with lung health. It is a toner and expecterant - which means you'll cough up all that goopy goodness in your lungs when sick. The leaves are very soft, and often used as 'hiker's toilet paper', though Kirsten wasn't happy about this fact nor the name.

Oregon grape - Once I learned how to recognize this plant, I could see it everywhere. The roots can be scraped to expose the yellow bark on the inside which can be used as an antibiotic, as a yellow dye, and as a tooth brush. The small blue berries can also be used to make jams if you can collect enough of them.

Wild sage - This plant was the first thing I smelled once we were beyond the 'Private Property' sign in Cawston. The wild sage bushes covered the entire landscape and is probably the most common plant in this area. The sage, in my opinion, also has a slight orange odour to it which I found particularly pleasant.

Interior Douglas Fir - Although much smaller than the trees we were seeing in Haida Gwaii, it was nice to be shaded from the sun by the douglas firs on our hike and to smell their orange scented needles when crushing them between our fingers.

Stinging nettle - Everything I have ever learned about stinging nettle is to avoid this plant because it stings you - hence the name. But today I was proved wrong. The stinging nettle probably hat the most uses of any plant we learned about today. First, if you rub the stem and leaves, you can eat it raw - the plant tastes grassy but sweet. Then, you can cook it like any other green, you can dry it for tea, or you can grind it up and put it on a cut to stop bleeding. The stinging nettle is high in iron, so very good for women, and is a hemostat which is why it is good for cuts and internal bleeding. Ladies, get some of this to use like raspberry leaf for cramps.

At the end of the day, we made a quick stop to the local honey shop (where you can get 1.00lb of honey for $3.00) and to the Similkameen river, before having to race home because it had started to rain.

Today was a satisfying day.

Greenhouse Growing

The salad greens, wintered produce such as apples and squash, frozen produce and processed products are currently available to go to market. It was decided Friday morning that it was important to move these products this week, and so Klippers Organics decided last minute to make a presence at the Penticton Farmers' Market on Saturday. This means that Friday was harvest and preparation day.

My first task was to help Nadja and Manon harvest and box lettuce heads. There are a ton of different varieties available including butters, romaine, green oak leaf and red oak leaf. The lettuces have been growing rapidly in the greenhouses on the farm and are at risk of maturing too much in the next week before we go to the Vancouver market. You can tell if a lettuce head is too ripe by its center stalk - if it is woody and getting dense in the center, this means the plant is trying to seed and will be bitter tasting.

When in the green house, the humid air and extreme warmth you can feel on your skin certainly allows you to understand how these plants have been able to thrive so early in the season. Right now it is so hot that the greenhouse doors need to be opened during the day time so that the plants don't overheat.

Once we boxed 23 boxes with approximately 150 heads of lettuce, I moved on to organizing squash. First I had to sort through the crates of squash and prepare three to four boxes of each variety to take to market. We are certainly at the end of our squash supply, but I was still able to prepare boxes with spaghetti , kabocha, green hubbard and turban squash. In fact we have a lot of turban squash left, because it appears consumers are not as familiar with this product and consequently do not gravitate towards it at markets. Any squash that have started to mould will be fed to the chickens or if the rot is not too bad it will be fed to the apprentices!


The rest of the afternoon was spent peeling garlic - the fumes of garlic in the air and on my skin reminded me of a time when I was consuming raw garlic as a health experiment and I still love the odour as much as I did then. We were peeling garlice because in the 2009 season, Klippers sold out of garlic by February 2010 at the winter market. Therefore in the 2010 season additional garlic was planted given it was such a popular product in the hopes that it would last through the winter until this year's fresh garlic could be produced. Unfortunately, the garlic did not keep all the way through the winter as hoped, and so we are now salvaging the good garlic cloves from the expired ones to make frozen crushed garlic.

I think one of the key lessons I learned from my afternoon work is not to waste. It appears every item no matter how far gone it may appear, still has some life or some use. You just need to be creative to figure out how to get that remaining life to be profitable which, it appears, often means processing it into another form.

Apprentices and the Farm

Life on the farm is certainly dynamic. Currently we are eight workers on the farm, six of which will be apprentices for the year. To give some background on the people with whom I am working, here is a brief character profile for each.

Apprentices

Kirsten: Originally from Vancouver, Kirsten is constantly in the kitchen cooking up something delicious. With her she has brought an ice cream maker, a dehydrator, her cast iron frying pan and many more kitchen gizmos. In the last two days she has baked some date-carrot bread, fermented milk, prepared some savoury squash soup and is drying apple chips. Kirsten also has a big heart for animals. On the farm she has been put in charge of the chickens, and so when I arrived I was curious to discover a chicken sitting in a cardboard box in our living room. Kirsten explained that it was sick and had gone blind, so she was making every effort to see if it could recover before abandoning it for nature to take its course. Next year Kirsten will be going to a holistic school in Nelson where she will further her knowledge on food and the healing properties of our vegetation. Kirsten is one of my roommates.

Manon: Manon is from Surrey and is currently studying greenhouse and nursery production at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. She is also a crafty chef and has made meat balls, bread and homemade pasta since I arrived. A lover of Japanese anime, Manon’s favourite colour is green which is easily revealed by her green farming clothes and the green streaks in her dark hair. Next year Manon will be going back to school to finish her degree before hopefully starting her own farm. Manon is one of my roommates.

Steve: Steve and I have not had much time to talk. Being the only guy on the crew this year, he is usually off doing different projects than the rest of us. Steve has decided after years of working the oil fields up north anywhere from Ontario to BC, that he would like to take a try at organic farming. Steve is trying to determine if farming is what he would like to do long term which he will hopefully have better insight into after a season working Klippers Organics. Steve is one of my roommates.

Moosely: Moosely is of Thai decent. She lived in Vancouver with her family for many years before she moved to Cawston last summer to work for a local apple orchard. There she met her boyfriend and together this year they have been looking to buy land to start their own farm. Unfortunately, they have had to concede that land in British Columbia is just not affordable. As a result, Moosely hoped to go back to work at the apple orchard, but was dismayed to discover that a new owner is only hiring Mexican (cheap) labor this year instead of taking back labourers from previous years. Decidedly wanting to stay in Cawston, Moosely connected with Klippers Organics. Ultra keen to learn the ropes of farming to make sure that when she does find her land, she will be guaranteed some sort of success, she was taken on as an apprentice. Moosely is living down the road on the other side of town with her boyfriend, or when she needs some space she pitches her tent by the river to decompress.

Nadja: Nadja is the only second year apprentice on the farm. Originally from Germany, Nadja has been living in British Columbia for six years now, skiing in the winters and fruit picking in the summers. In 2010 she decided to work full time for Klippers Organics instead of returning to the ski hills, and consequently takes on a mentorship role to the rest of us this season. Nadja is as tall as I, likes hockey and skiing. She has been in charge of going to the farmers’ markets for the farm throughout this past winter. Nadja lives in her own trailer on the property.

Labourers

Eva: Eva worked on the farm in the fall of 2010. This year, Klippers was in need of some additional labour to get the season started before all the apprentices showed up for the season, so Eva was happy to step in. During the winter, Eva worked as a bike courier in Vancouver. In ten days Eva will be leaving the farm to go to Nelson to work at an Ashram.

Linda: Last we have Linda who is travelling through a program called Global right now. She will be on the farm for the month before she returns to Germany where she works as a travel agent. Linda lives with Nadja right now.

The Farm

Klippers Organics is a certified organic farm in Cawston, BC – the organics farming capital of Canada. The farm is 40 acres in size and produces a wide variety of products including tree fruits and ground crops. (I will get into more detail about each crop as I work with them throughout my apprenticeship.) The farm also has approximately 275 chickens that lay on average 250 eggs a day.

Below my apartment is an apple drying operation that is used by Marita, a local resident originally of Germany. This means when I walk downstairs there are bags and bags of apple chips available which is quite an exciting prospect if you ask me.

During my stay, I will be well fed with the ‘seconds’ produce from the farm and lots and lots of eggs! Take a look at some of the goodies currently available after being shown around the farm and told where I can access all the food items available to us.

Crop Planning

Oh my goodness work has begun. I would like to extend a warning to readers that I have a feeling my blogs are going to become much more detailed and agricultural driven. I am hoping to use this blog from this day forward as an active log book to keep track of the lessons, experiences and mistakes that takes place during my apprencticeship at Klippers Organics. Being a novice 'green thumb' I hope to walk individuals who are equally as green as I through the processes that take place on an organic farm. Further, since my ultimate goals do not only include being able to grow my own food, but being able to do so for a living, I will also explore some of the business aspects that are involved in making that a reality on this farm.

To start, Annamarie Klippenstein of Klippers Organics, began with our first apprenticeship curriculum course: crop planning. There are a number of considerations that need to be addressed before you can even begin determining your crop layout. First, you need to identify your financial goals in planting. For instance, are you planting in order to earn you livelihood or are you planting to supplement another primary income source? In order to determine your market prices to do your cost analysis, you can find market prices by talking to other farmers or checking the prices in stores. When you first start going to the market, you can match the prices of your competitors.

Once you have determined your financial goals, you can then go about estimating the number and type of plants you will need to plant and the area needed to carry out your planting using a seed catalogue. It is important to buy a seed catalogue specific to your region as it will be your source of all information including when to seed, when to transplant, when to cover, how far to separate, how much to overplant and when to harvest your crops throughout the season. For example in BC, West Coast Seeds would be a good start.

Once you have taken your time to figure out your planting schedule for the season, it is vital that you 1) follow the schedule and 2) keep a log book with daily records of what is going on in the fields. The log book is imperative because it allows you to track the weather patterns which will help you analyze growth anomalies and the plant stages, track field work, record what items went to market and in what volume, as well as record when items went to market. The log book also allows you to keep track of the hours you put into each product to better help you determine the true cost and in turn profitability of a product once it has been sold. This information can then be used from year to year to help you assess whether new products should be planted or perhaps if a crop should be rotated to another field.

It is important to actually plan crop rotation within your schedule. This helps to minimize pests and to preserve the integrity of the soil by putting different demands on it via different plants from year to year. I know very little about crop rotation but hope to learn more. Please feel free to share any knowledge or advice on this topic as it will be much appreciated.

We then moved onto the topic of crop insurance. At Klippers, their crop insurance is to have a large diversity of crops - ranging from tree fruits to grounds crops - in order to allow them to compensate the loss of one crop with another. For example, let's say that there is a big hail storm at the formative stages of a particular apple variety that causes bruising and depressions. In a worst case scenario, where these apples would not be able to be sold at the farmers' market, Klippers would be able to plant any number of ground crops to financially compensate the loss of those apples. Fortunately, one of the benefits of selling apples at the farmers' market is that Klippers is able to explain the damage through direct marketing and still sell the apples at retail prices.

However, for a monocrop apple producer who sells to a packing house, external insurance would likely be a better route even though it doesn't always provide a big safety net. Let me take you through a few scenarios. First, I have learned it is possible to buy insurance specific a particular tree fruit such as apples, peaches or cherries. A farmer can take out insurance on a specific amount of his crop as well which would be measured by volume. Let's say that a farmer usually harvests 400 bins a year, 200 of which are of an early variety and 200 of which are of a later variety. In any given year he insures 200 bins. One year the farmer is able to harvest his early variety but his late variety is subject to a hail storm. Since this farmer sells his product to a packing house, his late variety is now valueless because it no longer meets the aesthetic requirements of the packing house or retail distributors. (In essence, he has lost 200 bins because of his distribution method.) Also, because he has already harvested 200 bins already with his early variety, his insurance does not kick in because he has met his minimum insurance amount.

On the flipside, if the hail storm ruined both the early variety and the late variety, the farmer would get paid out for his insured lot of 200 bins and end up ahead of scenario one. The reason the famer is better off not selling anything at the market is that all of a sudden the farmer has been paid market value for 200 bins but has saved his thinning costs, picking costs and bin costs.

Really, we were advised it only makes sense to invest in very expensive crop insurance if you monocrop, sell to a packing house and are at a risk of experiencing a substantial loss from one year to the next.

We then entered a discussion on the benefits of using solar power on farms of this size (40 acres). In BC, it is determined that it is not financially viable because there are not as many incentives and financial rewards to use solar power as there is in provinces such as Quebec or Ontario. The reason for the discrepancy is that BC has a lot of power and not a very dense population. With solar power out east, because people are afraid of running out of power, there are big returns available to individuals who set up solar power on their properties and sell it back to the province. This is certainly a technology I would like to investigate further for my family farms in Quebec.

On Organic Farming

I learned another downside to spraying your plants with pesticides is that 'bad bugs' have a much shorter lifecycle than 'predator bugs'. This means that it will take the beneficial bugs much longer to replenish their population in a sprayed area and you will thereby risk explosing your crops to even more damage without continuous spraying.

I learned that it takes approximately 3 years to get certified.

I learned that there has been a debate about allowing organic farmers to use 'organic manure' versus 'conventional manure' though it has not been passed.

I learned that in BC woodchips for pathways between beds need to be tested for arsenic because it was heavily used to mediate the damage done to pine beetle trees. Arsenic is not organic.

May 2-4: The Journey South

We made it to Cawston. The journey south went fairly smoothly, but I think I can speak for Bonnie and myself saying that neither of us wants to drive so far in the near future again. As a result of the storm, our ferry was delayed by five hours. Rather than change our B&B reservations in Terrace, we let them know that we would be arriving quite late. In the end we made fairly decent time and rolled into Terrace after driving two hours in the rain and darkness around midnight. Bonnie and I both agreed that this particular part of our drive was reminiscent of scenes one sees on TV where a serial killer is inevitably involved.

The next two days we drove. Some highlights include seeing a moose and a bear, staying in two wonderfully charming (and cheap) bed and breakfasts, listening to hours of great music and each buying some 'essential' oddities at an emporium in Clinton.

Downsides of the trip include getting my first chip in my windshield, the fact that I might be getting a speeding ticket in the mail (thank you Williams Lake) and waiting at a standstill a number of times on the highway because of construction.

Still, I could not ask for a better passenger and co-pilot. After four weeks (and a number of years) of being pretty much inseparable, Bonnie and I are now both on our own journeys. Though, for the time being she is living just down the road from my new home in Cawston, BC, so I expect that we will still have a few more adventures before I must really say goodbye.

(You should all check out Bonnie's blog - A Bumbling B)

Tomorrow, I start my farming apprenticeship at Klippers Organics.

On Maple Bacon Icing and Being Stranded

Last night we had a goodbye dinner with the Tlell Bay Farm extended household - Elizabeth, Brian, Ross, Sabrina, Bonnie and myself. Brian, the cheese maker, came up before dinner with a fabulous spread of cheeses and fruit including his homemade brie for us to enjoy. Then Elizabeth had also prepared a full spread for our dinner. We had calamari, local fried oysters, coconut rice, carrots, peas, loca salmon, and local broadbeans in cream sauce. As the grand finale, Sabrina, an avid baker, made a pound cake with maple bacon icing.

I have never before had bacon in one of my desserts. The flavours did work and are reminiscent of a hearty breakfast with pancakes, eggs and bacon all covered in maple syrop. The cake tasted smokey and sweet at the same time. However, I did not particularly enjoy the texture of the icing with the little bacon chunks that inevitably cannot be creamed out all the way. I am usually the biggest icing fan - when I buy cupcakes I delicately eat the icing off the entire muffin before eating it - but in this case Sabrina's pound cake was the best part. I would certainly recommend that bakers give the maple bacon icing a try, but perhaps keep it as a breakfast food. Here is a recipe I found for you to try: Apple Pancake Cupcakes with Maple Bacon Icing.

Yesterday there was a storm blowing all day long. The winds were gusting around 80km/hr on shore and the sea swells were metres high. Basically this meant that the ferry we were supposed to catch first thing this morning would not be able to arrive on the island on time. Which in turn meant that Bonnie and I would not be leaving Haida Gwaii today.

Optimistic, when we finished packing around midnight, we checked the BC Ferry vessel positions and our boat was unfortunately still docked in Prince Rupert. It was not looking good. In addition, the weather forecast for the week was not much improved from Sunday's conditions, so we might be here for a while yet! I guess this is where I learn how to be flexible.

Luckily at 7:30 am this morning, the sun is shining and the wind has died down significantly. We have been informed that the ferry will be arriving in Skidegate around 1:30 pm, but that we will get an update later in the day on when our rescheduled departure will be. For now we wait.

Art, Music and Culture

This last week the work on the farm as well as our adventures have winded down. We are gearing up for the next part of our journey to the south Okanagan, which already has me planning our travel routes, where we will overnight and packing.

Since we have stayed close to home, it has allowed me much time to finish up my art projects, research my future travels, music and art as well as dream.

I have fallen in love with this painting by Julie Hilgemann, a local artist on the island. It is called 'Little Pirate' and is a potrait of Hilgemann's daughter. The painting is done in encaustic which is a method I have never before heard of in my artistic experience. Encaustic painting, also known as hot wax painting, involves using heated beeswax to which colored pigments are added. The liquid/paste is then applied to a surface—usually prepared wood, though canvas and other materials are often used. Hilgemann's painting won the Award For Excellence in Combined Media at the C.I.P.A. National Portrait Show, in Calgary, AB. It is beautiful.


The local Haida art is also renowned. I have been able to pick up a few smaller pieces of argellite jewellery, carvings of a stone only found on these islands, as they were the only pieces within my budget. Art is one of the few concessions I make within my fairly tight travel budget, because I like supporting artists, local economies and appreciate the handy work of others. However, I never fail to be disappointed that I cannot bring home some of the exquisite pieces I see on my travels because I have neither the room nor the money. I always have to tell myself that those pieces are for when I have a home to display the work and the income to support my purchases. Until then I can dream - or maybe buy my parents their birthday and Christmas gifts well in advance!


This month has been quite productive for both Bonnie and I artistically as well. I started out knitting a new pattern and make a scarf, but only ended up having enough for a scarf for a teddy. Then in preparation for Easter, I painted a number of eggs - my favourite is included above on one of the very special blue eggs laid by one of our chickens. Last, I did an oil painting of a horse (see left). Elizabeth has been the recipient of most of the goodies produced, and the painting is a big thank you to her for our stay. Elizabeth loves horses.

Bonnie has knitted a sweater for a friend, a hat and painted a beautiful horse painting as well (see right). She even went to all the trouble of having it framed on the island, but it was well worth it.

I always enjoy doing work with my hands and hope that my artistic and creative skills will be able to develop through my travels. I find that when you are thrown into the work place, the ability to be creative is the most common element missing from the majority of jobs. When a person is not allowed to be creative, they stop thinking beyond the tasks required of them which eventually leads to all loss of thought all together! It is definitely a sad demise, but one I believe so many people are subject to in order to be able to pay for the lives they are trying to achieve. One of the reason's I left my job is because I had far too many days when I was not able to think for the sake of efficiency - though understandably necessary, this is not what I want for my life.

I miss music the most living in the country. The exposure here is limited, and I am very much looking forward to going to the Sasquatch! Music Festival at the Gorge in the state of Washington for Memorial Day long weekend. Lately I have been splitting my time updating myself on the bands that will be playing at the festival and downloading their latest albums. I am most looking forward to hearing the Foo Fighter, The Decembrists and Sam Roberts Band.

Last year I went to the Sasquatch Festival but only for one day. The music was outstanding, the energy of the crowd electric, and the setting unbelievable. The Gorge is a natural amphitheatre on the Columbia River. There are no trees, only rolling hills and the warm sun.

After living in Europe in 2007, I also became a little bit obsessed with all things Canadian. The best source in my opinion for Canadian music both new and old is the CBC Radio 3 website. Not only do they have thousands of songs available to stream, but also in depth profiles on artists, concert listings of Canadian artists from Coast to Coast, music reviews and really so much more. Try giving The Sheepdogs, The New Pornographers, Keys'n Krates or Boxer the Horse a listen.

The magazines that I read the most and the only two to which I have a subscription are U.S-based Outside Magazine and Canadian-based Explore Magazine. The primary reason that I enjoy these magazines so much is because I find the stories compelling and inspirational. I like being able to look up to athletes or adventurers for the feats that they have accomplished. I equally enjoy reading about places and events in this world that are considered off-the-beaten path for most tourists, but are meccas for outdoor enthusiasts and thrill seekers. I consider myself amongst the latter group. I also hope to become much more knowledgeable about outdoor gear and companies in order to satisfy both my safety and fun requirements for my adventures.

Though, one of the common themes I have come to recognize in many of the magazines' features, is the theme of depression (and death). I am unsure if tragic tales really make the most compelling reads or if depression is in fact what unites the top adrenaline junkies, travelers and outdoor athletes. It seems that those who are able to push the limits of human ability and human bravery are also the most troubled with the mundane quality of everyday life. It's as if such a person cannot actually feel alive unless they are in fact pushing the boundary of their mortality and glimpsing death. A perfect example is Norwegian Redbull athlete, BASE jumper Karina Hollekim. If you watch "20 seconds of joy", you will see a girl that is unable to be present in her everyday life and is forced to dive after death to feel alive.

I can certainly relate to these feelings, though luckily not to such an extreme. I feel most happy when I am travelling to new places, am pushing myself outside of my comfort zone or am physically pushing myself to my limits. It does make slowing down depressing at times, but I am hoping I have these feelings primarily because I am young. Only time will tell.