It has been awhile....

From the country...

Mark and Millie setting up drip irrigation (photo credit:Dan Gordon Photography)

Eating peas and playing with sticks on the porch (photo credit:Dan Gordon Photography)

Family camping trip to Arrowhead Provincial Park

Farm life is all consuming to say the least. We have been running since early spring putting in the crops (lettuces, edible soy beans, filet beans, pumpkins, winter/summer squash, a ton a different types of onions, cardoon, carrots, peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, a lot of cucumbers of various varieties, sweet potatoes and on and on...) and tending to the livestock (hatching this year's chickens, ducks and turkeys, building runs and different forms of poultry housing). It has been a full time job maintaining our crops, irrigating almost every day because it has been a really, really dry summer thus far.

We managed to get away for a few days to camp. We a lot of spent time swimming in the lake, fishing, cooking over the campfire and playing games (not to mention a rousing game of charades...).

the boys crashed out in the tent mid day.

Right now the vegetables are flowing out of the garden. We have been gorging on new potatoes, green onions, fresh herbs with everything, cucumbers, the first of the tomatoes and boat loads of lettuce. Next onto beans and melons...I am excited about the melons this year! They like it hot and well we have sure had a double dose of that.

Laura

Balcony Beans and Other Good Things...

From the City...

Our little balcony garden is a hotbed of excitement these days.  We had a great feed of green and yellow beans which we didn't have to supplement with ones from the market and our bean plants from Nate are exploding with flowers and little buds!  We've also been eating no shortage of basil and our little green zebra tomatoes are just about there, I'm just a little fearful that they might get picked early because a certain someone in the family thinks they're balls and he's just dying to play with them.

-amelia

A Day at the Zoo.

From the City...

Here's some pics from our Toronto zoo day yesterday, thanks to bro in law Toddy for these.  I have resorted to stealing others pictures so I don't have to actually use my own camera, sad I know.  But its also fun to see what someone else thought was photo-worthy, the below are pretty great I think. 

Pony rides, picnics, splash pads (the world's best) and 'train' rides and some seriously crashed out tiredy kids at the end of it all.

good day,

-amelia

Lately.

From the City...
Lately we've been doing a lot of summerin; swimming, being naked, playing in the sink because our apartment is sweltering hot, eating our first feed of green beans from our garden, torturing myself by going to the world's hardest workout class (I survived but barely), climbing up onto the kitchen table and of course, eating roasted marshmallows.  To think we have a whole other month of summer ahead of us!

Still ahead; The Toronto Zoo, Hillside Festival, Ward's Family Cottage Weekend, visits with Linds and her babe Elle, and Eaglewood.  Lots and lots of good times ahead.  

-amelia

Raspberry Jamming 2012

From the City...
Well it's that time of year again, our annual raspberry jamming weekend.  This year we harvested and jammed all in the same day.  Our third year and we seemed to have a nice flow about us, that and Laura came long to help...you remember Laura right??? the other half of the HKS...

We picked 25 quarts from Sweet Scent Farms in Lindsay and made about 20 various sized jars. We also froze about 12 cups of berries for jamming in the winter, which is just straight up genius! Kudos to Meg W. for that one.

Here's some pics:

Ripe and ready for the pickin'.

There's a whole team of us out there; 5 adults, 3 kids and 3 toddlers! 

We can now breath a collective sigh of relief because the raspberry jam shelf is stocked again.

 ....and in other exciting news, we found this deluxe scrabble board on the street!  It smells a bit like your grandma's rec room, it has a swiveling base and little grooves to keep your letters in place, which is handy when your son enjoys whipping bits of play doh at it.

...ah yes, Theo loves playdoh. 

-amelia

Beating the Heat

From the City...

It's been a total scorcher in the city, we've gone to the splash pads and the local pool so much I now know the lifeguards names...but seriously, it's been hot.  Lucky for us though cause we're leaving for three days of camping in Huntsville. Our gear is backed, our route is planned and it's just one more sleep away!  But for now here's a great recipe for popsicles that are super easy to make and real kid friendly.  Theo's been pretty much living off them.  I bought the molds from the dollar store but I'm sure you could find a better plastic mold from some sort of green type store like grassroots.

1/4 cup plain yogurt
handful of strawberries (about 10)
3 slices of watermelon minus the green
1 tbsp maple syrup or honey

Process the whole mess, pour into molds and freeze.  
-amelia

CANADA DAY on the Farm.

From the Country...
Below pics are all taken by my stepson Elijah and they're pretty darn good if I do say so myself!

 Two chefs, one farmer, two kids and a musician guttin' fish.

 Scooping out the insides

 Cousin love.

World's fastest soccer game...15 minutes due to a real hot sun.

 Farm tour for party guests, note our biggest market garden ever!  We've been real busy this year.

A meeting of the minds.

...and a happy belated Canada day to you all.

laura.