Well, the year is just about finished and we are feeling at peace and well rested (not to mention fed). Ken finished chopping the straw on to the strawberry plants the morning of December 24th so we were able to truly relax and enjoy the holiday.

We have many happy memories of this past season and look forward to creating many more in the year(s) to come. As each year has passed, I have been  growing an appreciation for all of the new friends that our business has allowed us to connect with. One of our dreams is to make this farm feel like everyone’s family farm, just a natural place to bring the kids for an afternoon or slip out for a few minutes to pick up some fresh berries for supper. With each year that passes I know that my dream is being validated when I recount all of the wonderful people that I have met through the farm. I keep thinking that I couldn’t love what I do any more and then I remember that we also get to be our own bosses, work where we live, raise our family in a wholsome and true way, enjoy the bounty of our land and have an abundance of interesting people visit us.

Here are two great examples of the cool things/people that happened at the farm this year:

The "Sinderollas" posing for a fall photo shoot. Credit for the photo to Cat London (http://www.catlondon.ca/photography.html).

Congratulations Beckie and Jeff Ponte!

Even though we just finished covering the strawberries for a long winters rest, I can’t help dreaming of the fragrance of strawberries in the warm June wind and creating a new crop of memories.

Have a safe and peaceful winter!  We look forward to seeing you in the spring!

I love the fall! Well actually, I could hold on to the warm days and nights of summer however, the flavours of apples, squash and pumpkin are what I dream of.

This is the first year we have had our apple trees in production and I am having so much fun tasting the different kinds of apples every couple of days to see how sweet they have become.

As the days get shorter and the nights get cooler, warm apple pie, crisp and cider are what I crave. The smell of something baking with apples and cinnamon make the house smell glorious and my stomach grumble and mouth water.

My good friend Jill recently dropped off some tasty treats that she made and a handy little contraption she found at Loblaws and think I’ve found my new favourite fall treat to make with apples!

The mold.

Firstly, anything Jill makes is good…we often refer to her as Martha (she even made our wedding cake). I was a little nervous to try and replicate Jill’s treats as Ken is a very discerning judge (his mom is also a hard act to follow) however all in all I think that the process was a success!

All you need is some puff pastry, a few apples, a few spices, sugar and the mold (found at Loblaws)

The only thing I changed in the recipe was the type of apples, as we don’t grow Granny Smith I used some Mac’s and I think that these little babies turned out just fine!

Puff pastry is loaded into each side, filling spooned into the middle and the mold is pressed together.

Going in to the oven...

Coming out...aren't they cute!

Approved by Ken (official pie tester)

Now I just need to figure out how to change the apple into a pumpkin…..

Well it’s finally that time of year again! The CORN MAZE is OPEN for business! Each year we have fun creating a new challenge for the young and young at heart! We entertain many guests on week-ends in September and October and school kids during the week days. This year’s theme is Ancient Egypt. The weather is perfect for the opening week-end as is often the case in September. I’m sure we’ll be wearing shorts for a few week-ends yet!

This year is a bit odd to me as, not only is the corn maze open but an unexpected surprise as well…RASPBERRIES! We don’t actually grow fall bearing raspberries, our summer bearing raspberries are actually fruiting. I took these pictures this morning because I just can’t believe how nice they are right now:

Picture taken Friday September 9th, 2011

Look at the white berries still to ripen!

I guess we get to hold on to summer for a little longer!

We had the honour of being interviewed by Josephine Matyas back in May for the June/July issue of Kinston Life Magazine (see link for article). The pictures for the article were shot by Scott Adamson. We were thrilled to get some of the extra shots from the photo shoot today, as a gift from him! What a considerate surprise! After such a busy time of year, I often feel like I never see my kids and now we have these beautiful memories! We will be framing them to hang on our wall soon! Thanks again Scott!

Many of you may have thought that we have gone away on vacation…not true! (Well maybe a mini overnight to Montreal) The farm is always closed in August, that is, at least for a few more years until we have our blueberries in production!  Anyway, we have been keeping busy renovating the strawberries, combining wheat, baling straw, weeding, cutting grass, cleaning up, fixing, painting and generally changing things around to prepare for the fall season!

Straw cut and laying in wind rows after combining the wheat. Ready to be baled.

Big square bales being produced for later use on the strawberry patch.

A field of finished bales waiting to be picked up and stacked, ready to be chopped onto the strawberries for the winter.

It  feels like August is busier than June and July in a way as there is a whole new set of things to be tackled. The main one being the corn maze! We have been very luck to have one of our students (now graduated and a certified teacher!) design the maze for us for the past several years. Chris has been with us since the first year that we opened. It has been fun not only watching him grow and evolve but to have him try his hand each year at a new and more challenging design for the maze. It is especially tricky for him as we usually change the location, size and shape of the maze each year on him! (crop rotation purposes). There have also been a few years that cutting the maze was truly challenging as we didn’t get to cutting it before the corn was taller than us! This year though, with his help the maze has been cut, luckily while it was an appropriate height.

Discussing the next move while cutting the maze. (Ok..this is a picture from a couple of years ago because I keep forgetting to take a better one!)

Things really start to look a little more like fall around here (yes, I know it’s still summer!) with the changing of the pumpkins from tiny green globes to signs of orange and other colours and patterns.

Pumpkin starting to show signs of orange.

One of our new varieties this year..."knuckle head". Notice all the cool warts forming!

An unusual looking mini pumpkin.

Our apple trees are also starting to show signs of promise.

Some red starting to appear on the apples.

We will be offering pre-picked apples only this year due to the limited number of trees and varieties. We do hope to offer pick-your-own in the future….everything just takes time to grow!

I know you all think that I’m probably a little nuts for a)running out in the pouring rain to take pictures and b)blogging about it however, today’s soaking has put Ken and I in a fantastic mood!  I don’t like to complain but, boy has it been dry! With every day that has gone by, we have just watched our poor crops wilt in the afternoon heat or just completely come to a halt. So, with today’s rain comes JOY! There is still a little hope to get those pumpkins going, the corn taller, the strawberries, raspberries and blueberries to not give up. There is one small sacrifice though, the force of the rain did knock the last of the ripe raspberries off the canes, as we expected, and our season is now offically finished.

Pumpkins in the background soaking up the rain!

Ruth (Ken’s mom) even called first thing this morning to congratulate us on the great rain we were getting! The whole family tends to watch the radar and frequently check the weather sites as it’s usually the topic of conversation.

Puddles forming on the driveway during one of the beautiful showers today!

Ken is quite happy as we are about to start combining wheat this week and is only to pleased to have to wait a few days to start when ordinarily, he would be itching to get going, he noted that we actually need a rain to help “harden off” of wheat for harvesting.

And lastly, “lake Ken” as we have dubbed it, is full again! (Ok…it’s just the big puddle that was formed by the tires of the big tractor) We never thought we would be so appreciative of water after the spring weather, but here we are, hard to please farmers, happy as ever!

"Lake Ken"

Here are some images from around the farm this past week.

A double rainbow.

Fresh picked raspberries and beans for sale.

If you look closely, you can see how covered in yellow pollen this little honey bee is.

Pumpkins! They're small but still growing!

Pumpkin blossom.

Our blueberry plants.

Yes..they even have a few blueberries...sorry everyone, Ken and I picked the whole field and probably got about 10 L total!

Cattle corn field growing for the fall corn maze.

Chicory growing wild, it's always such a pretty colour!

...up close

One of the wheat fields...we should be harvesting it in a couple of days!

So many beautiful butterflies lately.

Ken’s grandfather (Ken Sr.) has a saying for everything. One that particularly stands out at this time of year is “knee high by the 4th of July” which for all not in the know refers to the corn. It also reminds me that summer is already half way through! (“By the time the wheat is in head the summer is half done”) I realize that for most, it feels like it just started, the kids are finally out of school and most are embarking on holidays or road trips to beaches and festivals and all of the fun that the summer holds. For us however, it really feels like it is more that half way through as the strawberries conclude, the raspberries ripen and the wheat turns from the grassy green to a golden hue almost over night.

View of the wheat field from behind our house.

Don’t get me wrong, we’ve already had a ton of fun but for me, one of the glorious treats that summer brings is fresh bounty from the garden. The kids and I have been enjoying making fresh raspberry jam and my absolute favourite…yes I’m going to say it…pickled green beans!

Grant and Lilly "helping" make jam.

The finished product.

I know, you all expected me to say something about strawberries or raspberries but the truth is that while those have their merits, I’m a sucker for anything savoury. Salty over sweet any day. Jams and all of the other goodies have their rightful place but give me a jar of pickles and I’m in heaven! You can check out my favourite recipe for pickled green beans on our recipe page.

Just waiting to be pickled.

Another thing that I love to do with fresh beans, besides just eating them raw, is to quite simply put a splash of oil in a pan (or butter if I’m feeling in the mood), chop a couple of cloves of garlic and a tomato or two (you could also use a handful of small cherry tomatoes) fry the lot in the oil for a minute and then toss in a handful of green or yellow beans and saute until the beans are tender crisp. A dash of salt and pepper to finish and I’m in heaven. Even the kids love this one! If you’re feeling really fancy, a handful of chopped herbs would also go nicely here.

I also try to get a few bags of beans and peas blanched and frozen so that we can enjoy them in December when we are sick of cold weather and can pull out a bag of summer’s bounty…and maybe treat ourselves to a smoothie made with some of those frozen berries too!

Just a quick note to let the blue raspberry fans know that they may be out of luck this year. The blue raspberries looked so promising this spring however, the wet weather did take it’s toll and it looks like we will only have a few to share….we’ll just have to convert you back to red fans…that’s mother nature for you!

Now that we have slowed down a little from our daily strawberry picking hours to shorter half days, for raspberry picking, I have had a bit of down time to go over the past couple of weeks in my brain. Strawberry season is like a marathon for Ken and I because you just can’t tell the strawberries when to be ready! We have to get the show on the road as soon as they need to be picked….which kind of crept up on us about a week early this year! One of the things that stands out for me this year and, that I am truly grateful for (besides the fact that we had a great crop of strawberries and lots of wonderful customers to pick them!) is our FANTASTIC STAFF. We could not run the farm without them! Even though it is a first job for many of them, I could not have been more impressed at the stellar performance that they have all given. From getting up really early to spending endless hours in the hot sun, weeding, rock picking, picking berries or any odd job that needs doing, they do their job without fail! There are quite a few people missing from the below photos however, they are all appreciated. I can only hope that they will return for next year’s season. It’s always fun to get to know new faces and personalities and especially rewarding for me to hold the knowledge that we may have had some tiny infulence upon their lives…and hope that they had a little fun, found some new friends and created some memories as well!

The picking crew.

Taking a break to pose for a picture in the field.

Still smiling despite those black clouds rolling in overhead.

More field supervisors.

Tractor driving.

Booth ladies...truly the best!

Being prepared..and not too proud...for the weather!

Parking cars.