midsummer

according to the Farmer's Almanac, it's Midsummer's Day: a rainy evening here in the Trent Hills, perfect for posting to blogs.

not that a bit of rain normally stops us working. lately we've been at it from six to six, through soupy low 40s temperatures and raging thunderstorms that blow up out of nowhere and soak down the afternoon's haze. Josh, meanwhile, never seems to sleep or rest at all. it's June, the craziest time of year for a farmer. this is the push: the cold frames are overflowing with things that need planting, but things also need to come out of the field and get distributed to CSA members, but harvest also needs to be taken to market, but the weeds are coming in cohorts thickened by every drop of rain, but pests are springing up left and right, but beds need to be made for all the seedlings outgrowing their pots, and etc.

even after sixty hours a week of it, I still love gardening. the greenhouse is my haven even on the hottest days, and planting is truly a joy. but it's become clearer and clearer over the past six weeks that farming on this scale, in this style, isn't the life I want, or at least not for a long while. the animals drive me nuts with their neediness and noise and stink. the sheep, with their constant bleating for more food even as they waste and spill and shit in what they're given; the pigs and their frantic squealing, a sound out of nightmare that fills me with a very primal urge to flee them; and oh god, just... the chickens. (more on chickens later, much more.)

Lucy the worried old goose and her three duck flock continue to charm me. they're quiet, polite, neat and pretty. they lay their eggs in carefully woven nests and eat from a wide dish of scratch like perfect ladies. and I cherish what wildlife I've been able to glimpse around the farm and during my morning runs: a fisher, lots of deer, chipmunks, red squirrels, raptors and songbirds of all sorts, snapping turtles, and once, a coyote looming over the chicken coop at dawn.

really, farming is like any other job in that by the end of the work week you're pretty much over it. and by quitting time yesterday afternoon, Christopher and I sorely needed a break from the farm. so he met me in Peterborough after market and we splurged on lunch at the Planet Bakery and drinks at the Only Cafe on its incredible riverside patio, then took in the sights and sounds of the Ode'min Giizis Festival. somewhere between wandering the aboriginal arts street fair, laughing at a typically shitty theatre production, and dancing our dead-tired tails off to A Tribe Called Red well into the wee hours of Midsummer's Eve, we managed to get our heads out of the field.

bring it on, Monday.

Chick-a-biddy Acres

well, we're here!

we are Christopher and Emily, two new farmers officially one week into a six month internship. here is Chick-a-biddy Acres, an organic farm nestled in the rolling green of the Trent Hills a bit north of Rice Lake, five minutes west of Hastings, eight kilometers south of the Trans-Canada Highway, and 20 or so minutes east of Peterborough, Ontario.

our day starts around six o'clock. we get up in time to make a big breakfast, usually half a dozen farm fresh eggs between us, with porridge or toast, and coffee or chai. we meet our boss Josh and fellow intern Tara on the porch at seven sharp to get an idea of what's up for the day.

on a regular morning, barn chores are always first. we let the three ducks, Lucy the goose, the ewes and their lambs all out into the barnyard and pasture. we feed Snake the ram his breakfast of hay. we check on the chicks and chickens, and collect any stray eggs. and as of yesterday, we tend to four Tamworth weaners.

after that, every day on the farm is different. hell, every hour is. in the six and a half working days we've been here, we've already done a wider variety of tasks than I've ever experienced at any of my umpteen billion jobs in the city. this is, in a nutshell, what makes farming such a rewarding and exhausting way of life.

since it's spring we've spent a lot of time prepping fields for planting. new beds get turned up with the rototiller or cultivated with the tractor, then either hand-weeded in preparation for transplanted seedlings or raked clear of rocks to make way for the seeder. planting seedlings is one of my favorite tasks: laying out the seedlings at their ideal spacing, slicing into soft dark soil, setting the new plant up in its new digs and whispering grow.

today we started several varieties each of lettuce, bok choi, tat soi, cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli on their journey to becoming tasty foods; last week we planted so many things I can't ever remember.

the greenhouse gets opened up around nine every morning, and one person spends an hour or so watering all the young plants inside. work in the greenhouse is generally reserved for rainy days, like tomorrow. the four of us will be rotating DJ duty on Josh's boombox as we sow seeds and re-pot seedlings, adding hundreds of new plants to the everflow out, out: from greenhouse to cold-frames to field.