Post-Hurricane Earl Update

Latest developments, Post-Earl.

We decided about a day after the last blog to proceed with our party, post-Earl, provided there was electricty to run water from the well. As it turned out, we fared quite well in Earl, little damage other than old dead trees being pushed over or broken off, a few sunflowers knocked over and uprooted and some bell pepper plants flattened. We had a brief power outage later in the day after the storm had already passed. Otherwise the only effect the storm had on our party plans was that some folks chose to stay home to clean up the messes they had experienced, from an ancient huge apple tree being knocked down, to simply having to get work done that couldn't be accomplished Saturday when the power was out in the city.

So a more intimate gathering occurred than originally planned, but as a friend wisely observed, I didn't let my expectations get in the way of enjoying what was a really great evening, playing a game of petanque (boules) on our new official pitch, and dining all around an extended table together until late.

We tried to eat as "local" and fresh as possible, with tomatoes, peppers, onions, summer squash, eggplant, carrots, basil and parsely straight from our own garden, garlic from a farm five minutes up the road, greens from Rumtopf Farm 10 minutes away, sausages from Kurt Wentzell's Wooly Mountain Farm a little further down the river, breads from local french bakers, blueberries from Lunenburg County Winery's farm, beer from two micro-breweries in Halifax, just an hour away. Oh and mussels from Indian Point Mussel Farm. Butter and cream were from Nova Scotian dairies. And our own plum sauce from our own trees on the sausages!

Some things like the lemon and chick peas and balsamic vinegar in the salad, puff pastry from the Superstore and wine from Argentina and France were our few concessions. Not to mention salt and pepper!

And in late-breaking farm news, Button, our eldest Barred Rock hen, has hatched three new chicks, one of whom is blonde and obviously is from one of the Rhode Island Red's eggs. They all started cramming into her box to lay after she started sitting! She abandoned two eggs which were pretty cold when I found them, and another chick had died at birth. A couple of nights ago night Edward hurriedly built them their own little enclosure to let Button raise her chicks without any harrassment from the hens. The chicks are so sweet. Meanwhile, a little red hen who had been sitting on a pile of perhaps 8 eggs, no doubt being surrogate for some other hens too, hatched just one yesterday and left the nesting box. Her baby is beautiful and very blonde and they are now ensconced in the pen with Button and her chicks. When I discovered she'd hatched I gathered the remaining eggs and brought them in to see if we could hatch any under a heating blanket as we did last year. But they were feeling pretty cool already when I found them, so we'll see. We don't have a proper incubator. Maybe we'll have a little miracle or two.

In the garden a few rows of lavender are blooming again quite a bit now due to my early pruning and continued warm weather. The main varieties are Hidcote and the types I got from the nursery out in Winnipeg, namely Maillette and Buena Vista, sort of greyish buds but very nicely fragranced. So back to the field I go I guess, hoping to make up a bit for my under-harvesting earlier in the summer. Then on to shearing all 600+ plants back before the weather cools too much. And only 6 more farmer's markets to go!

Oh and one more result of Hurricane Earl....Edward's "Bee Tree", a large dead tree by the driveway where he had discovered bees flying in and out of three or more entrances over the summer, got knocked over by the winds and split open, with the hive being exposed. So Edward decided to see what he could do to capitalize on these apparent honey bees.

First he climbed up to look into their hive and found honey comb running down the length of the tree trunk, so he started to pull it out. I wish I had see this as he said he wiggled the sides free and begand lifting it out, hand over hand...over hand, probably bringing up 4 feet of honey comb! He found more later below that!

He cut the tree trunk into manageble chunks with the chain saw and then moved them down with the tractor to where our other hives are located. He set up one of his spare hives (the Warre Vertical Top Bar Hive for you beekeepers out there), and stuffed some pieces of comb inside. Then he left the bees to see if they could find it. Later as it was getting dark we saw a big cluster of bees on the front of the hive. Edward scooped them into a box and dumped them inside the hive with their comb, and so far it seems they are taking to it, flying in and out of the hive doing what bees do, shopping for pollen, making honey and hopefully more bees!! The bees are loving the sunflowers right now, and the goldenrod. And perhaps they'll get one more taste of lavender for the season. Mmmmmmm.