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rusticrevivals · 6 years ago

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Well, you’ve been treated to tidbits, both here and on Facebook, but Tiffany Christensen, our local New Denmark born-and-raised young photographer (see her work in other blog posts using tag words such as the pageant, founders day, etc.) has processed and published her huge album of Richard’s niece Carriann’s and groom Matthieu LeBlanc’s big day here on the farm on July 28th. So, as promised, that’s mostly what this posting is about. If you aren’t interested in the family connections or the homemade decor or the Tolkien tid-bits, skip to the bottom to see more of Tiffany’s work – but seasonal this time! She takes great autumnal shots, some from right here at the farm and some OF the farm from a distance! Lovely! And, as mentioned previously, the next post will be Crows and Scarecrows, and the one after that will be all about Richard’s new greenhouse by the garden – all made with recycled windows and old tin from my cabin. He’s almost finished it, just in time for the cold weather… But for now, enjoy the beauty of this special day when our farm was shared by many.

DECOR

As early as mid-2017, Carriann and Matthieu, from 3 hours south of us in Saint John, approached us about a farm wedding. They wanted a beautiful vista, just as her Aunt Kim had had at her wedding in Quebec the year prior. Carriann, ever tactful, posed the question something like this: “We were wondering if you guys know of any place up your way that has some gorgeous views where we might get married in 2018? ” So, of course, we offered to help in any way we could and offered the farm as a base if they wanted it. We agreed, wisely I believe, that having tents and the reception here as well would have been too much, so the reception was up the road at the New Denmark Rec. Centre (which has been pictured for you in other blog postings – a real country venue with original stage and hardwood floors, with a gorgeous vista of its own!)

Since Rustic Revivals and Rural Revivals (my two artistic and consulting businesses) have done a number of farm weddings, I offered, as far back as March 2018, to begin making Carriann and Matt’s (heretofore referred to as C and M) choices of items mostly made with their colours: lilac to dark purple and lime green. (a note: while the couple would have preferred to have had the wedding in June, when our lilacs would have been out in matching splendor as well as the white apple blossoms on the trees under which we walked, we knew the blackflies would have been just too horrendous in that month to have had people sitting out in the orchard (the worst spot on the farm for them). So a year ago it was decided that the wedding should take place in July, near the end, when all the planting would be done and to have given flowers a chance to be blooming. Sadly, as it turned out, it was such a hot, dry summer that not much HAD bloomed (and didn’t until Sept! See last post, Purple Haze!) And the only day in 3 months that it DID threaten to rain (90 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms all day!) WAS the day of the wedding, but due to a lot of praying and pleading, it was a lovely temperate day with just the right amount of breeze blowing across the valley to keep the insects and heat to a minimum and yet not to topple anything precarious… Click on any photo to enlarge and read caption:

signage I painted in Carriann’s “Tolkien” calligraphy

had to put a chemical toilet in the cabin ‘just in case’

set out some decor in the birch grove to catch people’s attention from the road

the head table had Tolkien-themed candle holders

detail of the Tolkien candleholders – a little hobbit hole

Richard’s brother Jean-Marc and Richard and I designed this hobbit hole door (and matching window) for the grassy knoll at the bottom of our lower meadow

I organize some bridesmaids to pick flowers and put in testtubes around the wedding area, as so little had grown and bloomed due to the dry summer. Bride’s father Jean-Marc’s job was to spend hours designing and putting up a purple and green shield so the wedding party could come and go along our porch and into our living room for changing without being seen by the guests (also covered up the ugly red brick which clashed with purple and green!)

All recycled – the ring-bearer’s pillow and candleholders

another detail of the head-table candleholders

part of the front of the driveway ‘gate entrance with colour-coordinated flowers and snacks

the gatewayentrance with colour coordinated snacks and flowers

under the birchgrove we had some games set up for guests as they waited for the ceremony or for photos to take place

Richard’s brother Jean-Marc made this chalkboard at Carriann’s request, to act as partially a program of the service and (on the backside) to give directions to the rec centre.

the old arched stick we found in the woods in early May got fancied up for an initial arch under which everyone could walk toward the arches of the apple tree! Too bad those purple morning glories hadn’t been out in full bloom though!

we had to do up 4 barrels with signs to help stop traffic and ATVs on our road and adjoining field tracks so that the service could be as quiet as possible

Some who have followed the renovations here at Blue Belldon may remember this wicker arch (which normally has shelves!) which is in our bedroom and which I picked up by the side of the road in Ontario because someone was just sick of it! We have certainly had a great deal of use from this freebie as it was once in our Rural Creators’ Collective shop in Carlisle ON too!

a colour-coordinated collage I did up for the front entrance to the rec centre

The gift table – old bag, old coffee can, engagement photo I DID take in front of the lilac bush here, and a recycled hula-hoop wrapped in burlap which Carriann’s step-mom Patti-Lynn made for her

all recycled fabrics and the hay bales ready and awaiting guests

Matthieu’s sister did up the mason jars and picked all the flowers and weeds from our farm – I crackled the candle holders to make them look old and shabby-chic and added some fun wedding and triva facts and game-cards, etc. to the tables

the finished side porch that Jean-Marc designed and was mostly responsible for erecting, though everyone put the finishing touches on it – lots of help from parents of the couple and the entire bridal party!

Let’s never forget the all-important privy in my Rustic Revivals cabin that Carriann and I spent a half-day decorating to match! (In the end, we think only two people went in and used it! – sigh!)

Tiffany took some much better photos of some of the decor around the farm. Comments regarding each are underneath:

At the last minute, I threw some lime green paint on this old frame I had as part of my Rustic Revivals’ hoard. So glad I did, as I LOVE this photo!

You have followed in an earlier blog the many long hours Richard put in, in hot sun, tearing off the metal from the cabin that will soon become my shop. I varnished the trim and painted some purple and green accessories on just for the wedding, as well as planting the flower boxes with some overhanging purple thyme and white baby’s breath from the garden. We knew it would make a great feature for the professional shots and Tiffany used it brilliantly!

the Hobbit Holee door and window fit so well into the grassy knoll, and this tilted brilliance on Tiffany’s part really made it seem more surreal and magical. The shot below is just an impulsive one of the 4 of us.

While Mom wasn’t at this wedding, having gone to Ontario to give up her upstairs suite for the wedding visitors who were with us for nearly a week to help get the farm looking ship-shape, her presence was felt in the flowers she’d bought and helped plant and water and weed, and in, for example, this purple woven mat of hers that we used to cover the chair

My great-grandmother Lipsit’s tablecloths were on a number of accessory tables for this wedding, but I had some other paperweights laid aside for use on the outdoor tables. Not until Tiffany’s photos came out ten days ago did I realize that Richard had grabbed a crowbar when Pastor Ralph asked for a weight!

Carriann’s brother, Richard’s nephew, Chris has been physically and mentally challenged his whole life, but is an accomplished musician and now can add being Lord of the Rings (ringbearer) to his sister’s slightly Tolkien-themed wedding!

as seen in earlier blogs, we set up a water fountain with some wild animal representation to add some more purple in case all the purple flowers weren’t yet in bloom (which they weren’t). It was meant to collect some loose change for the couple, with people making wishes for them, but as so many of the guests were French I don’t think anyone bothered to read my signs! Still, the purple accents helped with the colour!

Love this photo of Tiffany’s, just showing a close-up glimpse of the couple’s colour choices. Richard actually picked this floral arrangement himself, based on the lime green leaves in the centre. We had to keep it carefully watered for over a month to keep it looking like that in the dry heat! Those are bed sheets on barrels for snacks in the background. ALWAYS upcycling!

another shot I personally appreciate from Tiffany, since I planned hard to offer healthy farm-type snacks but still keep them in the colour theme! Love the wagon wheel in the background, too – Tiff has such a great eye!

Some more of the purple and green recycled, upcycled, homemade or all-natural decor – remember to click on any photo you want to read the caption/make the photo bigger!

at the entrance to the rec centre, I decorated with some of the items C and M had chosen from the Rustic Revivals collection, as well as some surprised that were of a Tolkien or farm-based theme

the special Tolkien-themed candle holders for the head table looked lovely among the flowers that Matt’s sister Linda and the rest of the bridesmaids picked from our gardens that morning

the head table and C and M’s special table above on the stage

Jean-Marc’s homemade wine on some of the guest tables, with Linda’s mason jars and my candle holders as well as the purple and green mints I’d made earlier in July for a bowl for each table

some of the cards I put on the tables to entertain guests as they awaited the bridal party to arrive

more of the entrance to the farm, with snack tables – a close up of the dark purple juice I made for guests

close up of the entrance to the farm, with lace curtain and great view

a colour-coordinated collage I did up for the front entrance to the rec centre

Fruit Juice, Anyone?

a few close-ups of the bows and flowers we tried to make in purples and lime-greens, with Jean-Marc’s side porch in the background

the ‘aisle’, ready and waiting!

REHEARSAL, and REICH DINNER — FRIDAY -CANDID SHOTS:

remember to click on any photo you want to read the caption/make the photo bigger!

Tiffany and Pastor Ralph get Carriann organized at the reheasal on Friday, the day before

Tiffany plans where she’ll stand for special shots as the father and bride practice walking down the aisle

C and M pose with groom’s Mom Yvonne and bride’s Dad Jean-Marc (also, like me, awaiting knee surgery – and we’re two days apart in age! hmmmmm….)

Richard sits with Vince and Yvonne, the groom’s parents. It had been a long week (and day!) of exhausting and hot work and everyone was tired

David Halpine, our self-sufficient neighbour and musical genius, brought his 3 boys to play throughout the service. At this rehearsal, we planted a mic in the flowers I’d placed in front of them, to try and pick up the best sound on the speakers

Pastor Ralph at rehearsal, looking dapper!

Richard, his mother Helene, and his brother Jean-Marc in action at the rented farmhouse at which they stayed and gave a rehearsal dinner Friday night for the Reich side of the family

Carriann, at left, with her Grandmere (Richard and J-M’s mother), her step-Oma Betty, Richard’s Dad, Carriann’s Opa (Hans)

Chris, the Lord of the Rings, waves as he is whisked by at rehearsal

the entire bridal party, and a worried Vincent (father of the groom) wondering how to get everyone organized

some tired-out folk! l-r Jean-Marc, his brother-in-law PatLinus, Richard and the groom’s parents Vince and Yvonne

Erik (front), the hard-working groomsman, and the rest of Matt’s friends who came long distances to stand up with him for his special day

The Halpines practicing with the specially-hidden mic in the flowers

Saturday Morning -The Big Day – Thunderstorms in the Forecast, but …

the decorating and tidying work continues! ALL the bridal party and parents pitching in…remember to click on any photo you want to read the caption/make the photo bigger!

I put nails in the beams of our living room so the dresses could be hung high – make a great photo!

The bridesmaids and Tia, the flower girl, spent a good part of the morning picking flowers for both the rec centre tables and vases, and to stick in Carriann’s test tubes to push in the ground on either side of the aisle to add more purple and greens to the black-eyed susans

the men-folk got to work putting out the haybales and the planks with cardboard and white sheets they’d spent several days preparing

the apple tree branches hang over in a natural arch ready for the bridal party and the seats are ready for the guests

groom Matt tries to keep Smitty under control whilst I order the bridesmaids about in my usual directorial fashion. You don’t HAVE to go to uni to learn how to organize in this way, but I did anyway!

Here, I am asking flower girl Tia for some floral arranging help whilst keeping an eye on Jean-Marc as he balances precariously. I spend half my life trying to keep the two clumsy Reich boys from falling off purchases on to which they have “perched precariously”. It gets tiring! (Just this weekend Richard TWICE fell of the stepladder, once nearly landing on my tiny mother!)

Love this photo of Tia the flower girl kneeling on Mom’s braided rug!

lots of arranging of test-tubes filled with water and a stem or two of purple and lime green flowers being ‘planted’ since the dry summer meant a lot of our flowers didn’t bloom in time

AND FINALLY – THE WEDDING ITSELF

These are now mostly Tiffany Christensen’s gorgeous photos, which I’ll let mostly speak for themselves. A few others (not marked with Tiff’s fun logo in the left corner) were taken by the two aunts -either myself or Carriann’s mother’s sister, her Aunt Kim, whose dress she was also wearing – so even more along the upcycle/recycle theme I always love here at Blue Belldon!! Most of these have captions to explain, and are primarily in the order in which they took place:

Step-Mom Patti-Lynne at work on hair and make-up for the bride

a final touch-up

Father of the Bride, Jean-Marc (Richard’s brother) ties the rings to Chris’s recycled pillow

professional photographer Tiffany Christensen prepares for the work ahead with a quiet chat with bride Carriann on our side porch

for those that know our orchard, this is the arm of the white bench overlooking the rock garden and the lovely view (between the two apple trees) where Tiffany wisely thought to place the rings for a neat shot

Carriann’s Aunt Kim, who took many of these shots not marked with Tiff’s logo, helps her niece with her shoes

bridesmaids get ready, in front of our big bedroom mirror put in front of the fireplace

bridesmaids ready!

Pastor Ralph is ready – trying to calm the wind?

The groom had his own special walk down the aisle – to a Lord of the Rings orchestral piece, of course!

The groomsmen make their decent through the two natural arches of the apple tree

adore this shot of Tiffany’s – very artsy!

Tia the flower girl begins to throw the rose petals

Father and Daughter begin their journey

This is a shot by Aunt Kim – love how you can see the natural arch that the bride and father are just about to go through

da-da-da-dum~~

C and M wanted the scenery, the birch arch, the rose petals strewn and the bubbles being blown behind – here are all 4 desires shown together!

Carriann, with Richard’s Mom (her Grandmere) Helene

this is Richard’s favourite photo – he is in the background talking to his two sons, whilst his brother looks like he’d rather be talking about cars back with them!

the whole gang

Richard’s father, Hans, and his wife Betty with the happy couple

with the parents, Vince, Yvonne, and their son Matthieu, Carriann and her father Jean-Marc and her step-mom Patti-Lynn (also the official make-up artist, and videographer!

the couple with Richard’s two very-much Torontonian sons!

Tiffany tries to organize the shot she took prior to this one!

The photo below needs some explanation – the groomsmen, the happy couple and myself all jumped on our truck for Richard to drive us down to the grassy knoll for photos of the Hobbit Hole. As I was on the tail gate, Richard seemed to forget that I had had 3 back surgeries and was on the waiting list for knee surgery and thought it very funny to drive like a maniac all over our field and track. So I had to lean back to try and keep balance. Tiffany, who was behind me, thought this very amusing, apparently!

And a few from the reception at the New Denmark Rec Centre: (photo credits to all and sundry, but the really exceptional ones are by Kim Mageau and Patti-Lynne Reich)

Richard’s son Erich and his girlfriend Fran, from Toronto on left, Carriann’s other grandmere from Quebec in centre, and Richard’s son Nigel, with girlfriend Deeanna on right

Richard’s dad Hans, brother (father-of-the-bride) Jean Marc, Richard, his step-mom Betty (she and Hans drove from Kingston, ON!) and mom Helene (also from Saint John)

Richard dancing with his Mom in an almost empty hall – the two tables behind them weren’t used as SOMEONE miscounted the number of guests on the groom’s side… either that or my big scary Tolkien giant hanging from the door scared everyone away!) But the dancing got sillier and much more popular later. I won’t post any of those!

the head table and C and M’s special table above on the stage

Nigel and Deanna – though they have NO PLANS to marry, Nigel caught the garter and Deanna caught the bouquet. Hmmm.

The gents lining up to catch the flying garter

Richard, Carriann trying to get her cousin Erich to dance

A close up of the lime-green mint jelly of which I put ONE on each table for sampling with the meal, along with the entertaining cards about old-fashioned marriages (just happened to be purple and green cards, so why not?) Jean-Marc and Patti-Lynne followed the eco-friendly theme of the farm and had organic seeds done up as table favours – highly suggest to all!

Love this shot of Richard and his nephew Chris (Lord of the Rings!) in deep conversation

Photo of Dad and Daughter – lovely shot!

And now, as promised – or in case you didn’t want to look at the beautiful photos of the wedding previously, here’s some seasonal and autumnal shots from lens-master Tiffany, to get you back in a fall mood…

The red tree to right is the only non-birch tree in our birch grove on Blue Belldon. This is our view every day – aren’t we lucky?

Going down the steep Lucy’s Gulch, with the Saint John River below and Grand Falls, and Limestone Maine beyond in distance

Tiffany took this of our farm from the top of Blue Bell Mountain, across the valley. That’s us right in the middle!

a New Denmark tractor preparing the harvest of potatoes and other crops

the lush colours of New Denmark

Tiffany grabbed this one night of our two churches on the hill – I think she needs to enter it in a contest or have it made into a poster for some religious event, don’t you?

The two churches from closer to our farm

See you next time, for “Crows and Scarecrows”…

The Biggest Blue Belldon Day… of 2018 Well, you've been treated to tidbits, both here and on Facebook, but Tiffany Christensen, our local New Denmark born-and-raised young photographer (see her work in other blog posts using tag words such as the pageant, founders day, etc.) has processed and published her huge album of Richard's niece Carriann's and groom Matthieu LeBlanc's big day here on the farm on July 28th.

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rusticrevivals · 7 years ago

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Remember what I said in last week’s posting, about a challenge for writers being one of making points or issues relevant to each other with relevant and perhaps even seamless segues? Obviously, I need to stick to the main theme of this blog – what we do here on the farm to live as self-sufficiently as possible… but one should still recognize special events or holidays, visitors, and make the postings personal at the same time.

This week is the last blog before Halloween is once more upon us. (If you didn’t read last year’s Halloween posting, have a look – I’m still rather proud of that one, the mix of ‘haunted’ photos of the farm, its residents, and valley, the ‘ghostly’ tales of the Danish settlers, and the silly verses ! Search my blog with the words “All Hallowed” or try the link: https://bluebellmountainblog.wordpress.com/2016/10/29/all-hallowed-anec-pics/ ) .

While last week’s theme encompassed all things “long” and “green”, this week will be RED – for blood, for crabapples, for smashed grapes and scarlet runner beans whose vines creep everywhere, and for the amazing red peat bogs out near the ocean iteself…There’ll be mention of your favourite crabby and creepy characters in fiction as well, so hunker down for a S P O O K Y as well as informative read!

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When our guest, Leanne Goodfellow (an ironic surname, as this blog will mostly be about Badfellows!) from Aberdeenshire was here during September, she helped us pick and prepare many crabapples. Last year you read about some of the many things I did with these hardy and prolific little jewels, such as crabapple juice, sauce, and best of all – what turned out to be everyone’s favourite JELLY. But this year, besides those items, I remembered that as a child we always had pickled crabapples to brighten up our Christmas table, and I LOVED them.

Picking the crabapples didn’t take too long, once we finally decided to ‘get at it’…

“With all hands available”… we managed it in about two hours, using the pick-up box and some ladders.

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The tree was full this year, and although we still had to be wearing blackfly nets/hats, we didn’t have any serious injuries. Above, Leanne demonstrates the huge bin we filled of them, stripping all the leaves first. Cammie and Chevy also helped strip the leaves and finish the tree off for the season. While Chevy stands grazing, Cammie now uses his flanks to ‘mount’ herself… and by mid-Sept. the bottom of the tree looked like this:

However, it’s the brambly branches of the crab apple tree that make it such an interesting and spooky enigma. I just took this photo of the VERY last crabapple I could see on it – less than a half-hour ago. Blue Bell Mountain in the distance, of course. Isn’t this a great Halloween shot? And did you know…There is an old custom of offering the last crab apple of the season to a mythical figure… The fruit is given as an offering to ensure a good crop next year. I guess I’d better go take this apple down and find me some mythical guy – FAST!

Crab apple trees have slightly thorny-looking branches and while they aren’t particularly sharp, we still advise wearing gloves when harvesting. Because of their appearance, the trees also fit well into All Hallow’s Eve folklore with a great spooky novella, and many paintings of witches and worlocks gathering around their base:

Here are some REALLY great folklore beliefs about crabapples themselves – perfect for this time of year:

Witches reportedly concealed their poisons in the fruits. Crabs appear in A Midsummer Night’s Dream in which the roasted fruits were included in the wassail drink.

Because we live in a Danish community, I thought this next one was especially interesting: Crabs have been cultivated since the Neolithic Age. Signs of crab apple fruits were found in Danish coffins dating from the Early Bronze Age! Here is the famous Danish Edtved girl discovered some years ago:

Cultivated crab apple trees were brought to the American colony of Massachusetts in the 1600’s where they were grafted onto native crab rootstock. There are several from this time period in Salem, home of the famous witch trials. I actually, and by complete accident of timing, spent one Hallowe’en there in 1995. You couldn’t MOVE in that little village due to the busloads of people pouring in for Oct. 31st celebrations.

The term ‘crab’ is actually Norse/Scandinavian/Danish as well . There are two possible origins for the small apples being called ‘crab’. “Scrab” or “Scrabbe” meant crooked, knotted, complex, twisted, very much like the tree used to be. The other possibility is that it derives from “crabbed” which itself means, etymologically, “crooked or wayward/sideways (thus the name for the crustacean) — and then the several figurative senses that follow from that, ie: disagreeable, contrary, ill-tempered, or crooked, as in criminal.

And throughout spooky literature history, and the century of classic horror movies, who have been the ‘crabbiest characters’, voted in 3 different surveys? Number One, and long-time favourites of mine are the two theatre critics, Waldorf and Statler from Jim Henson’s Muppets. They were both hilarious AND crabby!

Two and Three on the list are also favourites of mine from literature: Eeyore and Scrooge. Talk about Grumpy and Crabby! Eeyore has long been a choice role model for me, as he’s also a cynical pessimist. Friends used to call me Eeyore, not just because I was grumpy and moody, but also, I suppose a stubborn ass… but speaking of, there are SOME grumpy old men who can really write the book on being ‘ornery’ :

And here’s another crabby old fart holding up a photo of a grumpy me, having to de-stem, cut in half and de-pit thousands of crabapples to prepare them for the sauce, juice and jelly… (see last year’s posting if you like: https://bluebellmountainblog.wordpress.com/2016/08/28/orchard-organics-holistic-harvest/ )

In fact, one of the reasons I remembered the pickled crabapples I so loved in my youth was that I was trying to think of a way to prepare the little buggers and NOT have to cut them in half and take the pits out! So, this is most delicious:

http://www.extension.umn.edu/food/food-safety/preserving/fruits/canning-spiced-crab-apples/

Like the witches of old who used to mix their herbs into poisons, and then put their poisons into their jars of pickled crabapples, here’s one of my attempts:

My mother will be glad to know that my degree in Theatre Arts and Literature isn’t COMPLETELY going to waste. Nor is my degree in Education, ’cause what am I doing here on this blog, after all?

Now…. …. that’s it for the ‘Crabby’ section, let’s do the ‘Creepy’ chapter, shall we?

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I’ve mentioned several times that we LOVE the way Hawthorne Farm Organics (our seed company that’s in Ontario) offers the Scarlet Runner Bean, both for eating and for wonderful, quick vines. Being an Anglophile, any type of ivy or vine that crawls UP, or creeps OUT (Mom/Joy despises ‘Creeping Charlie’, but if it didn’t kill the other plants, I’d leave it be as well…. I don’t like BROWN spaces, I love GREEN!) Here’s Mom/Joy, waging her usual battle against all things that CREEP TOO MUCH:

As we tried planting the scarlet runner beans to EAT last year, and didn’t care for how huge they got, we DID discover that they are easy to dry and replant. We planted them everywhere around the house, for their quick ‘creeping’ as well as, later, their blood-red flowers which the bees love! (for this reason, because of encouraging cross-pollination, we did put a row of them in with our other peas and beans this year as well.)

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There are two examples, above, of how they climb up the pillars, onto the front porch, and up the trellis and wagon wheel, all within about 3 weeks of their first planting. The red flowers come out later in August and stayed right through ’til mid-October this year!

The other creepy-crawlie I’ve always loved, though it isn’t so quick of course, is grapes. Our neighbour Pierrette (Zeb’s ‘witch-like’ mom) gave us some grape vine roots early in March, and they ‘came up like gangbusters’ (despite Cammie having a go at the ones on the side of the house). We even got a few bunches of grapes already!

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We plan to let them grow right up the pillar and then put lattice work on the roof of the front porch and let the grapes be readily available (it’s just outside the kitchen’s Dutch door that Richard made). The grapes ARE red, and surprisingly sweet already but when we harvested them at the end of Sept., they were still pretty tiny – really only the size of a dime, or smaller. We ate them in one luncheon sitting!

Did you know there’s another kind of red grape called the Witch’s Fingers? I may have to try this variety!

And did you know that “Grapes that Grow as Eyeballs, be the BEST for Hallow’s Eve, Whilst their Vines that Wrap around Your Neck, As a Scarf they Do Deceive?

Funnily enough, although they were just planted this spring, our grapevines are the only thing still green enough to attract Cammie to nibble on this past week – we still have to guard the leaves from her wandering lips!

Linda, my cousin who visited with her fun sister Pat in September, introduced us to ‘ground cherries’, another creepy-crawly we will never be doing without again, now that we’ve discovered how great they taste! It is their little paper-thin pods that many crafters use for autumnal decor and I’ve already begun experimenting to see if I can do lampshades with them for Rustic Revivals’ oil-can lamps (using them like decoupage, but so they will be more natural, and throwing in some leaves as well…)

And while the most creepiest vines of all are in the squash/pumpkin patch, we didn’t score very well out there this year. The harvest of these vines was tiny, in both number and size (see the pumpkins in the creepy scarecrow pic below? Richard doesn’t think we’ll have Halloween trick or treaters this year, because he thinks “Blue” looks like a paedophile! )

But this doesn’t stop one having a bit of fun in the ole pumpkin patch anyway!

On our way to Moncton last week (for my one end-of-harvest treat, a Roger Hogdson (Supertramp) concert) we passed a gorgeous peat bog. I’ve never seen one at this time of year before, in all my travels, and I’ve always thought of peat bogs to be a Halloweenish type of spooky affair, but this is STUNNING, isn’t it?

Back to those Danes, though – this man was found in a Danish bog. Hanged with a leather cord and cast into the peat 2,300 years ago, Tollund Man was probably a sacrifice. This was meant to be another spooky photo for your Halloween enjoyment, but it’s so sad, and he looks so peaceful, it’s not really frightening at all, is it?

One of the shortest visits we had all year (in our season of 19 overnight guests) was a one-night stay from Richard’s eldest son Erich. (By the way, if you think I like word-play, what about naming your kid with exactly the same letters, first and last names both? (Erich Reich) )

Erich brought along a drone. I find them very frightening. They look like creepy spiders, but in a very freakish sci-fi way of Big Brother invasiveness…

Cammie and Chevy didn’t like it either. They kept HEARING something, but could never figure out where the sound was coming from!

At one point, the shadow of the drone fell over Cammie, and she launched an attack. I’ve seen dressage horses that didn’t have as nice an extended trot!

However, Erich and his dad did have a nice time on a beautiful autumnal day, playing with the ‘toy’, no matter HOW creepy the animals and I felt it to be…

Are you ready for the list, as voted on by readers of literature, of the CREEPIEST CLASSIC CHARACTERS? (of course most of these have been movies, and these characters were always well-portrayed by fine actors or actresses who managed to make them seem even MORE creepy!)

Miss Havisham, from Dickens’ “Great Expectations” is in the top ten: “She was jilted at the altar, and now she insists on wearing her rotting wedding dress for the rest of her life. The uneaten wedding cake is still sitting on the table, and all the clocks in her house have been set to the exact moment she was dumped, making her one of the creepiest characters ever. According to Dickens, she looks like a cross between a skeleton and a waxwork with sunken, moving eyes.” Here’s a Miss Havisham doll I particularly like – HOW CREEPY!

Alex, in A Clockwork Orange, Boo Radley in To Kill A Mockingbird and Dracula, in Dracula also made the top ten from classic literature. Now, to be fair, Boo was actually a bit of a hero, but apparently it didn’t stop him being considered classically ‘creepy’.

Another cousin of mine, who has shared both musical and theatrical stage performances with me throughout our youth played Wilhemina in our town’s musical version of Dracula. (I was one of the brides who came out of a coffin, then later, hilariously wiped off the ‘death’ make-up and danced the Can-Can in the intermission’s entertainment! Incidentally, this was the first, but not the ONLY time I emerged from a coffin, or was put INTO a coffin in my stage career. No wonder I decided not to continue as a professional!) Here’s cousin Joan in 1980:

Richard, Remy and I had 3 weeks of hard labour during harvest this year, but there was another autumn when the 3 of us left Remy’s house in West Yorkshire and traveled over to Whitby, in North Yorkshire, which is where Bram Stoker got much of his inspiration for the setting of the book. On another note, Jasper, the dog in the below photo- taken on the Whitby Wharf- is a Weimaraner, commonly called “Ghost Dog” for their spooky eyes. Remy had to put Jasper down a few months ago, so this is a little tribute to the good companion that kept him company for 13 years.

I lived near the Bronte’s Haworth for several years, and Remy and I took Richard to see the moors and the site on which they think Emily based her spooky “Wuthering Heights”. While we were walking on the moors, Richard went over to relieve himself behind a rock, and Jasper was off in the distance sniffing around. When Richard finished, he apparently felt frisky (or maybe the ghost of Cathy was chasing him?) and he started to run back toward us. Suddenly, as Remy and I watched, Jasper decided no one was going to run away from HIM. And so, unbeknownst to Richard, the Ghost Dog started to chase Richard, and when he reached him, he hurled his front legs around his waist and brought him down into the moorland grasses. It was nearly a decade ago, but I can still see this as vividly (and hilariously) as if it were yesterday. Here’s what we saw:

Weimaraner dog swim on blue water lake with cane

Purebred Weimaraner dog outdoors in the nature on grass meadow on a summer day.

The first is Top Withens, the possible inspiration for Wuthering Heights (the house, not the novel). And while Jasper the Ghost Dog did appear rather hilarious with his floppy ears and goofy tongue lolling out the side of his jaws, had Richard turned around he would have seen another creepy dog – the Hound of the Baskervilles- tearing after him with enthusiastic determination.

And that, good readers, is the end to my mostly-red-themed, CRABBY AND CREEPY Halloween blog for this year. “How blessed are some people, whose lives have no fears, no dreads; to whom sleep is a blessing that comes nightly, and brings nothing but sweet dreams.” ― Bram Stoker, DRACULA

Crabby and Creepy Remember what I said in last week's posting, about a challenge for writers being one of making points or issues relevant to each other with relevant and perhaps even seamless segues?

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rusticrevivals · 6 years ago

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Pell's Hell's Bells, Sin, and a Cardinal Christmas?

Pell’s Hell’s Bells, Sin, and a Cardinal Christmas?

When Richard and I first lived together in ‘cardinal sin’ we called our little house “Cardinal’s Inn”. It was overflowing with his grown children and we never had much time or space to ourselves. But now at Blue Belldon Farm we are lucky enough to have plenty of it… And in both places there was always at least one red cardinal who fluttered past our windows on a regular basis, (although I have…

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rusticrevivals · 6 years ago

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Mom/Joy has come up with a superior project to a) give her some variety from her crosswords, yoga, reading and listening to CBC radio on these winter days and b) offer New Brunswick a solution (and raise awareness) of what each person can do to reduce their carbon footprint in this environment that is in dire straits. As I keep complaining, having lived in two countries in the U.K., and two in North America, both east and west- New Brunswick is by far the most ‘behind’ when it comes to reducing waste, re-using, and recycling!

The mater of the upper suite of Blue Belldon is making shopping bags from old T-shirts we have around and others she’s buying for peanuts from 2nd hand shops. She looked online and, while she found many options, she chose the “No-Sew, Fringe-Bottom” . She got a lot of red ones, and those will be used to ‘wrap’ Christmas gifts, and then serve AS the Christmas gift when recipients realize they can reuse them for their groceries, etc.

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Just as the now-famous Banksy artwork that got shredded as soon as it was sold last month, Mom is shredding the bottoms of shirts as quickly as she can get her hands on them, and also like Banksy, made her own artwork (sign) on the back of a split-in-half canvas bag she had lying around, and thus (like Banksy) plans to bring attention to her items in this fashion:

The link to make your own simple bags is here: www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/no-sew-t-shirt-bag and even if you aren’t as responsible for your part in keeping our planet from dying, at least it saves you from buying plastic bags, which is what HOPEFULLY all grocery stores, at least, will soon be doing. Remember, though – take your bags into EVERY shop, not just grocery stores. If I ever forget and leave the bags in the vehicle, I both educate the check-out people of drug stores, gift shops, etc. and punish myself by saying “darn, I forgot my bags in the truck, but don’t give me any plastic please” and then I make myself carry everything out via my purse, pockets and hands. Mom hopes to be going to some grocery stores and handing her great bags out for free, just to help educate, if nothing more.

We have GOT to stop polluting the earth (and yes, allowing plastic in your house IS polluting, because it still ends up in a land-fill and/or the ocean.) If you’ve forgotten or missed earlier rants, see this:

Plastic bags don’t just bung up the works and disallow animal and plant growth, they also release toxins into the earth and water AND wildlife can get caught up in them, often killing them:

It also means the greedy oil companies continue more and more mining, fracking, pipelines and tree-chopping, because of course it takes petroleum to make plastic!

One of my favourite modern composers, musicians (pianist phenom!), actors, comedians, satirists, humanitarians and environmentalists is Aussie/Brit Tim Minchin. That’s right, he’s in his early 40s and is ALL of those things! (Most recently composer of the lyrics and music for Broadway/West End smash hits Matilda and Groundhog Day, and soon opening in his first big-screen role as Friar Tuck in Robin Hood). Tim has a great little catchy tune entitled “Canvas Bags” – a bit more rock’n’roll than most of his songs, but he wanted people to sing it in their heads all the time, and it WORKS. (This is hardly indicative of most of his enormous body of work, and doesn’t show his incredible piano skills, so please google his name and look for other amazing stuff!) But here’s Canvas Bags:

youtube

And if you can’t make out all his spoken words they go as follows:

Just think about the world And how the world would be fantastic If we could get rid of all the plastic We just need to get enthusiastic Organise a competition, gymnastic Or a bag-making comp at your school Fuck it, make it interscholastic Canvas is for everyone Whether you be rebellious and iconoclastic Or conservative or ecclesiastic I don't care if you're loud and bombastic Or quiet or virtually monastic Sober or on the floor spastic A yoga master or completely inelastic I'm not trying to be ironic or sarcastic Do something drastic To rid the world of plastic

Of course Canvas and Cotton (Mom’s upcycled T-shirts) are also natural fabrics, so this is even better than if you use something with Polyester or other man-made materials! See what you can do to “rid the world of plastic” . Every little bit helps!

The very last of the garden was processed last week, and yesterday the snow flew all day and looks like it’s here to stay. I brought the last of the onions in from the porch. They have to dry out in a shady but windy spot for a few weeks before you can rope them together:

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Then I finished the arduous task of finishing off our Dakota Black popcorn, of which we had a very successful long row in the garden all year. First,Richard and I scraped the corn off the cobs after it had already sat inside for a few weeks drying. That was about a month ago:

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Then I put all the kernels in the lids of my great-aunt’s cheeseboxes and set them on a high shelf in a closet to thoroughly dry:

After some weeks, it was ready to winnow, which I did a few days back. This involves a fan and a lot of sifting through colanders, hands, etc. to get all the dried husky stuff to fly away. (Richard then had to go do some sweeping and dusting to immediately clean up all those flying dried shell-bits, so maybe if we’d let them dry less time and done the winnowing outside it might have been better…)

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Once all the winnowing was complete (takes a long time!) we had a winter’s worth of snacks, and as popcorn is the only snack-food we allow ourselves (partly because it’s all we can grow to be self-sufficient, partly because it’s better for you than most snacks!) this made us happy!

I put it in our glass canister, and then we tried popping it a few nights ago. Doesn’t it look fluffy? You just need to get used to the insides being black, which traditionally makes us thing it’s burned… but of course it isn’t in this case! And Richard does make great popcorn. His one real ‘kitchen’ speciality (although he’s getting better at making toast!)

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And thus, that’s it for the garden-processing blogposts from this year, and if you aren’t on Facebook to see my postings there, this was Richard and Chevy about an hour ago – he’s reminding him how to drive in the snow, as we have a possible buyer coming to try him tomorrow. We’ll be sad to see him go, but between Richard’s hip and my knees, we can’t keep up… maybe after some surgeries and replacement body parts are made. So, this might be the last photo blog-readers see of dear Chev! Cammie will be devastated!

Fringe-Bottoms, Dakota-Black Mom/Joy has come up with a superior project to a) give her some variety from her crosswords, yoga, reading and listening to CBC radio on these winter days and b) offer New Brunswick a solution (and raise awareness) of what each person can do to reduce their carbon footprint in this environment that is in dire straits.

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rusticrevivals · 7 years ago

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Sorry not to have written recently, folks. I had hoped my next blog post would be about the design and building of our new-to-look-old t.v. and equipment cabinet, which we are building to look like an old and much ‘distressed’ pie safe for the corner of our living room where Richard has just also completed the other library shelves (other side of the fireplace.) However, this cabinet is taking much longer than was first thought, due to all manner of diversions, distractions, mismeasurements and general procrastinations. Not to mention the FOURTH major nor’easter that is blowing through here in the last 18 days, which makes it cold for Richard to be in the garage making intricate cuts with his icy fingertips and freezing toes (one which he claims he broke changing his pants and sticking his foot into an empty paint can – ah, the dangers of renovations!)

I am, however, a slightly superstitious believer in ‘signs’. While wondering what to write about instead this week, I considered featuring Mom’s weaving again, as she has been hard at work on a small mat for a friend and another small one for beside our claw-foot tub, as my original one is getting firmly pasted to the lino, and is another reason I want to return to the original old floorboards in there at some point. So I’ve taken a few photo of Mom on the loom, and we talked about Aunt Ila and Cousin Linda, both of whom have been weavers in the family as well. Then I thought perhaps I would explain some of my barnboard designs (Rustic Revivals) which I’ve had some motivation to work on since we are having a July wedding here in the orchard (Richard’s niece) and I’m busy making signs and decor for that. And as always, the barn board we brought from Ontario came from cousin Pete and Linda Baxter’s farm. (the same wood we used to make over the beam in our kitchen — see the bottom half of:

https://bluebellmountainblog.wordpress.com/2018/02/03/bards-on-beards-and-beams/

Or, perhaps I should write, for the second March in a row, about the ordering of our organic seeds in the wonderful brown paper packets, from Hawthorne Farm in Ontario? Because we ordered a lot more this year, including about $100.00 worth of flowers and ornamentals to help decorate for the wedding (mostly in BLUES, for Blue Belldon, and purples and greens, as those are the wedding colours). But then those flowers reminded me that Linda (formerly, and rather freakishly, of Hawthorn VALLEY Farm!) had brought me out some honeysuckle seeds from her own plants when she was here in September, which I have now put with the other packets to remind me not to forget them. We also ordered two packets of ground cherries, which Linda introduced us to, and which we now LOVE! Then, yesterday, as well as some painting for the wedding, the work on which I want to be mostly finished by mid-April, as that’s when we’ll be busy in the bush and with planting the seed tables in the basement, I was also painting plastic milk containers with dressage letters. In May I have two competitive eventing riders coming for private training, and I’ll need to line the ‘ring’ ( the only slightly flat bit of land we have, out near the poplar line which slopes down to the brook). One of the easiest ways to make a dressage ring is to paint the letters on white milk jugs. Of course we ALSO use these for taking water to the livestock all winter, AND to collect maple syrup, but we still have some left over that are in fairly pristine condition. So I painted 8 of them, after peeling off the labels with hot water. The labels that of course say : “Baxter”.

And lastly, I just finished my murder mystery yesterday and picked up my next library book (mentioned in the last blog for International Women’s Week). This is The Stillmeadow Road, by Gladys Taber. AS RECOMMENDED BY LINDA BAXTER IN SEPTEMBER! Right, so that’s it! Too many signs! Everything I seem to be doing this week, or considering for blogging, seems to suggest Cousin Linda. I don’t know why. These signs are rarely explained to us on this plane of existence, but I don’t like to ignore too many of them. Thus, I feel that I should include a bit about one of her favourite, most prolific “living off the land” authors here.

Gladys Taber wrote over 50 books about the simple life in New England, having moved from NYC to a derelict 1690s farmhouse just prior to the Great Depression. These books all possessed homespun wisdom dolled out with earthy humor and an appreciation for the small things. I see why Linda loves them now, being already half way through Stillmeadow Road. Linda is very similar, and would write exactly the same were she to sit down and start typing! (Linda?) And many of the same things that happened to Gladys and her family and friends are still happening here at Blue Belldon Farm, nearly a century later. The very same issues that bother Gladys then are those that make me indignant and enraged now – rural development, clear-cutting of land, pollution, food waste, and mistreatment of wildlife and other animals. While Gladys writes of these things with gentle Christian humility, I post my fury and passion re: these planetary problems daily, on Facebook. Well, I mean, obviously Gladys’ tactics were too genteel – they haven’t seemed to have had impact on ‘the greedy powers’ 80 years on, so maybe it’s time to GET MAD.

I especially became so when I found out that nearly 20 years ago there was talk of tearing down the beautiful old 1690s farmhouse in which she’d lived and about which she’d written so many in the “Stillmeadow” series TO BUILD A STUPID TREELESS SUBURB! Luckily, her granddaughter Anne Colby was living at Stillmeadow at the time, and rallied enough national and even international interest to STOP this development and instead to put the local farms into a Land Trust and Historic site. Thank GOD!~ (This wasn’t, however, finalized until just a few years ago!)

http://www.countytimes.com/news/stillmeadow-farm-preserved/article_2f6a2901-b40c-505f-ad4a-ebc5086185ee.html

Alan Bisbort, of the New York Times, in 2001: Constance Taber Colby, who is a writer and a professor of English in New York, said of her famous mother: ”Gladys was one of the first to write about the dangers of uncontrolled development in Connecticut. If she were alive today, she would undoubtedly be finishing a book on land conservation.

”Her books clearly depict Stillmeadow and its world as symbolic of something larger than one family, one town: a way of life very precious and inevitably endangered.”

Somewhat prophetically, Gladys Taber wrote late in life about a zoning meeting she attended in Southbury. In it she concluded: ”It was a grim picture. Business was bound to come; light industries were already shopping for land. The quiet country farms were already going and developments would take over. . . . Eventually, of course, we will have to have some sort of plan to guide future development. Somehow we must protect the wooded hills, the greening meadows, the clean, sweet-running brooks and the historic white houses — are a precious heritage.”

Anne Colby said: ”I grew up running around over there. I was very lucky to have this place to come to when I was a kid. We want this to be an incentive for other landowners to look for creative options for saving their land. Tools are available now that weren’t there five years ago. Ten years ago, we could not compete with the developers. For me, Connecticut’s remaining wild places are our sanctuaries, and we need sanctuaries now more than ever.”

Earlier this week Richard inadvertently put his foot in ‘it’, as he is often wont to do. We were at choir practice in Perth-Andover, led by its beloved mayor, Marianne Tiessen Bell (of the Leamington, ON Tiessens, incidentally). Richard said to Marianne “Getting ready for some flooding are you?” This is NOT something you say to ANYONE who lives and loves Perth-Andover. But CERTAINLY NOT THE POOR MAYOR!

I wrote about this issue LAST spring, and about Marianne and editor Stephanie Kelly’s efforts to help battle both the fight for keeping historic buildings from damage or demolition AND their concern for the environment, especially as it so affects those living ‘down in the valley’ from us.

https://bluebellmountainblog.wordpress.com/2017/05/03/taken-at-the-flood/

Despite predictions of the Farmer’s Almanac, we seem to have had nearly the same amount of snowfall this year, and it seems to be lingering just as long through what others elsewhere are already calling ‘spring’. This of course means danger of flooding. It is sad, not just to see people’s businesses and homes destroyed, BUT to see some of the delightful old buildings that make one truly feel the history – almost as far back as Taber’s New England! Tell me that these wonderful buildings don’t deserve to be saved, for instance:

But their close proximity to the river means that flooding doesn’t just happen once in a lifetime to them – but rather, many times. And the government isn’t as willing as they ought to be to step forward to assist! (what else is new?) Having lived in the U.K. , it never fails to amaze me that we aren’t more keen to ‘list’ and maintain buildings of historic value and interest, as they do there, and with SO many more to do as well! Isn’t it enough that the greed and mistreatment of our land is CAUSING so much of Mother Nature’s need to aggressively ‘fight back’? But then, not to be able to step forward and say ‘This must be offered assistance?’ It’s just shameful.

Taber says (in numerous places) “I hate to think of the forests that have been laid waste down the years by ruthless cutting. It takes years to grow a tall lovely tree and not long to chop it down…a tree is a symbol of life and a gift of nature.” Why do we not respect this gift?

And, about preserving historic buildings, she quotes the anonymous poem that I also ‘discovered’ in Concord, Mass., found inside a wall of a seventeenth-century home:

"He who loves an old house Will never love in vain- For how can any old house, Used to sun and rain, To larkspur and to lilac, To arching trees above, Fail to give its answer To the heart that gives its love?"

But, really, if the object of this particular blog posting is not to lecture to those who rape the land, pave over the countryside, demolish old buildings and landmarks, but instead to introduce you to the simple cherished writings of a woman who loved nature, history and her small self-sufficient New England farm, then I should leave you with one of her more poetic quotations:

Sorry not to have written recently, folks. I had hoped my next blog post would be about the design and building of our new-to-look-old t.v.

#conservation #constance taber colby #farm #flooding #gladys taber #historic buildings #larkspur and lilac #life along the river #listed buildings #living self-sufficiently #New England farming #New England rural life #perth-andover #poetry about nature #preservation #raping the land #simple life #stillmeadow

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rusticrevivals · 7 years ago

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https://bluebellmountainblog.wordpress.com/2018/02/03/bards-on-beards-and-beams/

http://www.countytimes.com/news/stillmeadow-farm-preserved/article_2f6a2901-b40c-505f-ad4a-ebc5086185ee.html

”Her books clearly depict Stillmeadow and its world as symbolic of something larger than one family, one town: a way of life very precious and inevitably endangered.”

https://bluebellmountainblog.wordpress.com/2017/05/03/taken-at-the-flood/

And, about preserving historic buildings, she quotes the anonymous poem that I also ‘discovered’ in Concord, Mass., found inside a wall of a seventeenth-century home:

Sorry not to have written recently, folks. I had hoped my next blog post would be about the design and building of our new-to-look-old t.v.

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rusticrevivals · 7 years ago

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Regular Readers may remember the story of the “Lucy” of Lucy’s Gulch, the admirable mid-wife who climbed a mountain path straight up into New Denmark every time a woman needed help with her birthing time. Nonetheless, as explained previously, Lucy was considered the ‘2nd wife’ of her sister’s husband. Each of the two sisters had their own house within 20 ft of each other, and the husband/brother-in-law travelled back and forth between the two, having had children by both women. Pictures and story here:

https://bluebellmountainblog.wordpress.com/2016/03/26/fact-or-folk-lore-lucys-gulch

I got that out in the first paragraph, right away, because I don’t want anyone thinking I am now being ‘kept’ by my own sister’s husband. Boyd did, however, invite me to tea in some of the many ‘shacks’ he’s built himself out of reclaimed materials, and as he is as adamantly eco-friendly as we are trying to be here (though Newfoundland is MUCH more ahead of the game in the recycling/reusing/ and making less of a carbon footprint than New Brunswick!) I thought it important to feature Boyd and his work/thoughts/ideas in this particular posting.

Mom/Joy and I spent the last week in St. John’s, Newfoundland. For those of you not familiar with our Maritime provinces, my sister has lived out there ‘on the Rock’, for about 25 years, while Richard’s BROTHER and mother live three hours away in Saint John (no ‘s’ on the end is the only difference when pronouncing). They’ve been there for about 20 years, and are one of the reasons we moved to THIS province. We went to St. John’s for a superlative concert put on by the Atlantic Boychoir, in which my nephew sings, and they were joined by the Grammy-and-Emmy-award-winning King’s Singers, from Cambridge, England. On top of which my eleven-year-old nephew Sydney also played a ‘cello solo during this concert in the 2500-capacity, 160-year-old cathedral. So it was well worth burning up the air-miles and two days of travel time (even though they are so close geographically, it takes LONGER to get there from here, than from Toronto!) to hear the boy bring the house down at the end of his astonishingly professional with his choir.

This entire blog, however, is primarily supposed to be about trying to live self-sufficiently off the land, and about other rural goings-on in a community still clinging to the traditions of old. So I’m not about to expound further upon the particular virtues of that most-amazing event, but will simply get on with how I ‘shacked up with my brother-in-law’.

First of all, my brother-in-law Harold Boyd, is not what you’d expect from an accountant of many years, nor a staunch supporter of environmental issues. He IS possibly, what some might expect of a native Newfoundlander, with the exception that he and my sister were the first to own an electric car (Toyota Prius) on the island. Here he is about to drive it silently into the night:

Boyd has previously been mentioned in this blog when he and Richard spent some time this summer here at Blue Belldon, fending off bees as they moved the compost containers closer to the garden. Having a family farm on the other side of the island (8 hours drive) but being happily ensconced in suburbanville in St. John’s has not deterred dear brother-in-law from setting up his back-yard like a scene from BBC’s The Good Life (also previously mentioned – and worth watching for anyone dreaming of that ‘off-the-grid’ life, but having no land to speak of:

First of all, Boyd and Jennifer have taken down the stereotypical suburban fencing that one finds surrounding most homes in ‘The Burbs’, and encourage all the neighbourhood children and pets to make a walking path, much like one would find in England and Europe. Behind their house is a ‘green space’, which then leads to various community buildings (school, hall, churches, etc). Boyd is adamant that Sydney walk to school most days even through deep snow, and tries by example to instigate others to do the same, thus taking a little journey through their farm-like back-yard and into the green space, which certainly cuts off at least 10 minutes of what it would be to walk via the roadways, not to mention opening up an entire ‘nature walk’ along the way.

For Boyd feeds the birds:

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Above, Boyd putting out two different suet blocks in his yard, one being ‘high energy’ to attract the bigger birds. He climbs a ladder to put one of these up, to detract cats (esp. his own) from climbing. And here he is filling all his bird-feeders with seed – he even puts perches out for the little beasts – ‘so they can queue up and wait their turn’!

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Boyd has built all the sheds, greenhouses, and raised gardens thus far in their yard, and has plans to continue expanding the garden portion (as well as tending garden in the summer months out on the ‘west coast’ of the island near Cartyville, where his mother still resides).

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Above, Boyd even has a burn pile, like we do here on the farm, although admittedly he can’t burn in the city limits. See also, the fence he’s removed so that the green space behind it is open to everyone from the front.

Next, we go into Boyd’s favourite ‘shack’. This is his self-made observatory (for the birds as well as the nature-enjoying neighbours). Of course, ALL Boyd’s shacks are made from recycled/reclaimed materials. The windows that make up most of this one were partly garnered from being found at the end of someone’s drive, and partly by patio doors for which his brother no longer had a use:

In this ‘observatory’, Boyd can enjoy the peace of his own mini-farm, watch the birds he is feeding and enjoy a cup of tea with the Kelly Kettle my sister bought for him, which he’s set up on an unused stainless steel garbage can. It doesn’t heat the room, but it DOES keep one busy and warms the hands whilst doing so. And of course, Boyd does have plans for a larger stove in this shack’s future.

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Boyd also enjoyed putting out these large “Christmas lights” so that he could stand in the house and enjoy looking at them all season, knowing they are being run by the solar panel he has on top of his sheds. (When solar panels are no longer quite so expensive, he and Jennifer hope to run their Prius completely from the sun’s rays – we should ALL be looking to doing this, and thus neither electric vehicles NOR solar panels should be so ridiculously inflated in price… but don’t get me started on that right now!)

Boyd then pulls out his ‘survival kit’ (a pouch of dryer lint, shredded paper and an assortment of wood bits for small kindling). He also proudly shows me a Lee Valley Swedish Firesteel which is impervious to all weather conditions and offers long-lasting sparks to start any fire:

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So, after crumpling in the bits of paper and lint into the bottom of the Kelly Kettle, and after having moved the ‘stovepipe’, he fills the kettle with water (which surrounds the inner heating section) and then keeps feeding the stove constantly, now with twigs from his burn pile in the back corner, a heap of which he is letting dry in a corner of the shed.

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And after only about 7 minutes – voila! He pours us each a cup of lovely hot tea!

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Next, we wait to see what neighbourhood children and wildlife will begin to discover the joys of Boyd’s Ebullient Acres. To help the process along a little, Boyd pulls out his bird-caller:

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and we are ready with a full chart of Maritime birds posted on the shack’s wall.

It’s not very moments before one tree is full of juncos and a large flicker is tapping away at the suet block:

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Without the snow on the roof, Boyd even can enjoy looking out through the ceiling, as he’s added a long window above for bird or moon/star-gazing:

Although he didn’t set it up this winter, Boyd has experimented with hydroponic growing systems, which Richard hopes to do soon as well (right now we just have some lettuce growing in earth in the seed tables in the basement – set up for this was detailed here: https://bluebellmountainblog.wordpress.com/2017/03/21/blue-belldon-basement-grow-op/ and had the 2nd-largest reading of any of my blog postings, so there must be an interest for inside growing techniques during long winter months!)

For more on Boyd’s type of hydroponics using PVC, see this:

https://ca.video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=A0LEVrg4CmpajOYA1swXFwx.?p=hydroponics+with+pvc&fr=yhs-iba-1&fr2=piv-web&hspart=iba&hsimp=yhs-1&type=mchm_6047_CHW_CA#id=3&vid=5e2a6d8bf41fafd6b1722e877280d031&action=view

Boyd has this sitting in his shed, so it made me curious to investigate more:

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While I enjoyed watching the birds with Boyd, using camera, binoculars and my distance specs, my vision was frequently impaired by the Coke-bottle eyeglasses my nephew caused me to wear several times – once when we were playing ‘spy’ and deciphering codes, and another time when I threatened to dress up as crazy “Eco-Aunt” and go to his aikido classes if he didn’t behave. Eco-Aunt doesn’t waste water on hair-washing or bathing, applies makeup only using natural products, and wears only natural hair ornaments (feathers and wooden clothespins, etc). Once he saw me like this, Sydney decided to behave extraordinarily well, but I am thinking of offering Eco-Aunt as a main character to all marches for environmental issues. What do you think – is she memorable?

Shacking Up with Brother-in-Law Regular Readers may remember the story of the "Lucy" of Lucy's Gulch, the admirable mid-wife who climbed a mountain path straight up into New Denmark every time a woman needed help with her birthing time.

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rusticrevivals · 7 years ago

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Happy Christmas from Blue Belldon!

All of us, both 2 and 4-legged, wish you and yours a very special Country Christmas wish, with the following seasonal photos. The snowglobe, below, is actually Richard driving Chevy yesterday for the first time with our new (much-too-small) sleigh. It’s a great way to exercise him before taking him out to haul logs! (And thanks to Mom for taking super shots of the adventure FROM HER UPSTAIRS…

View On WordPress

#2017 #christmas #MERRY

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rusticrevivals · 7 years ago

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This week it’s time to ‘mix it up’ a bit with something NOT related to the year’s harvest or recipes or Regular Rural Updates… So, we’ll have a wee dip into Phonetics Phun and the Pharm.

Have been submitting a lot of short-piece writings lately to various lit magazines, environmental journals, etc. One of the works I spent some time on this year was a 14-page ‘limerick’ (or rather an extended poem) about a young girl in a fantasy world where conservation and communion with Nature are the norm. Each verse was in limerick form : a a bb a (with the two ‘b’ rhyme-lines shorter than the ‘a’ s). Thus, I thought I’d do a wholly entertaining post for my readers as well, but on a slightly different theme.

I’ve known -and know – a lot of Richards in my lifetime. All the ones I shall mention have either a connection with Blue Belldon Farm and how I ended up here, or an appreciation of Nature, the Great Outdoors/Environment, or both: To start with my mother’s brother, ‘Richard’, the first Richard I ever met –

An uncle of mine of this name, Helped an outdoor tree-house game By telling his son To join in the fun Thus, a tree-hugger I became!

I also had a great-uncle, Uncle Dick – He and Aunt Jessie both inspired me in various ways, she in the tomboy/outdoor hobbies, he in the creative theatrical hobbies – and both entertained constantly with their humour:

There once was a chappy named Dick Whose wife was a very choice pick She worked with wood Whenever she could Inspiration was surely their schtick!

As most children my age did, I loved Mary Poppins, and Dick Van Dyke’s speaking (in horrible Cockney!) to the penguins meant , to me, that he would help save them in real life too – just as he himself would be saved a half century later by other water animals in an amazing miracle:

Old Dick was eighty-four'd But went surfing on his board He fell asleep, In oceans deep - Dolphins pushed him a-shored!

The next Richard of whom I was aware was the author of Watership Down, Mr. Richard Adams, a one-time president of Britain’s RSPCA, who just passed away last year. He and Thornton Burgess began my worrying that someday the animals would all be killed off , either by hunters or because their natural habitats were being taken over by idiot humans:

He cared so much for each pet For a scratch, he'd call in the vet! The wildlife hopped Through his pages they popped. With concern, I'd continually fret...

An amazing young artist with whom I took art classes in high school and whose last name I can’t remember, began my love of wildlife and landscape art, so that my appreciation for nature became even greater. His first name was Rick. (And I then went on to adore Robert Bateman’s nature paintings, especially since I found out Mom/Joy’s mother had taught school with him in Burlington for a time)…

The first Bateman on which I ever clapped eyes at my grandmother’s house – the DETAIL! You even see the page wire fence in front of the deer!

Rick's sketches of wildlife amazed He calmly drew, was not phased By the hustle around In a classroom of sound, He just penciled a doe as she grazed...

Richard Thomas, of The Walton’s fame, also made me lust after living a quiet, old-fashioned farm life in the mountains. Most of my friends in England (where The Waltons was even more popular !) write and ask me how things are going here on Walton’s Mountain now… I didn’t have a crush on John-Boy, as many my age did. I wanted to BE John-Boy! A writer who lived in a rural community in the rolling mountains…

John-Boy scribbled and edited his papers Calmed Cousin Corabeth's hysterical vapours Climbed up the hill Where his thoughts could be still And reflected on his family's capers!

The next Richard to influence me re: life in harmony with Nature and our countryside was a man I worked for one summer, Dickie Lamley. I got a job working on the farm with ARC industries, where many mentally challenged ‘clients’ from my home town and area were privileged to feel purposeful. We hoed rows of veg, planted fruit trees, built fencelines and harvested and sold at a roadside stand ACRES of gladioli (which by the way I despised even BEFORE I worked there!) . Thirty-something Dickie was not only strikingly good-looking, but knowledgeable and sensitive – a real Mr. Darcy type in all ways. Very influential on all teen-age girls who worked for him in the 1970s!

Be glad with gladioli, gals And help your less-lucky pals To pick and prop, Display their crop And fence out deer with those corrals.

The next Richard is important to me for many reasons, and he has twisted in and out of my life, both himself and through 6 degrees of separation, for decades. Richard Farnsworth has been a stuntman (mostly as a rider) since the 1930s, when my sweet friend Kay Linaker, the actress and screenwriter, was also starring in a variety of films. Kay (aka Kate Phillips) used to say that she and her hubby ‘found’ Steve McQueen, in fact, and made him a star in their co-written The Blob. Later Richard and Steve would star together in Tom Horn.

Kay starred in a serious of Westerns and frontier films herself – with Claudette Colbert and Henry Fonda in Drums Along the Mohawk (directed by the great John Ford) and with Buck Jones and “Buck Benny” (Jack Benny) in some gritty-riding-and-roping scenes – she told me she did a lot of the riding herself, and she once laughed at Jack Benny when his horse ran away with him. Apparently, as soon as he was rescued, he vomited violently! During those years Richard worked in such films as Gone With The Wind (an uncredited soldier) A Day at the Races (as an uncredited jockey) and in The Ten Commandents (as an uncredited chariot driver!) He was always, his whole life, in outdoor films, and usually working with horses.

Kay and Buck Jones, stuntriding in Buck Jones’ Black Aces – jumping a big ole grey is to come up again below!

Richard Farnsworth 1954, The Adventures of Kit Carson

From the 1930s through the 1950s Richard worked as a stunt man and in crowd scenes (By the 1950s Kay was working as a screen-writer, which is how I met her). By the time the early 1960s rolled around, Richard had decided he quite liked acting and began taking more and more speaking roles, still in outdoor films primarily – and with a horse wherever possible! But of course most of us came to know him when Sullivan Productions introduced him as the driver of a certain buggy through the White Way of Delight and past The Lake of Shining Waters:

Richard played Anne's Matthew hero When he told her she could stay and grow At his Green Gables (Where, in his stables, His compulsory horse did stomp and blow).

Richard Farnsworth and Megan Follows, Anne of Green Gables, 1985

Sullivan Productions then went on to do a spin-off series, Road to Avonlea, in which two of my fellow competitors in the eventing world would stunt-ride for the episode The Great Race. Hugh Moreshead, now a well-known Canadian course designer, and our pal Dick Bayly (yes, ANOTHER Richard) had loads of fun steeplechasing for the cameras during the filming of that one!

But back to Richard Farnsworth. Although we all came to love him as Anne’s beloved Matthew (and it was at this time that he began being nominated for awards in nearly every single movie of quality in which he starred right up until his death – not bad for a stunt rider!) it was as the crotchety Mr. Foster, ex-cavalry rider and now-trainer of future Olympic event rider “Charlene Railsworth” (Melissa Gilbert, all grown up from her time as Laura Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie, another influential show for my dreams of living self-sufficiently in a rural area). This 3-day Eventing film, Sylvester, was produced in the same year as Anne of Green Gables (actually filmed close to us in Ontario, not PEI – how I wish I’d gone to meet Richard Farnsworth at that time!) Richard did several other movies and television shows that year as well, so it was one of the best and busiest of his career! And although I had some vague ideas that I wanted to be an event competitor someday, it was Sylvester that clinched it. This film, already exciting because it had two of my favourite actors as leads and was about the sport I was thinking of pursuing as a new adult, was also a pleasure to me for two other reasons: 1) I had been a dusty cowgirl for the first part of my riding career (age 10 to 16) and then turned to riding English and enjoying all the many disciplines offered in THAT style. Sylvester started in Texas – where I’d visited and ridden when I was 11 – taking place on a dirty horse ranch (thus, Richard fit in perfectly!) and then the film moved for the English/Eventing scenes to the Kentucky Horse Park (where I’d also visited on the same trip through the United States when I was 11!) 2) One of my favourite eventers whose magnificent career I’d been following for several years , was Kim Walnes. With just her ONE horse, The Gray Goose, she was climbing the world-leader board in the Eventing world, and inspiring those of us who would only ever HAVE one horse at a time TO DREAM BIG. She was (and still is) an inspiration to many of us, and when I discovered that she and Gray were the stunt doubles for Melissa Gilbert for all the dressage, cross-country and show-jumping scenes in Kentucky, this movie was destined to be extremely influential for me.

My inspirational friend and mentor, Kim Walnes on her tremendous world-famous The Gray Goose, dropping down the Lexington Bank during the filming of the movie Sylvester

Richard Farnsworth, Melissa Gilbert, Michael Schoeffling, 1985, (c) ColumbiaR with one of the 8 grays they used to film all the amazing footage!

Two of my favourite shots from the film, Melissa getting told off by Richard after she falls in the water jump and Kim and Melissa on their two primary grays (Gray Goose and the real Sylvester).

For more of Kim’s memories during the shoot (like having to jump over cameramen in ditches, read this article http://www.chronofhorse.com/article/tbt-summer-sylvester

(For the last year I have been corresponding almost daily with Kim to try and organize a short documentary that I’d like to see made about her life – she is truly an amazing woman. If you’re reading this, and have any access to film-makers or video production companies, please contact me! We have a keen film editor, permission granted for many of the old clips, but not yet someone who wants to do the actual present-day filming! For more of Kim’s extraordinary life (though she’s too humble to admit it has been so) read this article: https://sidelinesnews.com/sidelines-spotlight/sheer-will-and-determination-the-story-of-eventer-kim-walnes-and-her-extraordinary-horse-the-gray-goose)

There was an old fellow named Farnsworth Who seems connected to me since my own birth He rides, trains and acts He's full of farm facts And of horses and tractors there's no dearth.

Right to the end, Richard Farnsworth played roles that kept him outdoors, and RIDING. His last part in 1999 was the lead role in The Straight Story, (directed by the famed David Lynch) which won him an Academy Award nomination. He could no longer ride horses at his age, so the role took place with him primarily riding a John Deere lawnmower, very much like ours. He rode it in nearly every scene in the film!

If my own Richard keeps not bothering to shave, he’s going to soon look exactly like the above, tooting about Blue Belldon on our own nearly-identical John Deere!

There’s another former steeplechase jockey (like Hugh Moreshead and Dick Bayly) who also titillated my love of countryside and eventing. Author Dick Francis. Of all his English countryside/riding-based thrillers, my very favourite is Trial Run, centred around the fictional Russian Olympics lead-up for horse-trials (eventers) competitors.

A Dick who once rode for the Queen Is another to whom I will lean When expounding my faves He has many raves On the covers and pages between

When I moved to England, the first time, in the late 1990s I LOVED taking the trains as they allowed me to see so much of the countryside I’d dreamt of and read about my whole life. I didn’t especially like Richard Branson’s Virgin line, though. However, in 2014, Branson joined forces with African Wildlife Foundation and partnered with WildAid for the “Say No” Campaign, an initiative to bring public awareness to the issues of wildlife poaching and trafficking, and for this I gotta admire the man. He does lots of other philanthropic works across the globe with his billions as well… which means he has certainly TRUMPED other billionaires…

There was a tycoon name of Branson Who said "no" to animal lancin' Or of shooting outright The beautiful sight Of magnificent beasts. Now they're dancin'!

More than a nod must be given to another screen legend – Richard Briers. My own Richard and I have long watched dvds from the library of the first 3 years of Monarch of the Glen (after that, they killed of Richard Brier’s hilarious character)- in fact on a trip to Scotland before I moved there, in late 2008, we even saw the small castle and wandered the wilderness estate at which Monarch was filmed – in the stunning scenery of the west side of my grandfather’s native land. So, as if that wasn’t enough, Richard Briers has inspired me. BUT, since moving here and watching so many BBC shows (we have no television so watch shows online in the winter evenings…) we have very much enjoyed one of his first series for the BBC, the 1970s popular “The Good Life” – all about, guess what? A couple who are determined to live self-sufficiently. If you’ve never seen it, you must watch a few episodes at least – we’ve actually had TIPS and GOOD IDEAS we’ve considered from this fun but ‘thinking-outside-of-the-box’ sit-com.

Richard 'Briers Rabbit' they called this guy In the back garden digging, and he'd try and try To make veggies grow In the mud and the snow While inside his wife'd have a pig-fry!

I’ve mentioned him before in this blog, but John Rikards, a different type of “Rik” ,is another author who has intrigued me – by writing about this very county where we’ve moved, without ever having laid eyes on North America !

Young British writer, Rikards, became a FB friend When I wrote him we'd moved here, setting of "Winter's End" I read it many years ago Never dreaming we'd be here in snow A decade later, now part of Appalachian trend.

Of course the Attenborough brothers, both Richard and David, have been highly influential to me in their on-screen and in print formats. As a drama major, I’ve long admired Richard in his many roles, but David has been an activist for ending climate change and trying to save the planet for decades before it even became ‘trendy’ (for those of us that know it isn’t all a ‘hoax’, anyway!)

Dear Dick and Davie, brothers true Bring nature's joy to me and you Attenborough Pride So dignified! And always they have something new

This has been an especially hard year for my own Richard’s good friend Rick Madden, and I’d be remiss not to give that particular Rick a special tribute of his own:

There was a pure gent called Rick Madden Who, this year, has had much to sadden But so many love Rick And they close 'round him quick That we pray his heart will soon gladden!

I’ve written of my friend Remy, whose real name is Richard McEvoy. He spent 3 weeks with us here in the fall because he wanted to work on his North American bush-and-survival skills. He and his son Joe run a company in West Yorkshire called Brigantia Bushcraft. http://www.brigantiabushcraft.com/ Earlier, I posted a photo of the two Richards going down the Saint John River in our new/old canoe ( search for the Lorne Green/ Long Green post). This was part of the goals Remy had, but he also had another important one he wanted to accomplish whilst here – and did!

A man called Richard built a lean-to With knife and hatchet, tools so few He nearly got shot By hunters, alot But still helped us to make partridge stew!

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2nd limerick for Remy:

But though time for ole Remy was fraught With listening to quibbling a lot About how to farm No, there's little charm - When Richard wants you to garden, you're CAUGHT!

Richard Reich takes it easy whilst supervising Richard McEvoy, September, 2017

And lastly, and the real driving force for writing this particular blog, is my own Richard Reich, who agreed to buy this farm and give trying to live off the land a chance. He’s been a good sport about most things, giving the production of maple syrup a good go last spring, learning how to do ‘barn chores’ with crazy animals he’s never had anything to do with prior to this year – and incidentally this week we went to the woods with Chevy and Richard had him finally hauling out logs (photos and blog on this in a month or two) – and working especially hard on his two chief projects: the composting for the garden and the wood for heating (also devising ways we can harness solar and wind for future…)

There once was a family of Reichs Whose Richard bought a farm and said "Yikes"! Now I have ALL this work It will drive me berserk And I've no time for quiet drives or hikes But after a while he did realize That much to his happy surprise The livestock were sweet They made life complete This farm life has opened his EYES!

Taken earlier today, after our first ‘sticking’ snowfall yesterday. Richard, with his charges.

Limericks for Mr. Ricks This week it's time to 'mix it up' a bit with something NOT related to the year's harvest or recipes or Regular Rural Updates...

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rusticrevivals · 7 years ago

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How many soldiers carried photographs of their loved ones or their heroes on their person at all times? Or how many had an object or small picture that brought them delight, even in the muddy, cold, smelly trenches with explosions of lethal noise and chaos over their heads? On this Remembrance/Veterans’/Armistice weekend, I feel it’s important to ponder over how objects or images might have brought even the slightest happiness to the soldiers who fought throughout their short -or even long- lives. (For the ones who died in war were perhaps in some ways the lucky ones. The ones who had to come home crippled in body or mind, or both, who have struggled with alcoholism, drugs, homelessness and mental health issues due to what is now labeled “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder”, these are the ones for whom I believe our sympathies and gratitude should really be expressed!)

Below is an example of photographs which LITERALLY saved a young private from being killed by shrapnel. There were of course so many of these types of stories emerging from the battlefields of so many horrific wars.

(story here:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2629391/Photos-loved-ones-World-War-One-soldier-kept-wallet-pocket-saved-LIFE-stopping-shrapnel-entering-body.html )

This past summer, Mom/Joy read one of my favourite books/films : “Fried Green Tomatoes (at the Whistlestop Cafe). This is a wonderful book about Remembrance, and how an old warrior of a different sort learns to deal with her imprisonment in a nursing home where her young and humourous mind refuses to see herself. She was only allowed a few mementos to help her through each day, just as the soldiers in the trenches or planes or ships could only have with them a few special tokens.

“I brought a picture with me that I had at home, of a girl in a swing with a castle and pretty blue bubbles in the background, to hang in my room, but that nurse here said the girl was naked from the waist up and not appropriate. You know, I’ve had that picture for fifty years and I never knew she was naked. If you ask me, I don’t think the old men they’ve got here can see well enough to notice that she’s bare-breasted. But, this is a Methodist home, so she’s in the closet with my gallstones.”

-Fannie Flagg, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

Yesterday I read an article from CBS about the gardens in Chicago that are completely tended by veterans. My, if only there were gardens such as this in every city and town, how much more purposeful and important our former protectors of our nations would feel, and how the peace of being close to nature each day, seeing seeds blossom, ripen, die would make them soulfully feel connected to the constant circles of life! To perhaps help them make sense and come to terms with some of the travesties they’ve had to endure! https://www.cbsnews.com/news/veterans-find-peace-at-chicago-botanic-garden/

This theme will continue throughout this blog posting, but – when you need food (living self-sufficiently) and items in your garden aren’t yet ripe, what are some ideas? We discovered that by July this year we still hadn’t had much ready to harvest and eat yet, due to the very poor growing season. So, as Mom was reading Fried Green Tomatoes at the time, and as I remembered preparing these southern delectables once before (being curious after seeing the movie, I believe), I started frying up for breakfast some mornings (see below, and yes those are my pajamas.)

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I simply mixed up a bowl of seasonings (from our herb garden – more on this below) with some milk and egg and a bit of chicken fat from the night before. In another bowl I put flour and cornmeal. Then I sliced the green tomatoes, dunked them in the moist bowl, then flopped them about in the flour bowl and fried them up with a good bit of hot oil – delicious! (You can’t really do this with red tomatoes – they are already too ripe and will just fall apart).

4 large green tomatoes

2 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup cornmeal

1/2 cup bread crumbs

2 teaspoons coarse kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 quart vegetable oil for frying

Add all ingredients to list

Slice tomatoes 1/2 inch thick. Discard the ends.

Whisk eggs and milk together in a medium-size bowl. Scoop flour onto a plate. Mix cornmeal, bread crumbs and salt and pepper on another plate. Dip tomatoes into flour to coat. Then dip the tomatoes into milk and egg mixture. Dredge in breadcrumbs to completely coat.

In a large skillet, pour vegetable oil (enough so that there is 1/2 inch of oil in the pan) and heat over a medium heat. Place tomatoes into the frying pan in batches of 4 or 5, depending on the size of your skillet. Do not crowd the tomatoes, they should not touch each other. When the tomatoes are browned, flip and fry them on the other side. Drain them on towels (NOT paper towels – stop using so much of that stuff!)

In the photo of me frying you’ll note a lot of parsley stalks. Like the photos, pictures or mementos tucked into many soldier’s uniforms, parsley was also considered, from as far back as Roman times, an aid to ‘protection’. I use copious amounts of parsley each year, so am experimenting with just how much is enough to plant, and also the best way to preserve it. Of course, the romantic way I’ve always dreamed of , is to just hang it, let it dry, and pull off a bit every time I need it. Same with dill. But sadly, our house is SOOO inundated with fruit flies and house flies throughout the latter part of the summer and into autumn that there is no way I can deal with the thought of their excrement all over the food we will eat… I don’t know HOW our ancestors dealt with this, or maybe they just didn’t think about it… but the hanging bouquets also ATTRACT more fruit flies, which we certainly don’t need. Many people suggest keeping parsley and dill fresh by simply freezing it in water in ice cube trays. Then, you just take out a cube or two, let it melt in your soups, stews, or over your roasts, etc and VOILA. While this is a lovely idea as well, I need WAY too much for that kind of fiddling… and a) have no place in freezer for all those trays and b) REFUSE to add that much plastic to my own carbon footprint. So:

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From my little herb boxes on the front porch (off the kitchen, just out the Dutch door, where you may remember, I upcycled two cupboard doors and two drawers last year for this purpose) OR from a larger patch I planted in the main garden, I pick a lot of parsley, wash it all, put it to dry on towels (NOT paper towels – please stop using disposable EVERYTHING!) Then when it’s dry I run my fingers backwards over the leaves and spread them on to cookie sheets and put them on ‘Warm’ (or very low) in the oven to fully dry out. Lastly, I put them in my little painted wooden boxes that I keep in the pigeon holes. The ONLY problem with this is that you will get some stems a little bigger than you would find in a package from the store – but I have just been telling my guests it’s proof-positive that they are eating ONLY Blue Belldon Farm ingredients~!

As I’ve mentioned previously, we planted cilantro and borage this year PRIMARILY for the bees and the cross-pollination so important in any veg. garden! Although we will use a borage leaf for some tea or a pinch of the bitter cilantro once in a while, we decided to mostly just let these grow tall and flower, as the bees go for this more than anything I’ve ever seen!

Our organic seed supplier, Hawthorne Farms in Ontario, encourages the use of borage for the bees, and they weren’t kidding! (Plus, they are a lovely blue, so we plan to continue with more and more of this plant to beautify up other corners of Blue Belldon Farm!) Regular readers may remember that the previous owners here had planted two wonderful diagonal strips of wildflowers through the veg garden for the cross-pollination purpose. They were wonderful last year – an absolute profusion of colour, esp. the poppies! (“In Flanders Fields the poppies blow…”) I hadn’t realized how much I would love poppies – they were especially wonderful in my jars of scented potpourri which were part of our Christmas gifts last year.

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Sadly, though, I guess after a few years of blooming (one prior to us purchasing the farm, and then last summer) the wildflowers were overtaken by too much grass. Many of our guests this year, led by Mom (in charge of all Blue Belldon flowers) had a turn at pulling up all the grass in the diagonal strips to make it easier for the rototiller. And, since I’ve discovered the borage/cilantro trick, and while I’ll miss the poppies terribly, we’ll have to find another few spots to plant them because we really need every inch of that garden for vegetables! Here’s Mom/Joy at work on a COLD summer day in August, pulling up said grass, with barely a stem of wildflowers to be seen (the yellow is of course the squash patch).

For Remembrance Day, my friend Anne found the below photo -a different look at a poppy, I think. Because it is showing the fragile paper-thin, blood-red petals and its closed-up state, plus- the background fading away, it makes it poetically metaphorical in my opinion! I’ll play English teacher now – what ELSE metaphorically does this photograph bring to mind with its content, or lack thereof? What other things can you think of that pertain to what the poppy has now come to stand for? (ie: the sunlight filtering in, the creases in the petals, the rough edges, the stem with a blossom not yet opened????) Feel free to comment on the blog about this! You never know, I might reward you with a big gold star!

Sadly, from the large bouquets of poppies I was able to pick to brighten the kitchen table last summer, this was the ONLY one I dared take away from the few plants remaining:

Soldiers and Poppies are interchangeably considered now. But what about Soldiers and Gooseberries? WHAT?

“Gooseberries” was a code name used by the Allies, for older ships used as a breakwater, to calm the areas around the Norman shore in the summer of ’44. These breakwaters had the effect of reducing currents to facilitate the landing of soldiers and material resources on the beaches. There were five gooseberries set up in the harbours around 5 different beaches, preparatory to the D-day landings starting June 6th. Early that morning, the waters along the beaches, (code-named Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha and Utah,) were swarming with troops from the United States landing on Omaha and Utah, Great Britain landing on Gold and Sword and Canada landing on Juno. These major assaults, of course were the beginning of the end.

Gooseberry bushes were also important to many soldiers – they have shielded and held many on different occasions, and a war series “Soldier, Soldier” even discussed this happenstance. Here’s an example from the book The Eloquent Soldier by Lt. Crowe:

I had my first experience with gooseberries this summer. While I barely had time (as everything else was ripening at exactly the same moment, it seemed!) to pick raspberries, the jam of which we all adore in this family, I CERTAINLY didn’t have time to pick the gooseberries offered to us up the hill at our neighbours’. But Charles was good enough to pick the berries himself for us, and I in turn (as he’s a diabetic) made him some honey-sweetened juice for his smoothies and some sugar-free jam (it was still pretty tart!) Here are the many Charles picked:

Gooseberries, of course, are a close cousin to the currant, and the only experience I’ve had with currants is the knowledge that Anne Shirley invited Diana over for tea and, whilst thinking she was serving a light raspberry cordial, instead got her drunk on Marilla’s red currant wine. A gooseberry’s shape may explain why the term ‘being a gooseberry’ means being a third party. There’s that extra bit you have to cut off before you can start boiling them:

Or the term may have come about simply because they are so sour that they are ‘unwanted’. My efforts for Charles (and us) to have healthy, sugar-free jam resulted in my using copious amounts of Boyd’s honey (I’ve mentioned Boyd in other postings, he’s also part of the New Denmark Minstrels I organized to sing for the 150th celebrations) and the very-expensive but all-natural Stevia.

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I added vanilla and ginger to try to counter-act the tartness and taste as well, but the only way we really enjoyed the sugar-free type was to have the juice in some smoothies with yogurt and other fruits. Later, I just followed regular old-fashioned recipes and poured in the white sugar. (too bad!) One mistake I made though – like our crabapples, you aren’t supposed to need pectin for the jam to thicken, because they are full of the natural stuff. However, it didn’t seem to be thickening and I finally DID add some – only to end up with jam into which a spoon couldn’t even be stuck! So now when I open a jar, I have to add a few dollops of boiling water and give it a stir!

I did, however, for winter eating with some warm custard or cream, flash-freeze a huge amount of the gooseberries as well. I’ve discussed flash-freezing before, esp. with the green and yellow beans. The secret is to put the berries on cookie sheets and not have them touch in their first hour or two before you put them in a container to permanently keep in the freezer. (That way they don’t stick/attach to each other, which would ruin them and also not allow you to just take out certain amounts at a time from the container). And, back to the tomatoes now – I got sick of canning, so decided to just flash-freeze both cherry AND larger tomatoes that had ripened. And that’s when I invented a smart way to keep them separated for their first few hours of ‘flash’. (Whole tomatoes need about 3 hours before they are ready to place all together in bags):

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Now, I have lots of ideas that I THINK are terribly original, only to discover that loads of people have come to it before me… but I haven’t found this done anywhere on the internet, and it sure worked well!

To close, we all know what the poppy represents at this time in November. However, parsley not only can be tucked into ones clothing for protection and vitality/strength, but can also signify a removal of all things bitter – not just in taste, but in emotions. Would that all veterans find a place of solace, close to nature,- “A Garden To Tend, Where Broken Souls Mend” – to remove the bitterness that must remain in their hearts . And may there, one day, just be peace.

“I saw a creature, naked, bestial,

Who, squatting upon the ground,

Held his heart in his hands,

And ate of it.

I said, “Is it good, friend?”

“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;

“But I like it

“Because it is bitter,

“And because it is my heart.” – Stephen Crane

Poppies, Parsley and Profundity How many soldiers carried photographs of their loved ones or their heroes on their person at all times?

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rusticrevivals · 7 years ago

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Getting back to blogging slowly, as we are still frantically busy with garden, guests and special events (this time fun ones, NOT ones I’m responsible for organizing!) We’ve had someone staying with us here at Blue Belldon every 2nd week since the beginning of May, and this is going on until just after Thanksgiving… We love having guests, though – especially when they pitch in and help with the garden and animals, as many have been doing!

Here’s a summary in photos (the caption for each photo is directly below it) of some of the goin’s-on since July 1st. I will be touching on many of these things in more detail, in postings of their own, AND offering some gardening and preserving ideas I’ve come up with this year in the next 4 or 5 blog postings, but for today, just relax and enjoy:

Starting from July 1st, (written about previously) when we sang with the mass choir and also The (New) New Denmark Minstrels (the little group I’ve been trying to keep together and train to sing in three part harmony!), this is how the summer has gone. Above, finishing “Ida May”, which has become a well-complimented ditty that I wrote with guitar accompaniment about the lady who settled our farm. That’s Mom directly to my left, and Richard’s the only man wearing a white shirt.

Richard and I have spent a lot of time in the early summer harrowing our pastures and planting timothy in the top meadow.

We then had neighbours come to cut and rake the hay, and friend Zeb behind us and ‘down the marsh’ helped get the bales in. Chevy, as always, seems unconcerned by any goings-on.

Chevy’s big head and body will be taking in a lot of hay this year, as well as the beet pulp we’ve discovered we need to feed him to keep weight on!

Despite rain, cold and constant black flies, Mom/Joy has worked hard getting the garden weeded and was also in charge of all the flowers. Zeb’s Mom, Pierrette has also helped us plant more wildflowers around the farm, and we hope next year might be even more beautiful in various spots!

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Just a few of the wildflowers and also the scarlet runner beans I plant for quick and dependable climbers (around the wagon wheel). Also, this summer I let the cilantro and borage grow in the garden to their full heights and flowering as the bees LOVE this and help cross-pollinate our veg. The wonderful weeding job has been primarily done by Mom, as I was down with strep for most of July. Her friend Shirley Robinson helped quite a lot as well in July, and Richard did go through the paths with the rototiller also… (taking out a freshly planted row of carrots as he went, of course).

Here’s the wildflowers we’ve cut for various vases recently, as well as some lunch veg. Spinach had to be replanted a 3 rd time as we love it so much, and the first two didn’t ‘take’ due to heavy rains in June. Ontario readers may be surprised to learn we are JUST NOW, in Sept., getting some ripened tomatoes!

Earlier than last year (we also had a two-week drought in early August! Crazy year!) we had to start picking apples. I’ll have another blog post on all the things we ‘ve done with ours and a neighbour’s apples this year, but Richard had fun experimenting with ‘toys’ to peel and core them!

Smitty has had to go back on the chain for most of the summer, as he still bites through washing line cord and certainly through rope, and if not tied up, chases cars and people on the road (and still may possibly bite them and neighbours coming over to visit!) He does have access to porch and lawn, shade and sun, and of course – those beautiful views, plus one of us is walking past him for a pat nearly every 20 minutes or so, so don’t feel TOO sorry for his pathetic-looking mug! (Thanks to Leanne for the photo!)

On one of Mom’s doctors’ appointments in Fredericton (2 hours from here) we did stop in the lovely village of Hartland as a bit of sight-seeing and to see the world’s longest covered bridge…

Any other touristy-stuff was just done by Mom, as Richard and I can’t really get away:

Mom and her only grandchild Sydney, named for my father whom he never met, on the beach in P.E.I. in July

Sydney and Mom’s friend and avid blog-reader Shirley Robinson in Charlottetown. (I’m pretty sure she was holding the 2nd ice cream for my Mom; she wouldn’t like you all to think she was having TWO! )

Sydney is taking after his aunt Julie with a love of Musical Theatre. They all went to see “Anne” on stage, and Syd had to have the hat and wig… Aunt Julie’s very first role on stage was when SHE was in Grade 6 (same as Sydney this year) and SHE played Marilla! (under the direction of Mr. Peter Wright).

Richard did get away for several days in July to take his car down to the Atlantic Nationals in Moncton, a show he and his brother have often visited ( once with me, also, 10 years ago…) Both the main street of the city as well as the largest park are FULL of over 2,000 old vehicles. This is NOT a good way to help one live self-sufficiently and organically, helping nature to help you… but it IS a passion of Richard’s…

Richard left the farm for 5 days to drive 3 hours to Moncton in his ’73 Chevy Nova to enter his dream-car-show, the Atlantic Nationals. People drive their old vehicles from as far as the Yukon to enter this, so Richard and his brother Jean-Marc (who used to own the Nova) had a wonderful time. Richard stands proudly by his beast (the reason our horse is also named “Chevy” and the goat’s named “Cammie” because Richard USED to own a Camaro as well)

Zeb also likes to help the Nova get polished, and Leanne, from Scotland, missed out getting taken for a car ride last year (the car was in pieces at that point) so last week Richard made sure both young folk had a tour of New Denmark in it:

Chevy of course IS a beast, as Sydney’s visit shows… He likes to stand like a statue when small children are around, so he doesn’t accidentally trod their toes (no such consideration for adults, of course!) Both Sydney and Leanne (now a professional horse trainer, an addition to the days we both took pony treks out in the highlands of Scotland together!) had a good time keeping Chev in shape for the winter months, when Richard will really be using him out in the bush!

Not to be outdone, of course, Cammie has to get in on all the action as well:

above, Leanne from Scotland, (I’m her adopted ‘Mither’), me in a selfie that’s tricky to get with a squirming goat!, Sydney my nephew and Cammie showing off.

Of course, it isn’t just about hard work and fun with the livestock. While Leanne was here we picked an entire tree of crab-apples, and she and Richard both helped me prepare them (in various prep ways!) for the same things I did last year with them: crabapple sauce, crabapple juice (great in smoothies!), crabapple jelly and something new I tried because we got sick of quartering them and had some fairly big ones on the south-west side of the tree: Spicy Pickled Crabapples. (mmmmmm….!!!) Various food preserving methods will be written up later in the season for anyone interested. But of course we also have the usual peas and beans to work on gradually throughout August, so it’s all hands on deck for THAT! (About 40 recycled bags and containers in the deep freeze with all of those at present). Right now we are starting on the edamame, (7 rows of it!) and because we all love those so much, we’re looking at various ways of preserving and eating them. FULL of protein!

Richard had his car show, and I (Rustic Revivals) had a show in Plaster Rock at the end of August as well. It was fun to have a bigger booth space than ever before, and even be right beside the big log house that is the tourist information booth! (Yup, that’s right, there’s Richard in the background, heavily engrossed in a Steve Berry or Clive Cussler).

While Chevy may be the Pot of Gold (I did own a pony named that once, we called her “Potsy” and she starred with my “Rainbow the Clown” when I did that professionally for a few years) at the end of this lovely rainbow, a dream really did come true for me right after this:

Got to meet long-time hero of mine, Ron Turcotte (above). Ron is from the area, and not only had his first racetrack rides on the famous Canadian horse Northern Dancer, but rode to fame as the exclusive jockey for Secretariat, piloting him around to be the first winner of the Triple Crown (all 3 tough races!) in 25 years, AND winning the Belmont by an unprecedented (and un-dreamed-of, even!) 31 lengths! Ron was part of the CBC documentary on New Denmark a few weeks ago, with Jonny Harris’ Still Standing:

In the first photo, above, Mom seems to be the centre of attention of all the CBC cameras and mics, whilst she unconcernedly munches a Danish sausage from our local butcher, Ron Hansen. However, they are really rushing to keep on top of Jonny himself, as seen in the second photo, and Mom keeps a close eye on the activities, as she’s been watching Still Standing on her laptop of an evening lately (remember, we have no television services). Three out of the four ladies behind the Danish Delicacies table have all sung with Richard and myself at some point, showing you what a truly small community we are!

Leanne snapped this shot of the New Denmark museum’s barn a few weeks ago, ready for Jonny to come out and do his locally-based hilarity. And there’s Jonny with our own Megan Bach, Miss New Denmark (see my previous posts on the crazy times of the beauty pageant: Hill-billy Hootenany: Purty Pals and Gingham Gals as well as Founder’s Day Festivities) . The New Denmark episode will be airing on CBC next spring (Season 4). I’ll be sure to let you all know in advance! If you hear Jonny singing Frere Jacques in Danish, I was the one who got to write it out phonetically for him!

T R E E S were an important part of our summer, of course – (above, my brother-in-law Boyd, with my sister Jennifer) —-not just climbing them to pick fruit, but lying under them in the hammock, (not much time for that, but our guests enjoyed!) BUILDING in them as well, swinging in them AND, for Richard and Leanne, zip-lining through them!

I helped Sydney build a tree-house out in the birch grove, and will treasure this photo Mom took of us. He didn’t get to enjoy the platform-sitting (with his book) for very long before he was whisked away, but we all hope he’ll be back to enjoy other Blue Belldon summers with us. My sister Jennifer probably isn’t so keen on this next photo, as it’s no doubt reminiscent of me ordering her about throughout our childhoods and constantly explaining how to do things, whilst she actually DOES them. (Tree-climbing used to be one of my favourite things, but with my bad knees now, it’s simply out of the question, so Jen had to go up and fix a few things Sydney didn’t quite make strong enough!) :

I love the above shot of a summer day at Blue Belldon Farm, with a tire swing we erected for Sydney, and Chevy grazing in the distance… and alongside the house – here comes the nephew with a ladder to help with the tree-house-building!

And below is a shot of Richard and Leanne practicing to do their zip-line through the trees and across the gorge. I didn’t go to watch, as there were many beans to pick and crab-apples to can, so Mom didn’t get a shot of Richard actually on the line going across the Grand Falls gorge, a mistake about which she has yet to stop hearing!

For the last month and a half, we’ve been rehearsing in our ‘meeting room’ for the skit I wrote for the 100th anniversary of our church this past Saturday night. Here are neighbours, Peter Jensen, Barb Christensen, Richard, Zeb (played Ned Kram, which spells Denmark backwards) and myself. I won’t show you the skit being performed until I do a whole blog post on the fun we had Saturday night, but to give you a tantalizing look, what is Mom doing in a togo? Helping me with costume-fittings!

And here’s a few more teases:

above (clockwise) Me in the wings with Zeb, me with Miss New Denmark, spinning the wheel Richard made for the Pastors’ Trivia Challenge I ‘forced’ them to do (or so our Pastor Ralph will have you believe) me playing for the New Denmark Minstrels, and Richard singing a solo I wrote for him about the building of our church on the hill… Thanks to Mom for snapping these. Leanne was the official photographer for the night, so, as she’s just arrived back in Scotland, we’ll wait a few more days for her pics.

Most people think of the Maritime provinces as having lots of sun and sand involved in a summer. Obviously, when you live inland in the mountains, that isn’t the case! But Mom and Shirley got to see some sand with Jennifer’s family in P.E.I., and Richard saw some on the coast over by Moncton at the car show. We felt badly that we were too busy to get Leanne to see some (although being from Aberdeen area and working on an oil rig, she hardly needs to see more ocean!). However, yesterday a friend of Pierrette’s and Zeb’s, Yolanda, kindly drove her all the way to the Bay of Fundy so she could see the amazing tide-work and pad about in the sand. Good-bye, Summer, ‘we hardly knew ya!’

Summer in Summary Getting back to blogging slowly, as we are still frantically busy with garden, guests and special events (this time fun ones, NOT ones I'm responsible for organizing!) We've had someone staying with us here at Blue Belldon every 2nd week since the beginning of May, and this is going on until just after Thanksgiving...

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rusticrevivals · 8 years ago

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The lupine are growing wild in the ditches of N.B. right now, and this always attracts the wildlife. But right here at Blue Belldon Farm, there are many things in lovely bloom, surrounded by wild animals.

Here’s an example of some of our hedge roses, fresh-cut, with one of the wild animals:

The quilt, above, is a new/old one found at a 2nd hand church basement by Mom/Joy. Because it’s purple and green, and because those are the colours of Richard’s niece’s wedding to be held here NEXT end-of-June, we will be using the quilt for a table cloth for displays at the reception, and most of the wildflowers we are busy planting at present are blue (for Blue Bell and area) or purple, or variations thereof) to add to the correct colour theme. I’ve also finally started painting those red wagon wheels we brought from Ontario, changing them to a blue-grey as well. The rose bushes actually make a lovely accent for other photos, too, such as my herb garden outside the kitchen Dutch door, which the cat likes to snooze beside as there is cat-nip growing in one of the boxes (more on the herbs later):

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Inside, these roses add a lovely smell and an attractive bowl of fuscia delight, though they DO rather clash with the copper in the kitchen! I love a single rose-bud SO much more than open flowers, though…is it the hope and expectation of the yet-unknown?

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Outside, all manner of birds, bees and other fauna keep vigil over the stunning sensory offering. How many attentive animals do YOU see in this photo?

Do you see how Chevy likes to graze? Because of still undiagnosed problems with his muscular structure (we suspect possible PSSM, common in drafts, or maybe a form of Lyme, but we are awaiting test results) he is uncomfortable with his neck stretched all the way down and seems happier munching from a hillside, with him below the grass he is eating… we feed him chest high in a trough in the barn as well, even his hay, and he is much happier. Meanwhile, Cammie enjoys just standing on her hind legs ‘grazing’ off the red maple tree!

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Cammie is loose a good part of the time, although now that the veggies AND the flowers are starting to grow and blossom, we have to keep an ever-vigilant eye upon her. These snow-ball bushes and irises were planted by the last owners to help the vegetable gardens with cross-pollination at all times of the growing season, but Cammie thinks they were put there expressly for her gastric enjoyment and often has to be physically removed from the area. And the more she is eating, the more difficult this is!

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Did you know that the roots of irises are useful for so many ailments?The fresh root possesses diuretic, emetic and cathartic properties. It was actually formerly employed in the treatment of bronchitis and chronic diarrhea, and was considered a useful remedy in dropsy as well. So, not just a pretty face! Wasn’t able to find any real uses for the Chinese snowball, however – as much as I can see it IS just a pretty face! That and attracting the bees, which we certainly most desperately need. I have a great fear that the human race may someday be lost simply because that one all-important insect is extinct. Some facts from John Haltiwanger on Protecting our Planet are eye-opening:

At present, the honeybee population in the United States is less than half of what it was at the cessation of World War II. This past winter, 23.2 percent of America’s managed honeybee colonies were lost. The figures were worse during the year prior, but bees are still dying at a disturbing rate, and something needs to change. The US government has stated that bees are now dying at an economically unsustainable rate. Indeed, in the United States alone, bees contribute to $15 billion in crop value. Simply put, bees keep plants and crops alive. Without bees, humans wouldn’t have very much to eat.

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To help the bees stay alive, we must stop using pesticides! And PLEASE stop mowing the ditches – that is where a plentiful source of wildflowers and grasses grow. Leave that for our pollinators! And PLANT more flowering shrubs and wildflowers. Mom/Joy made a special point to plant milkweed this year, as it is a special favourite of all bees, and also will help keep the monarch butterfly from becoming extinct. It will take a few years (providing Cammie doesn’t eat them first!) for them to become like this the photos below, but the swamp milkweed – the best variety for both bee and butterfly- looks like this:

Several artist friends from Ontario visited the farm this week, and so I picked from that same garden spot and put on the kitchen table the irises, some late-blooming daffodils and the Queen Anne’s lace I so adore ( good for soothing the digestive tract, kidney and bladder diseases, stimulating the flow of urine and the removal of waste by the kidneys. The seeds can be used as a settling agent for the relief of flatulence and colic as well!)

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Besides using mint for jelly or to put in hot or iced tea or other summer beverages, did you know that a few stems of mint, gently crushed and placed near suspected entry points deters ants, and that some gardeners clip bits of mint over mulch beneath veggies of interest to insects, which may confuse pests in search of host plants. In aromatherapy, of course, mint is used to relieve stress and increase alertness. Our patch seems to be mostly of the spearmint variety, as it spreads very fast and develops big, gnarly roots that are difficult to dig out. Spearmint starts flowering in early summer, and if the old blossoms are trimmed off, the plants will rebloom again and again for the rest of the season. This is great for various pollinators including honeybees, which may derive health benefits from foraging in the mint patch. A 2006 study found that a spearmint spray killed 97 percent of the mites collected from an infected honeybee colony. So in more ways than one our lovely spearmint patch is hard at work for the bees, as well as adding flavour and aroma for us!

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Mom found the above window box already blooming like this for only $25.00, so she bought it to put on her private stairs/deck. Smitty enjoys sitting there watching us garden sometimes, as it gives him a break from the cement porch where he is usually tied (wish we could leave him loose to roam the farm at will, but he immediately heads up the road to our neighbours’ potato barns and corners the workers with his barking and growling. He thinks that barn is part of HIS farm, and he gets angry that they are there. And with his track record for biting, we have to be very careful in summer that he only roams free after dark!) Mom is also the resident feeder/protector of hummingbirds, the other great pollinator we must value at all costs. Hummingbirds can’t smell, so are most attracted to the colour red, and thus this box (and the old red glass feeder full of sugar water hanging beside it) is a perfect offering.

You’ll see there are also some trumpet flowers in Mom’s flower box mix, which the hummingbirds love because the shape of their beaks and tongues fit in so well. In the left side of the box, I stuck in a scarlet runner bean seed which, I discovered last year, come up quickly, have a lovely red flower later in the season, but are a quick answer if you want some trailing vines. I’ve also planted a few in our side porch brick planters, where Mom put other flower seeds such as nasturtiums. These plants are fully edible and growing them can lure aphids away from other plants in the garden as well! “Nasties” as I call them (because they AREN’T) are easy to grow and may be climbing, cascading or bushy, so these permanent porch planters were a perfect spot for both those and my scarlet runner beans, which were planted a week AFTER, but are already inches above!

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Right now, the pastures and meadows are full of daisies, clover, smaller dandelion varieties and the bright orange hawkweed. While Chevy doesn’t like eating any of those, he is not averse to having a sniff of the posies from time to time.

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Apparently it is called hawkweed because it originally only grew in higher altitudes, where only the hawk and eagle could access it. An old saying advises that if it be given to any horse it ‘will cause that he shall not be hurt by the smith that shooeth him.’ Luckily for us, we don’t shoe Chevy, as he is only interested in giving these a passing sniff! (Apparently, the powdered leaves of the hawkweed (called mouse-ear in other countries) is an excellent astringent in haemorrhaging).

The wild mixture of white, yellow and orange will be part of the backdrop for where the vows will be exchanged next June:

where Richard’s niece and her fiance plan to stand to get wed by our own Pastor Ralph next June

But, again because of the name of our farm (really from Blue Bell Mountain, so called NOT because there are bluebells growing wild, but the colour and shape of the mountain’s shadow) AND the fact that Richard’s niece has chosen purple as her main wedding colour, we would like a lot of our own wildflower plantings to be in shades of blues, greys and purples as well. And since I arrived here last May 24th, I’ve been trying to get some wildflower seeds to ‘take’. Especially between the apple trees, which is the same view as the above photo, which is where the wedding guests will be seated on straw bales. But the ground needs better working, I guess, so yesterday I had Richard do a light tilling and I threw down a bit fertilizer to try and entice the seeds. Some may be too old, but we are so far behind in sun/heat this summer, I feel sure we may still get some to poke up and blossom. As I also have wanted a little winding path and English garden here, especially since first seeing this view (below) from Google satellite last FEBRUARY, I decided to put in a bit of work on this yesterday, despite the fact that there was a light “English” rain coming down as there has been most days for a ‘fortnight’ !

Here’s Richard rototilling where we want to sprinkle wildflower seeds, and where we already have a few bulbs planted as well (and of course, a scarlet runner bean and a few morning glories… to do some climbing!)

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He made a few little paths that wound through the trees, and I then drove back to our Rasmussen Brook and picked up mostly flat stones for a bit of a ‘flagstone’ effect, that hopefully the flowers might grow around:

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I then scattered AND poked little holes for the following:

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The above, then, is what I call “Bride’s Bough”, where Richard’s niece will walk, and, if anything goes according to plan, she’ll have some blue and purple wildflowers mixed in with daisies, etc. on both her right and left as she walks down the ‘aisle’… More on this garden as it progresses…

If you’ve been regularly following this blog since last year, you’ll know that I ripped out many of the old 1970s cupboards and drawers, and, always re-using, I fashioned an ‘herb garden’ on the front porch for them. While really only borage and a few morsels of parsley came up last year, they little gardens are looking much better this year, and a wee sign given us as a going-away present with a box of herbs, by the kind Olavesons of Carlisle tinkles away in the wind as the animals rest in the shade.

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I love having a few herbs growing right to hand. The kitchen is just inside that Dutch door, so it’ a simple thing to trot out and get whatever seasoning I need, nice and fresh!

One of the sites I use regularly for help on various gardening and orchard matters is https://www.growveg.com/ by Barbara Pleasant and others. There is a wealth of reliable (unlike so much supposition opined on the internet!) information here, and I enjoy reading various uses for herbs, especially. I also grow certain herbs for a variety of reasons not so commonly known, such as borage, cat-nip, basil and parsley. These aren’t just for quick seasonings or garnishes! (ie: catnip has anti-bacterial qualities). So if you’re interested, have a look at the PLEASANT site! One tip I especially want to try this year is, to keep my herbs fresh throughout the winter, making ice cubes with them rather than hanging them all. Then you can just pop the ice cube in your stews or soups or teas!!!

Lastly, and from the end TO the end, rather, I want to talk about Chevy’s manure pile. You can’t have ANY fauna without a bit of that delightful ‘end result’, so why not discuss it? Horse manure is easy to compost and takes about four to six weeks to turn from stable waste to garden gold if you do it properly. Composting does take some effort, however. Constructing a pile about 3 to 4 feet high helps the process to go faster. (Any higher than that, and you can have spontaneous combustion – one stable I used to work for had to have the fire department out TWICE in the space of four months!) Turning the pile over frequently adds oxygen that speeds up the composting process. When the pile no longer feels hot and the composted manure resembles dark brown garden soil, it is safe to use on your garden. It doesn’t have to be a year old, as many say.

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There’s our pile, collected from both the stall and the pastures since Chevy arrived in the 2nd week of May. Note we are keeping it right near the garden for easy access~!

Now, I’m sorry if after a lovely showing of blossoms and cute photos of animals, you are offended by this ‘end’ result , but life isn’t always about poetry and aromatic thoughts, you know. Sometimes it takes excrement to CREATE that beauty and romanticism…”

“After dinner they met again, to speak not of Byron but of manure. The other people were so clever and so amusing that it relieved her to listen to a man who told her three times not to buy artificial manure ready made, but, if she would use it, to make it herself” ― E.M. Forster, The Longest Journey

Flora and Fauna (or Posies and Pets- your choice!)

#appalachians #blooms #blossoms #farm animals #farm flowers #flora and fauna #flowers #goat #hedge roses #horse #lupines #lupins #manure #new brunswick #pet photos #posies and pets #purple and blue #spontaneous combustion #wedding on the farm

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rusticrevivals · 8 years ago

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DUE TO THE POWER OUTAGE ACROSS NORTH EASTERN N.B., THIS BLOG HAS BEEN DELAYED. My apologies to those who were expecting photos before bed-time!

NOTE: IF YOU KNOW ME, YOU KNOW I AM THE 4 ‘E’s that are NEVER at EASE.

I am an entertainer, an educator, an environmentalist and an equestrian. Most of my blog postings have a few of the 4 ‘E’s’. This one has them all. If you don’t like one of the ELEMENTS, skip ahead. But I suggest you open your mind to further learning and DON’T skip the educational bits. Because if you do – that other ‘e’ word – ‘EARTH’ – will soon be lost.

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I am somewhat amazed, looking back, that in the last month we have pulled off what I think of as “Farmer’s Feats”. ‘Cause there’s no one tougher and in some ways, more miracle-making, than a farmer, right? In 4 weeks, we have had two new and sick animals finally settled and growing healthier each day, AND managed to cut and harrow our top hayfield, plant a timothy mixture, AND ��put in over a 1/4 acre of vegetable/herb and berry garden for our self-sufficient aspirations for the next year. And among all this, those of us at Blue Belldon Farm have also managed to take part in the special (only every 5 years) 145th Founder’s Day of this lovely rural community of New Denmark. Richard, Mom/Joy and I have even managed to volunteer to help out a bit with all the festivities, although we were constantly having to run back to the farm to feed and do chores, water the massive garden, etc.

As a Musical Theatre/English teacher for 15 years and as a full-time riding instructor in 3 countries for 20 years before that, you gotta know I’m gonna love the chance to WEAR A COSTUME and RIDE THROUGH GORGEOUS COUNTRYSIDE simultaneously! Thus, disregarding two bad knees and my 3 former back surgeries, (not to mention the fact that Chevy came to us with a viral infection!) I was determined to ride in this year’s 4.5 km parade- as by the 150th one (ie: the next one!) I might have to submit to being shoved along in a wheelchair. I find it a sad state of affairs that I was once able to mount a 16:3 hh jiggling thoroughbred stallion from the ground (and dismount by dropping both stirrups and springing down!) and am now reduced to THIS:

This is the mounting block area from which Richard and I now always mount, not just for decrepit old me, but for poor Chevy’s muscular atrophy in his back. (It is really no longer considered good for a horse’s spine to mount from the ground anyway). This is Richard’s niece Carriann, who, as part of our parade preparations, helped us put some miles on Chevy to get him in better condition. The New Denmark parade goes 4.5 k straight up two giant hills from the museum to the recreation centre. To top it all off, we are 2 k from the museum, AND, at one point, we were afraid we’d have to ride him all the way home again as well! (more on this later!)

Another part of Chevy’s conditioning plan has been to get ‘beefed-up’ with both beet pulp (you MUST expand this in water or it could kill a horse with colic!) and alfalfa pellets, as well as various vitamin boosts the vet recommended. So, at 5:30 every morning one of us trails to the barn to bring Chevy in from his night-time grazing (out of the sun and the blackflies). We call this the Bathrobe and Bucket Brigade. Sometimes Richard even has to wear his fly-hat, because as per last week’s blog, the blackflies are at their VERY worst at dawn and dusk!

Mom/Joy captured both the above photos from her upstairs windows, and she has contributed to many of the shots incl. in this blog as I was WAY too busy this past weekend to be snapping away… Other photo contributors are listed below.

Besides mine and poor Chevy’s physical discomfort at most minutes of the day, (anti-inflammatories go a long way to easing us both!) the other fear we had for his being away for the better part of a full day was Cammie the goat’s co-dependency. As described in previous blog articles, if you can’t have a horse companion for your equine, a goat is the next best thing, (we plan to start milking her next year anyway, so a goat was the definitive ‘must-be-useful’ answer!) You’ll often see highly strung race horses and show-jumpers with a goat in their stall. However, Cammie has taken her love to a whole other level. When left alone, she bleats for hours until exhaustion forces her to lie down and snooze! The other day after I brought Chevy in from just an hour’s ride, I saw Cammie stand on her hind legs and attempt to put her front legs around his neck in an embrace. No word of a lie. Of course I didn’t have my trusty camera along at that point! When she’s loose around the farm and she sees him coming back from a ride, she tears across the grass to be close to him:

With an hour-long ‘logistics’ meeting and armed with the ‘best-laid plans’ (you know where THAT’S going, right Robbie Burns?) Richard and I spent Friday taking care of the ‘polishing and decorating’ for the parade. That is, he was responsible for cleaning his ’73 Nova (after which Chevy is of course named) and I was responsible for bathing and braiding said horse. And, with the exception of Richard (and sometimes Mom, but she has age as an excuse) forgetting nearly every single POINT on the Logistics List the next day, (ie: unloading a whole car full of packed items that were meant for the other end of the parade!) as well as Richard ripping part of my carefully-sewn costume, pulling out several of Chevy’s meticulously-braided plaits, squashing his own cowboy hat (the same worn by Miss New Denmark in the hill-billy dance of their pageant, incidentally!) being late back to meet neighbour Zeb who was travelling in the Nova with him, and then – my Dear Dork’s piece-de-resistance! – proceeding to get stepped on by Chevy’s gi-normous soup plate hooves so that everyone in hearing distance of him for the next 12 hours had to hear (and SEE) all about it, WE PULLED OFF AN AMAZING FEAT by, ‘gettin’ ‘er done’. We DID, sadly, miss the Friday night dance, as we were just plumb tuckered out (do I sound like an Appalachian gal yet?) but let me share the REST of the 145th Founders’ Day experience with you all:

If you haven’t been following the history of New Denmark’s farm and forest folk on this blog, and esp. if you’re from Ontario, Montana, West Yorkshire, Scotland, South Africa, or any of the other places my friends and former students are following from, I’ll give you a quick summary:

Many of the original Danes came in June of 1872 aboard the Empress, arriving in Saint John. They were then paddle-wheeled up the Salmon River (just below us at the bottom of Lucy’s Gulch, the history of which I wrote about last spring here, if you use the ‘gulch’ as a search word within this blog) arriving at the gravel bank on the opposite side of Drummond , N.B. This all concurred with the redrafting of the Free Grants Act and redistribution of land parcels. However, as Pastor Ralph Weigold of our St. Peter’s church reminded us in our outdoor service yesterday, most of the Danes likely thought they were getting already-cleared and even established farm land, when in fact all of their 100 acre tracts were nothing but thick forest! Determined, nonetheless, these Danes with their stoic Viking blood officially climbed Lucy’s Gulch to this flatter land up top, on June 19th of 1872, settling in to help each other begin clearing for the next many years, all sharing “Immigrant House” until their log cabins (such as what is still our downstairs master bedroom—- see also former posts with tag word “Ida May”) Eventually, these founding families formed the largest and what would become the oldest Danish community in Canada! And so a very happy June 19th today!

Richard kindly saved my butt (and I do mean literally) by riding the 2km from Blue Belldon Farm to the museum. I set Chevy up behind the back buildings in his temporary electric ‘holding area’ and began the last of his preparations and decor (as seen above) while we waited for the one and only other rider I was able to secure with ties to the ‘local’ (based over 45 min. away, but that’s ‘local’ in N.B.!) Valley Horse and Saddle Club (for whom I am teaching a clinic next weekend – spots still available!) And here I want to thank the indomitable spirit of Mrs. Kim Tompkins. She was the only one to volunteer to help me (for I’d have never taken a 5 year-old youngster in this by myself, no matter how “bomb-proof” his previous owners claimed him to be!) . And what’s a parade without at least a FEW horses? Not only did Kim trailer all the way up here from AN HOUR AND 15 MINUTES SOUTH, but so did a supportive car-load of her family who were a great help to both of us as well! And not only did Kim arrange all this, she REMADE over an old prom dress she had worn previously, to be in New Denmark’s red and white colours, AND she crocheted her 24 year old “Champ” his own fly cap AND her own feathery/flowery creation to cover her riding helmet. Here’s a few of the two of us, taken in front of New Denmark’s big ‘flag’ and in front of the museum before we left. (They should enlarge if you click on them.)

Despite my Drama background, my ‘costume’ paled next to Kim’s. It IS, however, in true eco-friendly style, as is Kim’s (either recycle it or home-make it!) The coat is from a huntsman’s uniform from a theatre I worked at in Yorkshire in the late 1990s. The lace at my throat was the petticoat of a dress my mother ‘made’ me wear when I was a toddler. The polo wraps and breastplate were articles of clothing I bought at Value Village and ‘revised’. The bows and flowers were all left-overs from the beauty pageant last month. And the boots, on which I painted the New Denmark flag, were actually taken out of a pile of junk to cut-up for pieces to use for Rustic Revivals’ work! But, while Kim was talented enough to crochet HER horse’s ear and eye protector, I made poor Chevy go about with a cut-up old rag-rug (also a Value Village purchase) on his head! Never mind how it looked. I stitched in his ear cones and made the fringe to protect his eyes from those nasty-biting black flies and horse/deer flies and he was happy.

The above photo and many below were taken by Kim’s daughter, the very helpful Natasha (following us with her family in the van, to make sure the rest of the ‘followers’ didn’t come too close to us! While the fire department held up most of the ‘traffic’ (if 3 cars which is a ‘jam’ in N.D. can be so-called) at the few rural intersections, we DID have a long stream of cars behind us that were all apparently parade followers going to the rec. centre for festivities!) I had asked Parade Marshall Hansen if we could please be at the very back of the parade to avoid the many tooting horns, air brakes, popping balloons, and bag-pipers that I thought might spook the young Chevy, but as soon as he ‘met’ (didn’t allow them to touch as per rules for horses that have been virally infected) old Champ he was calm. In fact, I ALMOST suspect he’s done a parade previously – he really didn’t even raise a hair when the pipers started up!

Mom/Joy took great pride in telling these folks that her father was from Aberdeen and that EVERYONE in this community wasn’t Danish. She says they seemed excited to meet someone else from a ‘kilted’ background. She took the two photos above, and some of the below parade shots. Most, however, were taken by the excellent photographer, Shelly Snow, who says these are just ‘highlights’ of all she did take. Thanks to all three ladies, Natasha, Joy and Shelly for the attention to detail. Kim and I didn’t even get to SEE most of these parade entries, as there were two big gaps in the parade itself, not to mention the 4.5 km we had to spread out over. If you click on each photo, it will expand, and there may be a caption I’ve written under each explaining something as well:

Zeb (with Richard in white cowboy hat coming up road to left) GUARDING the Nova!

The Tiara Club, as I sacriligiously call them on the float driven by 145th President Chris Bates (his daughter Sarah, Miss Photogenic, is under the arch in my tomboy-approved black pants. Thanks to Chantal and Kendra Nissen for even snagging the province-wide queen, Miss New Brunswick, for their float!

a lovely shot of 3 smiling, laughing ladies: Erica Nissen, Miss New Denmark Megan Bach, and Sarah Bourque Bates

the essence of Danish farm folk here!

the Historical Society/Museum float

Heidi’s Chocolates float

Our St. Peter’s church turns 100 this year! This is a wonderful model of it!

Both the cadets and fire department were involved in this year’s parade

Because of a scare with some young ATVers the other night, I was probably MOST worried about this parade entry meeting Chevy, but thanks to Champ, he acted like a cool-headed ‘star’!

As planned on our Logistics List, my back and knees did not hold up for the full 4.5 k. So Richard met me where Mom had parked, at the last intersection (Salmonhurst) and used her little step-ladder to clamber aboard. Thus it was he who rode the last mile or so while I followed in Mom’s reclined leather seats!

What an old fogey I’ve become !But thanks, Richard, for saving me here, as well! Hard to believe I used to 3-day event, covering many miles at a gallop and jumping big FIXED fences over which one could topple at any second. And now I’m afraid to ride behind a tractor at a WALK! Ah, those were the days…

After the parade, way up the road at the rec. centre, folk dancing and children’s face-painting and games were organized, but Chevy and Champ mostly just wanted to relax and graze: (click on each to read captions). And then, SOOOOO grateful to Kim and family for helping us load Chevy on their trailer and having him brought home! Saved either Richard or myself having to be dead sore by riding all the 6.5 km back! And then – hurrah! Cammie had survived her day alone without any visible health issues!

Natasha, Kim’s daughter, holds Champ and amuses Danish-dressed youngsters

Richard grazed Chevy and allowed some pats.

More Danish festivities took place through the afternoon here:

That night, after a cold plate supper was served at the Anglican church (right across from St. Peter’s, as you’ll have witnessed above in the parade shot with the tractor), Mom and I helped sell ‘candles’ (please refer to my attempts to keep my mouth shut about New Brunswick rural areas NOT being at all eco-friendly later in this post!) and much like my former walk down the Bronte’s Haworth Main Street hill exactly 20 years ago, I enjoyed watching others (including Joy/Mom) do the same. The Historical Society was also selling memorial luminary bags which were spread in a circle around the museum grounds where hot dogs were being sold by “The Tiara Club”. Richard was across the road with former and present Founders’ Day presidents, Peter and Chris, helping prepare the fireworks spectacular. I think if Peter and Chris had any IDEA of the sort of accidental mania all Reich men are drawn to, they would NOT have let Richard sit over there. As it was, only one car almost blew up with a firecracker going through its open windows (this is an exaggeration and other comments about this are considered humour-rumour only!) and Chris did a dance like a leotarded ballerina when a mass of sparks ignited sideways and he went home to check for holes in his legs. However, gents – may I suggest NOT inviting Richard to your cosy corner for the 150th celebrations? I mean, wasn’t the half-hour you endured looking at his ever-blackening and swelling foot enough to warn you that he isn’t a chap who should be allowed near anything more dangerous than a sleepy Clydesdale?

I very much enjoyed driving after Pastor Ralph’s end-car flashing hazards to slow down the (non-existent) New Denmark ‘traffic’. I was there just in case Mom didn’t feel up to walking the 2 km, but well done on her. She did it! So I unrolled the windows and enjoyed the spring peepers and fireflies along the lovely quiet rural route. However, when arriving at the museum I discovered to my dismay that SO many people had been asking to use the museum bathrooms, that they’d closed them off. Not to be an ‘I told you so’, but I DO remember asking at one of the organizing meetings if we couldn’t have a ‘porta-potty’ dropped off at the museum grounds as well as the two at the rec. centre. Just something to keep in mind for the 150th, as there were also MANY parade entrants asking to use the museum facilities that afternoon, prior to the long parade! Instead, desperate, I went in search of a bush behind some trees behind the parking area. Just as I yanked down my leggings and squatted my aching back and knees, didn’t the men set off their fireworks right behind me, illuminating my bare buttocks in a spasm of disco-revival ‘mooning’. And then of course, two cars decided to pull over on to the shoulder right then to watch. Here’s hoping their eyes were entranced upwards, because if they glanced sideways I was only about 15 ft. from their passenger side window. And if you WERE treated to that sneak-peek, folks – well, I can only say you just had an authentic taste of what the Founding Families had to endure when crowded together in Immigrant House 145 years ago! But without the exciting light and sound show!

The next day, Sunday (yesterday) we were up early to feed and do barn chores, then off to the museum grounds to help clean up and prepare for the big Danish lunch that was being served after the church service. Now, while I WAS assured that all the empty pop cans I gathered up the night before were being recycled (N.B. has a redemption plan, so why would you throw money away? And yet, every day I see at least 3 new cans lying in the lovely wild-flower-filled ditches along our rural roads! What the hell is WRONG with people? It’s not just distressing to see from an aesthetic point, it is disastrous for wildlife that can get cut or stuck with it, and it NEVER breaks down so will be part of the ‘earth’ from which I’m trying to FEED MY FAMILY! And if you aren’t used to reading/listening to my environmental rants, this is part of why I started this blog, so prepare yourself! This next bit is the important EDUCATIONAL part. Take the high ground before it erodes ! READ IT!)

These issues that are very close to my heart because of my love of nature, and the countryside are something I’ve fought for since I was 8 years old holding up a banner saying “Please Don’t Pollute” along our busy Ontario highway. But Ontario HAS (out of necessity for better education on the issues) ‘cleaned itself up’. Quebec is also much better with its recycling programs. However, as soon as you cross the border into New Brunswick, and as the scenery gets MORE beautiful in the mountains, that’s when the littering gets worse. And thus, as we began food prep. for the day, I was flabbergasted at the amount of stryofoam plates vs. paper. FACT: Styrofoam manufacturers are continually in the top five of the largest producers of toxic waste. FACT: Styrene, the material in Styrofoam, leaks out large amounts of ozone, and this causes irritation of the skin, eyes and respiratory tract and gastrointestinal problems. In humans AND wildlife/livestock. Chronic exposure affects the nervous system, causing symptoms like depression, headache, fatigue and weakness, and minor effects on kidney function and blood. And people, this is LEAKING INTO OUR EARTH AND OUR WATER SUPPLIES! FACT: Styrofoam is non-biodegradable and non-recyclable. Styrofoam takes 500 years to decompose; it cannot be recycled, so the Styrofoam cups and plates and packing materials dumped in landfills are there to STAY. Forever. With enough Styrofoam cups produced each DAY – each DAY, folks —- to CIRCLE THE EARTH if lined up end to end, the potential for major ecological impact is staggering. What’s wrong with paper plates? Even doubled? They can be recycled, and, though it isn’t the BEST, can be burned.

Now, I’m already shocked at , and have written about, the amount of plastic bags used by New Brunswick as a whole. How can one province be so far behind the others in simply taking their own fabric shopping bags to the grocery stores? It is the government of New Brunswick’s fault for not educating its citizens, OR in offering better recycling plans. I wonder if my new New Brunswick friends and neighbours even KNOW that most of the other provinces are at 70 percent fabric grocery bag usage? Because most of the check-out staff here stare at you uncomprehendingly when you stop them from whipping out a plastic bag by saying “No thanks – I have my own”. They truly don’t seem to know what you’re talking about! And I wonder if the good folk of New Brunswick know that most other provinces, (and even the cities here) have curb-side blue-bins for putting your aluminum and plastics – yes, even in rural areas? And I’ve been putting my recycling in a blue bin at my rural abode for 35 YEARS. So how can N.B. be so far behind?

N.B. has in my opinion, among the most beautiful scenery of any in North America (and yes, I’ve seen and even lived in most states and provinces incl. right in the Rockies). But OH! They have to catch up in learning to RECYCLE, REDUCE AND REUSE so that this beautiful landscape is preserved to the fullest! To see the garbage bags at the museum and rec. centre FULL TO OVER-FLOWING with plastic tablecloths used to decorate the floats and to cover tables (not to mention the balloons from which even a pin-prick of its surface can kill a lovely song-bird! COME ON, EVERYONE! LET’S USE FABRIC TO DECORATE, LIKE OUR ANCESTORS… isn’t that what we’re celebrating? And don’t buy your fabric new, use old clothes, etc. like Kim and I did for our costumes! JUST RE-USE, RE-USE!!!! Stop being a disposable society like the ‘powers that be’ want us to be (’cause we spend more money and give it to them!) . See my former postings on the horrific effects of plastic in our world here: posts within this blog entitled “Taken at the Flood” and “Blue Belldon Basement Grow Op” have some truly shocking facts and photographs that you won’t BELIEVE ) Plastic flowers, plastic glasses (incl. those we sold for people to hold in the DISPOSABLE battery-operated CANDLES for the ‘torchlights’ which made me CRINGE in SORROW !!! Two types of plastic going into landfills because we have no regular recycling program here AND the amount of battery acid which will now permeate into the soil, groundwater and surface water through landfills and also release toxins into the air when they are burnt in municipal waste combustors. Also, the cadmium in even those wee batteries is easily taken up by plant roots and it accumulates in fruits, vegetables and grass. The impure water and plants in turn are consumed by animals and human beings, who then fall prey to a host of ill-effects. And you wonder why we all have cancer?????)

Now, don’t get me started on the environmental ill-effects of the exhaust fumes and noise pollution of Richard’s Nova, because I’ve fought and fought, and it’s a losing battle, just as my rants about all the rest of this misuse probably are, but lastly, there’s a delicious Danish dish called Ableskivers which are wee warm doughnuts. But when I asked for another task yesterday, I was delegated the duty of rolling up over 60 tin foil balls to put in the bottom of crock pots for these doughnuts to stay warm without getting soggy. I did it. And was silent for about the first 20 minutes. And then I just HAD to open my mouth.

“I haven’t touched tin foil in at least 2 years, ladies. I never use it at home. There’s always an alternative…” and then I bit my lip, but was thinking that there must be ways – like crushed pop cans in the bottom instead, which are then recycled/redeemed? Or even little metal racks? I’m sure there are loads of other ways to do this without all this nasty tin foil! LAST FACT : The amount of aluminum foil thrown away by North Americans EACH YEAR could build an entire fleet of aircraft! And yet again, those balls will end up in landfills, and possibly stuck in a rabbit’s or gentle doe’s throat so that it dies slowly of starvation or chokes… And yet recycling just ONE aluminum can could save the power needed to light up your entire house for 3 hours! Anyway, I walked away from the aluminum balls issue. Very brave of me. Lots of fortitude. Another ‘farmer’s feat’. But I did NOT want to know where they ended up! (Oh, who’m I kidding? I KNOW!)

So, back to the more pleasant topics of the 3rd day of the Founders’ Day weekend (because we are all anxious to behave like the ostrich and simply bury our heads in the plastic-encrusted beach sands. You all complain there’s no more fish in our rivers and ocean? Or that it’s so expensive to purchase? This is why)…

First we had the wonderful outdoor church service, joined by both of our community’s Lutheran churches as well as the congregation of St. Ansgar’s, the Anglican one. Our Pastor Ralph did a wonderful job on the sermon which included imagining what the pioneers went through when they arrived and had to clear the land and live together in one building, as well as sprinkling his message with words of HOPE for a community where many of the Danish traditions are thought to be ‘dwindling’ and where many of the younger generations are leaving the beautiful countryside for the technology of the cities and towns. Pastor is singing with the New Denmark Minstrels at the Perth/Andover July 1st celebrations, as is organist/guitarist and soprano Sonja (in red). I do hope many New Denmarkers will bring a lawn chair and come listen to all the choirs (incl. 150 voices for the 150th!) and instrumentalists from 4 to 7 on that day in Veteran’s Field. Bliss MacDonald (son of Phyllis who was born in this house as per many former blog entries/history of Blue Belldon Farm – just tag search with her name within this blog) did some lovely readings for this service in his calm and soothing “Mr. Rogers” voice. The music by these local musicians was uplifting as were the melodies answered in return by the many birds in the surrounding woods chirping through the delicate mist.

The above is a great shot that means a lot to us at Blue Belldon Farm, and taken by my mother, Joy. It’s of former teacher and Avon-calling! Phyllis Macdonald, with two of her children. As regular readers of this blog will know, we welcomed Bliss (left) and his mother to our home just after Christmas because Phyllis’ mother, Ida May (older sister of local historian/author Carrie Albert) came here to the log cabin that is now our master bedroom when she was a 16-year-old bride. Ida grew up one road over, then came here, had 5 children, planted many flowers and fruit trees, (some of which we still reap the blossoming benefits) then died age 33, in 1931. My tribute song to her, “Ida May”, is to be sung by the aforementioned Minstrels, at the July 1st Perth concert as well, with Bliss and Phyllis’ blessing.

The mural on the stage wall shows the land-clearing the pioneers (Danish Founding Fathers) had to do when they first arrived. In the foreground is the stunning Miss N.B. from 2016 , Marielle Ouellette and our present (and for the next 5 years!) reigning Queen of New Denmark, Megan Bach, who did a lovely speech.

Finally, below, Anna and Sonja , both sopranoes, had a little entertainment to add to the Memorial Service line-up. Also seen in the mural to the right is the replica of Immigration House where so many ancestors of this community struggled to survive in their first few years here before their own homesteads were habitable.

Thus ends our first Founder’s Day experiences, and the Danish-inspired open-faced liver pate sandwich I had yesterday for lunch is still very much remaining with me, as will all the memories made by this community’s endeavours to celebrate the nearly unbelievable efforts of the generations past…

In closing, I leave you with this. (Horse people and those that know any of the Reichs well will be unimpressed, but he’s hoping to garner some sympathy from the rest of you…)

If you’re coming to New Brunswick this summer to tour, the New Denmark museum is a must-see (as is the surrounding area with its amazing views from up here – above Lucy’s Gulch, that is) . The following is some info. that might intrigue you further. And we’re JUST off the Trans Canada, so really – right along your way to All Points Atlantic!

http://www.tourismnewbrunswick.ca/Products/N/New-Denmark-Memorial-Museum.aspx

Rates:

Free

Dates:

18 June – 27 Aug.

Tel:

506-553-6724

Off-season:

506-553-6584

6 Main New Denmark Rd. New Denmark

Founders’ Days Festivities, Farmers’ Feats, and the ‘Famous Foot Folly’. DUE TO THE POWER OUTAGE ACROSS NORTH EASTERN N.B., THIS BLOG HAS BEEN DELAYED. My apologies to those who were expecting photos before bed-time!

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rusticrevivals · 8 years ago

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I have always loved the Farmer’s Almanac – the original, now called “The OLD Farmer’s Almanac was begun in 1792 and is the oldest continuously published periodical in North America. In the 1848, it officially became the OLD Farmer’s Almanac. The Smithsonian has the full set of this, AND ONLY THIS Almanac, though many others have come and gone…

The one we are reading now, because it was a Christmas gift, is “The Almanac – for Farmers and City Folk” ! Nooooooo – haven’t we given in enough to the onslaught of cities/civilization? I refuse to share one of the last good old-fashioned traditions about planting, harvesting and eating with the yuppies in the metropoles who are making it more and more difficult to have clean organic earth, plentiful fields and forests and healthy FOOD, but too late! This particular Almanac has gone and done it!

Anyway, regardless of the Almanac type, we tend to read it the most on the toilet – studying it in small increments of time. (Well, MINE are ‘small increments of time’ !)

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

It is the original Almanac, however, that has a section I am most interested in, as so much of the farming cycle is based on the moon’s. (By the way, we still haven’t been able to get the planting tables’ earth in, considering one of the biggest storms of the season just happened last night – the last vestiges of what Ontario and New York got at the beginning of the week – – so our planters are still covered and frozen outside! We are certainly not going to use ALL potting soil, as a) it needs to be a mix with our own earth, and b) I refuse to generate that much plastic bag rubbish!) Having lived and taught on the reservation in Montana for 4 years, I am most interested in the natives’ names for the various moons, and their meanings.

“– Full Wolf Moon – January Amid the cold and deep snows of midwinter, the wolf packs howled hungrily outside Indian villages. Thus, the name for January’s full Moon. Sometimes it was also referred to as the Old Moon, or the Moon After Yule. Some called it the Full Snow Moon, but most tribes applied that name to the next Moon. ”

The Wolf Moon, taken from my bed in January, above

By the way, just as a post-script, wolves do NOT howl AT the moon. They ALWAYS howl at night, calling to each other, and it’s just that when there is a full moon, they tend to be SEEN more!

– Full Snow Moon – February Since the heaviest snow usually falls during this month, native tribes of the north and east most often called February’s full Moon the Full Snow Moon. Some tribes also referred to this Moon as the Full Hunger Moon, since harsh weather conditions in their areas made hunting very difficult.

Early morning Snow Moon up the hill and round the bend on Blue Bell Road (rte. 380) (above)

– Full Crow Moon – March The more northern tribes knew this Moon as the Full Crow Moon, when the cawing of crows signaled the end of winter; or the Full Crust Moon, because the snow cover becomes crusted from thawing by day and freezing at night. The Full Sap Moon, marking the time of tapping maple trees, is another variation. To the settlers, it was also known as the Lenten Moon, and was considered to be the last full Moon of winter.

Taken LAST March (by the previous owners of Blue Belldon Farm) of the Crow Moon, or Sap Moon from the side of our barn looking out at Blue Bell Mountain. (above)

While it’s all very nice to have the time changed, it’s ridiculous to do it this early. Global warming climes or not, we’re NOT needing the extra time for harrowing or planting just yet. With shingles being blown off the roof last night (Richard actually managed to get a roofer here by noon today! Usually we wait weeks if not MONTHS every time we call in a tradesman in New Brunswick!) and a 30 cm accumulation on top of what we already have, it feels utterly inane to have it light out at 7:30 p.m. and be staring out at massive snow drifts.

Although it IS pleasant to hear the crows cawing in the mornings now, which is why the northern tribes CALLED the full moon in March “Crow Moon”. But we want to tap our trees and it isn’t even quite time for that yet, with minus 20 temps at night! So calling it a Sap Moon isn’t quite right either, not this year, anyway. WE’RE the saps for thinking we could have our planting boxes full of earth and seeds by now, not to mention having the maple trees producing… What a March it’s been!

But now that it IS March, I can look back at the predictions using the moon/sun/stars of ALL the Almanacs on offer, and discover that – surprise, surprise! The only one that was accurate was THE OLD FARMER’S ALMANAC! This was from a statement on CTV last Sept:

“Dust off your parka and unpack your boots: according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, Canada is in for a cold, snowy winter. “The winter is looking pretty crazy,” Almanac spokesperson Jack Burnett told CTV News Channel on Tuesday. “It looks as though it’s going to be colder and snowier from coast to coast to coast.” According to the Almanac, most of Canada can expect a snowy winter with below-average temperatures followed by an unseasonably cool summer.

So, since it claims to be 80 percent accurate for the last 225 years, why use another Almanac, I ask you? They were definitely right about the winter of 2016/2017 here in the Appalachian Mountains, at least! And in some parts of the northern province, the wind and gales last night were so horrible, the golden arches which have been upright since 1970 decided they’d had enough. Last month, New Brunswick men got arrested going through the drive-thru on a couch. www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/02/10/new-brunswick-men-arrested-after-going-through-mcdonalds-drive-thru-on-a-sofa-police.html And THIS month, Northern N.B. McDonalds are again in the news today:

Talk about yer fallen arches! But I suspect it’s how most of us are feeling after this rightly predicted ‘long, cold and bitter’ winter!

Winter Wolf, Snow Crow, March Moonlight and McDonald’s Madness I have always loved the Farmer's Almanac - the original, now called "The OLD Farmer's Almanac was begun in 1792 and is the oldest continuously published periodical in North America.

#almanac #difference between almanacs #fallen arches #farmer&039;s almanac #farming by the moon #gale force winds #mcdonalds arches #moon cycles #new brunswick #predicting weather #winter

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