Canning season is closed

When I arrived on Vancouver Island, I had one goal: can tomatoes. Of all of the things that I have preserved in the past, diced tomatoes are my absolute favourite thing to crack open in the dead of winter.  So when I moved to the farm, that was project number one. I figured I'd get it out of the way and be done with canning, especially since neither Josh or I had any equipment of our own, let alone enough jars to do more than a batch.

But two things happened. First is that by moving to a farm, I suddenly had access to loads of organic fruit and veg. The second is that I knew that all of this abundance was temporary. In a few short months, none of these things would be ripe and growing and I'd be left trying to make it through the winter on potatoes and pasta (if I didn't want to eat food shipped in from California). This combination threw me into a food preserving whirlwind. Josh called me Hummingbird as he witnessed me at my Type A finest: canning, freezing and dehydrating my face off. Late nights in the kitchen, not a moment to rest. So we established rules, like that we weren't to fill the freezer more than half full (it wasn't even our house), we would only do two layers of the dehydrator at once (too much rot of we stuffed it full) and on multiple occasions we declared a moratorium on jar purchases. But my empty-winter-pantry fears prevailed. As of last week - when canning season was officially officially declared over (ie. we were moving) - here was our count:

135 jars of preserves

8 jars of dehydrated fruit

3/4 of a freezer of frozen fruits, veggies & stocks (1/2 of which didn't fit into our new freezer and still lives in the house sitting freezer)

So just to prove that do indeed go crazy sometimes, here is a little photo journal of September and October's harvest. 

 Dehydrating melons

 Freezing strawberries. This is where I might have gone the craziest. But seriously, when do you ever get access to unlimited organic strawberries? 

 Grated summer squash for the freezer

 Award for the most labour and littlest result by volume: pickled roasted red peppers

 Tomato paste. Also time consuming and probably no cheaper than the little cans in the store, but an impressive xmas present...if you have the right crowd.

 Pickling peppers

 Freezing peppers & chard stalks

 As if I hadn't had spent enough time roasting red peppers, round 2: roasted red pepper hot sauce

Dried oregano

 

Royal the poodle. He loves canning, though he's not much help.

 John and Jill put our urban farming to shame when they collected 150lbs of apples from a tree in the city. 
Another 3-day round of canning ensued.

 Pears. Another 2010 fave that couldn't be left out.

Veggie stock. Lesson: when you make it in a massive pot you end up with a massive amount of stock.

The (lazy) urban farmer

Free apples. The payoff of an hour-long bike ride to school and a month of tree stalking.

I heard this guy recently wondering out loud about what crops he would need to plant if he wanted to have an easy, low-maintenance plot that yields a lot of food. "I'd like it to be like a switch, so that you can kind of just turn it ON when you want stuff, and OFF when you don't". From my limited perspective, this seemed ridiculous. Growing food takes an absurd amount of time, energy, space and resources - so much so that it's often not possible to earn a living if farming is your only job.

But actually there is a way to grow organic food without all of the irrigation, battles with insects, back aches and greenhouses: let nature do it. This is also known as wild foraging. How do you do it? Find things that are growing around you that are edible, harvest them and eat them. 

Apple samples at the Salt Spring Apple Festival

There is an apple tree near school that I pass on my bike ride, and I have been watching it like a hawk. After attending the Salt Spring Island Apple Festival in September, I learned that each variety of apple ripens at a different time. Picking too early means the apples won't taste good, so you have to wait until the exact right time. One of the ways that you can tell that the apples are ready is that they fall off the tree. (kind of obvious, but it's hard to wait until that point when you see full grown apples on a tree). Two weeks ago as I rode by, I saw two big green balls on the ground under my tree. Apples = ready. So this weekend on our way out to the Saanich Organics end of year party, Josh and I played urban farmers and collected the harvest. Not only did we not have to plant the tree, worry about pests or wait 15 years for it to mature, but we got 5 pounds of apples for free. 

Now that's the kind of farming I'm talking about. Gotta tell that guy.

"Could you stop taking pictures and help?"

getting to know your clutch

When I got my driver's licence at the age of sixteen, there was one thing that I was excited about: finally being able to drive Kathy Jurca's red convertible Miata. After years of being a mere passenger, in the summer of 1998, I took the wheel.

Looking back, it's hard to believe that Kathy would let an inexperienced driver take control of such a fancy little car, but I think that was the point. Her car was standard, which meant that I needed to first learn that precise dance that is timing the release of the clutch with the revving of the gas. Kathy took us out to a factory in the middle of nowhere on a Sunday. Huge empty parking lot. Perfect for the new driver.

We spent an hour practising. Getting used to the clutch, shifting gears. Kathy was an encouraging teacher and at long last she deemed me ready for fifth gear. The only stretch of the parking lot that was long enough to get up enough speed was the exit, so I turned the corner and went for gold. By third gear the exit lane widened and I turned slightly to align with the curb. Except that I slightly overcompensated. The front tire made contact. I stalled. sssssssssssssssssssssssssss. The front passenger side of the car slowly sank down. Flat tire.

No problem. We got out all of the gear and set about changing the tire. First step: take off the lug nuts. When we got to the last nut - the special anti-theft nut - our tired biceps just couldn't pull hard enough. It was impossible. We gave up. No problem. Call Bob (Kathy's husband) to come and rescue us. His biceps are huge. As Kathy reached into her purse, she remembered leaving her cell on the counter at home, figuring it unnecessary for this trip. And so we had no choice but to walk. It was 5km to the nearest house. When we reached civilization, we found a willing helper who drove us back to the car, loosened that last nut, and soon we were off, headed home on a donut. Kathy drove.

Despite the unpleasant end of our first driving lesson, Kathy didn't give up on me. In fact, the next time I drove the Miata was a week later, and this time in real traffic. Having someone believe in you is a powerful thing, and I eventually felt rather comfortable driving standard that summer.

I didn't touch a stick shift for years after that. Without a car to practise on (Kathy lives far, far away, in Ohio) or a coach in the passenger seat, that feeling of confidence fizzled away to the point where claimed to be unable to drive standard when asked in conversation.

Twelve years later, I dive into the farming world where being able to drive standard is important. Dreams of a horse-powered diesel-free farm aside, I realized that I would need to get back in the saddle if I wanted to be able to drive a tractor. Yet I rested happily in denial. Until Sunday night. I was reading the insurance policy on Josh's new car (a subaru legacy, standard). The agent issuing the insurance the day before had accidentally placed a restriction on the policy that reduced the price but left me as the only eligible driver. Josh needed to be at work at 7:30am in the morning and the insurance place didn't open until 9.

A trial-by-fire re-driving lesson ensued. And even though it had been 12 years, it all came back to me. I still stalled a lot and earned my fair share of honks, but I drove standard the next day - even by myself! - and arrived alive. Let's just hope I keep it up so that I can shift the gears on my shiny new tractor, if and when I ever get to that point.

Pizza party tonight.

Since taking reign (physically, not occupationally) over Northbrook Farm, Josh and I have been scheming about having a Penthouse pizza night. Last week we realized that it if we waited any longer, the only veggies in season would be rhutabaga and parsnip.
And so, on Monday night we cut out a cardboard pizza, designed invitations and did late-night covert drop offs in the cars of those living here on the farm. Each guest was asked to return their invitation with their favourite topping written on the back. On Thursday I passed my time in trades class making a 6-course pizza menu that included every topping requested (save for the request of our youngest guest, who at the age of 4 could only manage to write his own name as is favourite topping), plus some other seasonal goodies: pepper, fennel, tomato, arugula, onion, pear, apple and eggplant. Tonight, the dream becomes a reality.

Let's get sliced.

The view from the penthouse

Northbrook Farm. Home sweet home for September and October. We live at the top with a cat and a dog and when I am stay-at-home-mom two days a week, this is where I look down over the fields to monitor progress and pretend that I am in charge.

Conehead

For just five weeks of the year, the cones on the Douglas Fir trees at Mt. Newton Seed Orchard are ripe for the picking. Once picked, the cones are bagged and sent to a greenhouse where the seeds (there are over 100 on a cone) are planted in trays to grow into seedlings for next spring's tree planting crews.

Over the course of those five weeks, a crew of cone pickers comes to work at the orchard, ballooning the regular staff of three to ten, sometimes fifteen bodies around the lunch room table. The pay is high (for a seasonal job) and the schedule is flexible: work as many days as you'd like, Monday to Saturday.

If you can believe my luck, I arrived in Saanichton, BC the week that the 2011 cone picking season opened and I moved into a house on a farm that is right next door to a seed orchard. Josh, my employment agent, has been working at the orchard one day a week since May, as a farmhand, and this IN sealed the deal. And so on September 7th, I became a cone picker. Three days a week, six podcasts a day. Good thing I saved up a summer's worth of This American Life.

Here's how it works. Wear clothes that you are okay with destroying. Sap, or 'pitch', in the tree world, doesn't wash out. Wear rubber gloves. It takes a week to get that brown stickiness off your hands unless you want to douse yourself in rubbing alcohol. Wear safety glasses, just to look good. Now that you are dressed, go to the area of the orchard where you are assigned to work in on a given day. Find the trees that are ready to pick: cones are still closed, still slightly green, but turning brown and starting to fan out a bit. Set up a tarp under the branches. Set up a ladder. Climb up with your hook-on-a-pole and pluck cones off, letting them drop onto the tarp. Clear everything within your reach, then move your tarp and ladder around the tree. Clockwise or counterclockwise, your choice. Just get the cones off the tree. Pile the cones into crates, label the crates with the tree # and location. Bring them in to the barn. Repeat.

 Looking pretty good at 14 feet up. Note the hook on a pole in my right hand - a cone picking must-have. 

 Josh moves his tarp. What a good worker. He brings his dock when he works on Wednesdays (see it by the orange shirt in the foreground) so I take a break from podcasts and listen to out-loud tunes.

Terry operates the Manlift, which comes around after we have picked with ladders to get the cones that we couldn't reach at the top of the trees.

The best part about cone picking is that I have found my crossword soulmate. Our skill level is about the same (moderate), our word knowledge is complimentary (I know french, he knows all obscure three-letter words) and our desire to finish an entire puzzle is equal (high). There are three breaks in the day (morning coffee, lunch, afternoon coffee) which gives Terry and I exactly 60 minutes of cumulative break time to plough through the day's puzzle. It's the Victoria Times Colonist and admittedly it's not the hardest crossword, though each week we show improvement. Exactly four days ago we finished an entire puzzle with limited co-worker help by the end of lunch! I'm no Rob Carson (who back in '05 would finish a New York Times crossword before I could finish a Jumble), but here at the seed orchard I am working my way up the ladder. No pun intended.