Showing posts with label friday podcast. Show all posts
Showing posts with label friday podcast. Show all posts

Friday, August 28, 2009

Hurricanes and Harvesting

CLICK - HEAR TODAY'S PODCAST



Hurricane Bill blasts the sunflowers in the front field


Sunflowers do impression of Marcel Marceau - mime walking in the wind


Harvest packed for the farmers market in Dundas. Beans, 2 types of cucumbers, scarlet nantes carrots, red and white new potatoes, zucchini and yellow summer squash. Also beets and lettuce (not shown).


The plowing match includes competition with horse drawn plows. Each contestant is given a measured plot to plow. They are judged on how straight and even they make the sods and how
square they make their lines. Difficult to do with a tractor, but even more challenging with horses pulling a single sod plow over unfamiliar ground. Skills include controlling the depth of the sod cut and the angle of the plow, plus driving a team.


Old school rigs like this riding plow and hand plows were seen during today's competition.
Antique tractors and other horse drawn equipment are also seen working in the field.
Now that's plowing!

We did OK at the farm table but attendance seemed down from last year and demand for produce was off. A lot of people planted big gardens this year. Everybody feels that cash is a bit scarce this summer. It's a a sure sign of the times.

Friday, June 12, 2009

New Friday Podcast From the Farm

CLICK - HEAR the new Friday podcast from the farm!

Hey there...

Big news for me is that my family is in the air, flying overnight on Air Canada from Los Angeles to Toronto - then to Ottowa and then on to Charlottetown, PEI!

I'll be picking them up Saturday afternoon here! I'm so excited I even re-finished the wood floor in the kitchen!

I also bought BB's for the boys BB rifles and I hung a new screen door for Susan...kind of a lame 20th anniversary present maybe? (I wonder which anniversary PVC vinyl goes with?)

It rained all day today, so I was glad I got the potatoes planted, and our WOOFER, (worker on organic farms) Carole, planted the sweet peas by hand yesterday. Carole also vacumed the upstairs, made the boys beds, cleaned one of the bathrooms and did laundry! Thank goodness for good friends who understand our particular form of madness. I made us dinner and she retired to her little borrowed cabin on the shore across the road.

Then I went wild with the floor cleaning and refinishing.

Now here is a real PEI story. My Wi-Fi went out last night. I was sending audio files back to Santa Barbara when it died. So this morning I called local tech support. I politely asked for help since I had a producer in Santa Barbara and another one in New York City hoping to take delivery on some audio tracks...could they please help?

The owner of my ISP came to the farm this afternoon to solve the problem. Now, Wayne Phalen only has one arm, but he's fearless and able enough to get the job done. Next thing I know, Donny is setting up the ladder so Wayne can climb up to the second storey roof top. Wayne decides that maybe the antenna isn't quite up to snuff and the trees, which have leafed out since the installation a month ago, are blocking reception. So, he unscrews the antena mount, re-attaches it to the roof, checks the signal and deems it OK for now. Wayne says that he'll call Gordon and get him out here as soon as possible to install a better antenna.

Did I mention that Wayne was standing on my second storey roof, relocating my antenna in a driving rain storm - with one hand? I was fuckin' impressed boys.