Summer report 2010

It is the evening of August 31, 2010, another summer here and gone. Well, I know, not gone until Sept 22nd or so on the Equinox, but folks on the radio have been saying it's "the last week of summer" all week, as people prepare for "back to school", and Labour Day weekend is up next.

I have been planning my "harvest party" for Labour Day weekend, a substitute for my "evening in Provence" theme which would have occurred during the July lavender harvest had I not been totally overwhelmed by both the amount of lavender and the ongoing renovations at our house, (renos now complete, except for a few things we are finishing ourselves.)

But alas, as I dreamed of a late summer evening feasting on veggies fresh picked in the garden, sunflowers with their happy faces towering high by the shed as the sun is about to set and a chance to appreciate surviving one of the busiest summers ever, we are now considering cancelling the party due to the approach of Hurricane Earl, currently a Category 4 storm making it's way up the east coast, not making landfall until it hits Nova Scotia on Saturday.

The latest track shows it smack dab up the centre of the province and if you zoom in on the map, the line goes, oh, a couple miles west of us through neighbouring Baker's Settlement. But it could change. Earlier today it shifted from minutes east of us to an hour further west, then back eastward again. Forecasts 4 days ahead can be as much as 200 miles off, but so far they seem to think this "guidance" is good. Oh boy. Well, last year we prepared for "Bill" who didn't materialize as forecast, but I am not smug enough to think they are always mistaken.

So I suspect the Saturday Farmer's Market in Bridgewater, which I have been attending all summer with my lavender wares and fresh cut flowers, will not happen, as the storm is expected to move through during the mid-day. I guess the lovely sunflowers I had hoped to sell will be but a memory. I should at least take pictures of them, maybe I can sell photos of sunflowers!

In other news, we had a bumper crop of lavender in this hot dry spring and early summer, but alas it overwhelmed me with the speed and quantity at which it arrived, bursting into bloom so fast I only harvested perhaps a sixth of what I had. I harvest for the buds as they retain more scent and keep thie color if still in bud and not opened into blossom. I was not prepared and dithered too long about trying to hire anyone. There's not enough money in lavender at the scale I am producing so I was loathe to hire help. So next year's plan is to assemble a team in advance who will work for a meal and wine to help me cut and bundle!

On the upside, the bees loved the open lavender blossoms, and each plant that remained uncut was vibrating with bees of all kinds, our honey bees, wild honey bees, various "bumble" bees. The bee hives, by the way, have gone from one to four due to Edward splitting them in antiicipation of swarming and indeed by catching a swarm or two. They appear very vigorous as they prepare lots of honey for winter. You can smell an almost burnt sugar fragrance as you pass the hives right now! We haven't taken any honey over the summer, trying to get them well established this year. Too bad, with all the lavender pollen they got I bet the honey would have been fabulous.

Much wildlife has been apparent on the farm and in the woods....saw a coyote one day while walking Angus. Fortunately Angus didn't see him as he'd wandered off in the opposite direction. Coyote saw me first I think as I just caught a glimpse as he turned off the trail back into the bush and silently disappeared.

There have been a number of snakes around, small green garden snakes, black ones, longer brown ones. I no longer fear them as there are said to be no poisonous ones in Nova Scotia, though I think they could still give you a little bite. Just last week Edward found a large brown one in a wood pile, who didn't really move as Edward looked at him. Then just the other day he came across his skin, white, fragile and totally intact, from eye holes to tip of tail! Amazing.

There have been painted turtles in the pond in the woods, a wee one was hanging out in one spot next to the trail for a while but has disappeared. Many green and gold leopard frogs are in the grass around the garden and by the woods pond too. Edward finds tiny salamanders as he moves piles of building materials.

There are rabbits (snowshoe hares really) that give Angus chase; a skunk that gave Angus STINK (right between the eyes last week)!! Porcupines that gave Angus quills right in the mouth! Ow. Baby porcupines that have given Smudge and Spirit, the young cats, tiny quills in their muzzles too. There's a fox that stole a rooster, leaving a pile of red feathers that trailed into the woods....(the roosters are no longer free-ranging needless to say!!) and then the fox had the audacity to return a week later and sit right in the middle of the driveway, in broad daylight, licking it's fur in front of the chicken coop, as Edward approached. "Uh, oh hi, who are you?" Angus finally noticed and gave chase.

The farmer's market has been a fun experience. I love meeting people there each week, telling them about lavender, the farm, even about Soul Coaching, my other love (besides Edward and the critters of course!) The market is not my path to riches although I do manage to sell a number of lavender products each week, sometimes eye pillows and neck pillows, some weeks it's herbs, like my Herbes de Provence (or Herbes de Newcombville!) and culinary lavender, and sometimes the fresh cut flowers do really well. Sunflowers are popular and it is such a disappointment to me that this week, which may be my best potential harvest of sunflowers, will be a bust due to the hurricane coming. I expect the market will be rained or hurricaned out! And then the remaining flowers in the garden will be flattened.

Oh well, that's farmin' for ya! Sure glad I am not a grain famer in Saskatchewan this year. I just heard that four of the past five years have been disasters for them, thisyear battered by rain and floods and hail. Wheat prices are going up due to scarcity. Russia has had a bad year, drought and fires, and is not exporting any wheat. People say, "Oh boy, global warming will make Atlantic Canada and other northern parts of Canada able to grow stuff that we couldn't before due to a longer growing season."

I kinda thought that myself for a bit until I heard a fellow on CBC this morning saying that is simplistic and likely false, as the land as you go north in this country is not arable, full of rocks, tundra etc. I am misquoting perhaps but that's the gist. It is not just heat that makes for good growing conditions obviously. And of course, if we get warmer and other southerly places get even hotter, then there is the issue of droughts, desertification, and then having shortages in places which would normally grow food in warmer climes. There is no panacea.

Anyway that's a long enough ramble, and not very positive perhaps. While folks who have time to vacation have been enjoying the hot summer and warm beaches this year, the same lovely weather, albeit great for my lavender, has meant watering more in the garden, more insect pests, and now the balmy coastal waters are making it ripe to bring hurricanes up to our shores. No happy medium it seems.

Batten down the hatches, perhaps I'll give a post mortem next week!