The ties that bind, they are barbed and spined, and hold us close forever.

I often mean to write about farming itself... sentences trickle into my minds eye in the morning when thoughts are fresh and clear, and by the evening I am worn and can barely remember what I did, which is why I try to write them down in some semblance because by tomorrow they may be gone.

Up until this year, I hadn't considered farming as a... a job. A viable "career" option for me. I have always been passionate about the idea of maybe one day owning a small cottage, raising sheep, using the land to provide me with materials for my house... I have been passionate about historic "ways of doing things," resonating with images of beautiful landscapes, historic architecture, heritage crafts... I almost went to school for architecture. I thought it would give me the foundation to build structures out of materials that I found in the building's natural surroundings... clay, wood, stone.

I have also always been passionate about having a part in the origins of an object that is part of my life. Perhaps to own a mug that I made from clay that I harvested... or leather from an animal that I reared and slaughtered, skinned and tanned... I remember telling Bryn that all I wanted to do in life was to "complete a cycle". To raise bees and use the honey for the beer I made with my own barley and hops, the wax with some tallow and neatsfoot oil from a cow I knew... have it come full circle. I'd die happy having done that.

But farming? Surely I'll be a carpenter or something. I ain't no farmer.

But mostly, whenever I was on farms for short week stints, I felt lonely. I couldn't imagine isolating myself in the country, away from culture, away from community. Only cities had that, so I guess I couldn't have sheep. When I came here, I found I was backasswards wrong about that, and suddenly my dreams were not only attainable, but maybe a bit better and more exciting than even what I imagined.

And as for farming itself...

See... farming isn't really the same as being a carpenter or a cobbler or a cook. At least not this kind of farming. In fact, farming, as it turns out, can be all of those things.

Farming is what you do when you live on a farm. It is living and working with the land and all it can provide, sustain or hold, whatever that may be. It is assisting and accompanying forms of life and helping or seeing them grow, then incorporating them back into our lives to sustain us and our communities and our other enterprises. It is building, it is creating and often playing. It is... whatever you want it to be.

And in the end, farming, to me, isn't farming at all. It is living. It is the art of living, and Life is in turn the medium itself. Both mine, and the lives of plants, animals, insects and soil around me. I see birth, I see growth. I see nurture, sickness, failure, thriving and death. I see the cycles, I know the weather intimately. I know the soil, I have helped make it what it is. I have tasted what it can provide me, and I know exactly what it feels like today.

So in that sense, I have always wanted to do this. I have always wanted to live, and be apart of the Life around me that becomes my life when I interact with it in the form of food, shelter, clothing, relationships, landscapes... I just didn't realize they called that farming, and that you could do that for a... well, for a living.

So maybe I still don't even consider myself a farmer. But I know I will buy land, and make my enterprises dependent on that land. I know I will aim to feed and shelter myself off that land, using its resources as my creative medium. I know I will probably raise cows, sheep, pigs and chickens, house horses, grow my own food and plant orchards. But that's not farming, that's just living.

Speaking of which, the wheat we planted is sprouting.

And you stack in your barrow...

Found a farm.

They bought 100 acres in 1973, they were 21 years old. They had it plowed up and they planted grain. They made the 1891 barn livable in one room while they built their passive solar board and baton house and more or less started with just a few sheep. They now raise pastured beef, chickens, pork and work with draft horses. Their barn is full of old belt threshers and horse-powered equipment. They barter with their Amish neighbours. They inherited an apple orchard, and just grow enough vegetables for themselves.

They more or less do... exactly what I want to do...

Well, some of it... I am young and full of dreams after all.

Pie

Writing from the barn. The sun is at three hands from the horizon and starting to turn gold, along with the leaves which also adorn speckles of reds, burgundies and pumpkin oranges.

Yvonne is laughing at me because my hat and my computer clash with the barn and the banjo.


I made pie today. For the first time. Apple pie. I've been too afraid to make it because my mum said she tried to make pie pastry once and it was inedible. But then I realized she'd only tried ONCE. And she's KNEW what she'd done wrong.

But nevertheless, I was nervous. Partly because I had never done it before, partly because I was bringing it to a potluck at my first intern-network meeting, me being the "new kid in class." But I was mostly nervous because I was using lard. Lard that I had rendered myself, and surely something that I did from scratch by taking instructions from books and the internet wasn't Actually going to work. I was afraid the faint (very faint!) porky smell would clash with the apples. When the lard flaked apart rather than broke like butter or shortening, I began to doubt the quality of the lard... Maybe it would make everyone sick. Or it would just be a disaster and I'd have wasted Yvonne's time who was making the filling, and wasted Caitlin's time who let us make something instead of work... and we'd have to make something else for the potluck tomorrow... all a waste...

I used a recipe left behind by Caitlin's mum (a pie-master). It called for a cup of lard and two cups flour, but it seemed a little dry so I put in a little more lard. I did that and looked at other recipes, they all called for less lard. The pastry was also yellow, but that was the egg. A real farm egg, with an orange yolk, not a yellow yolk.

I rolled out the pastry and recalled seeing my dad doing this many times before, perhaps I had even rolled it out on occasion. It stuck to the counter so I rolled it again, but remembered that dad says he usually rolls it twice so I wasn't too worried. The second roll went well, as well as the top, and the rolls I made for a mini-pie (to test so that I didn't have to blindly feed a bunch of other farm interns poisonous rock-pie) went well too. With an awkward combination of hesitation and blind faith I threw the pies into the oven.

After ten minutes, it smelled pretty good.

...Pretty goddamn good.

The crust started to brown earlier than it said it would, so I took the test pie out of the oven and poked it. The crust acted like pie crust. Like really flaky, buttery (well, lardy), light, crusty pie crust. So I ate it. It burnt my mouth so I couldn't taste it. So I slowed down and took another bite.

It was goddamn delicious. Really... goddamn good.

One gets the impression that this pie has taken on a life of its own. Like it's one of the barnyard animals... I suppose in a way it is... or, it was. Part of one anyway.

That pie for the potluck better still be there tomorrow.

I need more pig lard. Maybe I'll go into business. The lard business.

GLYNIS' PIE CRUST
Stolen from Marilyn Hall

2 cups pastry flour
1 cup leaf lard (I talk about rendering fat in the Driftwood Quarterly, Vol. I. No. II)
3/4 tsp salt

1 egg
2 Tbsp water
1 Tbsp vinegar

Cut lard into flour and salt until it pebbles up into pea-sized bits. Combine wet ingredients with a fork. Pour onto flour and lard and mix JUST until everything is combined. Make a ball of the dough and chill in the fridge. Pour a bunch of flour on the counter or table, and place chilled pastry dough on it. Flour up the rolling pin (or wine bottle) and roll out into round shape and desired thickness. If desired, or if it's too delicate to lift, fold it into a ball and roll out again. To lift into pie pan, fold in half, lift and place, fold it out again.

Once the pie filling is in and the top is on, bake at 450 for ten minutes, and then drop the temperature to 350 for the remaining time, until the edges begin to brown, about 25-45 minutes.

I'm walking to a farm to grow wheat...

Wheat that is planted in the fall has a higher yield than spring wheat. I've been wanting to grow grain--Yvonne as well--and she has the opportunity to see a planting of wheat through to the harvest next year. So two sacks, one of hard winter wheat and one of spelt, were broadcast by hand this afternoon over a small patch of land tilled up for her. We each took a sack and spread the grain. It seemed easy until the second step: the raking. We raked and raked... most of the seed still showing. Then we raked and raked some more. The skin began to peel from my hands and we still had more raking.

We timed it for today because it said it would rain tonight, which would save it from getting eaten by the birds and help it germinate. And luckily as I write this, I can hear the pitter-patter of rain drops on the roof.

The Aeon, Reversed

Been working since yesterday morning. Harvest in the rain, we and the carrots covered in mud. Damp to the long johns and unable to decide whether we were hot or cold. CSA pick-up in Waterloo and we got home after sunset. With Caitlin gone it was our job to finish up the chores and close the chicken coops.

I hobbled to the barn in the dark and walked in to complete silence... then a quiet pig snort. I turned on the light to the two sleeping sows, but by the time I got to their feeding trough they were nuzzling me to get to the grain and practically knocking me over (all 400 pounds of them). From the other pen Poppy, the lone sheep started baaing at me, with Wally the Llama now awake next to her. Then came the sound of the two Geese and the two runner ducks... quacking away as they entered the pig pen and tried to get in on the pig food. Then came Poppy and Wally. All quacking and snorting and baaing and trying to find a way to squeeze between the pigs. I couldn't help but just watch and laugh, and forgot all about getting the chores done quickly.

Back at it at 7 the next morning. Off to the market, but this time I was picked up and driven into Toronto. A few hours and I was on the subway with my carrots, leeks, peppers and squash in arm... the 22 bus to my parent's house...

Princess of Cups

Yesterday we doddled. The weather was grim and windy. But we went to a small apple orchard and the trees were beautiful and full of perfect fruit. Later, I recorded some songs in the barn. I had to stop one of the takes because a chicken was making me laugh.

The day started today with shucking garlic in the barn. Drove to a new order Mennonite's farm, a man who has started an organic, grass fed cow share. He practices intensive pasture rotation which benefits both cow and pasture, and his jerseys are healthier, longer living and longer producing than the high-protein grain fed animals in commercial farming.

He also keeps riding horses and two of his Australian Shepherd's just had pups. They are fed jersey milk and are fatter than piglets. His four-year-old daughter (who was wiser than her years) walked with me and we exchanged quiet conversation as the farmer showed Caitlin and Yvonne around the pasture ahead of us. I knew I was missing important information, but I felt she, and quietly meeting the animals, was more important in that moment. She introduced me to some of the horses and cows and gathered a bouquet of grass just like I do. I gave her some small peacock feathers from my pocket after sharing a glass of the raw jersey milk...

We harvested squash, leeks and tomatoes in the afternoon, and then my brother and mum arrived for a visit. I showed mum how to collect the eggs and nearly died laughing she was so excited and hesitant at the idea of picking an egg out of a roost. Then I dragged Calum around with me for the evening chores, and he laughed at the big Berkshire sows when I poured them their feed. We helped pick rocks out of Yvonne's test winter wheat crop, I taught Calum to ride the tractor, and barked extensively at my mother about buying land and building a small cottage.

We walked down to the creek with the dogs and through the wooded path. We sampled apples from the trees we discovered, and found spearmint growing wild on the path.

Caitlin cooked us a meal of all her farm's creation. Roasted sausage with tomatoes, mashed potatoes and sweet corn. I bid my family adieu and collapsed into a ramble.

Sun rise fog settles

Extracted honey at Jana's then movie night in town: Midnight in Paris. Caitlin teased me because I am one of those people, nostalgic for a time I never lived.

This Cylinder Is Bored True

Yesterday: Woke before dusk, worked 'til dark. Harvest and night market, slow days for money. Ate fresh sweet corn in the field.

Today: Woke before dusk, off to market. Slow day for busking, competition with some speakers and a cloudy, cold morning. Prize of the week: an antique Enterprise Sausage, Lard & Fruit Press, cast iron beauty. The apples are ripe in their trees, if I find time to restore the press, pick a few bushels of apples, get a carboy, yeast and airlock, I'll make cider. Yvonne had the idea of saving it for her wheat harvest next summer, as payment for anyone who comes out to help (as tradition has it).

Caitlin saved me her pig fat and it's been thawing in the downstairs sink... the smell was nauseating and I couldn't bring myself to render the fat back. Something about the shaved stubble on the skin. I plunked the 'flare' into a big silver bowl for rendering leaf lard, their slightly bloody mauled ends sticking into the air. I noticed some customers at the door on my way back up wanting to pay for a couple dozen eggs... their eyes unable to avoid the large carcass parts under my arm, and I chuckled to myself. After processing, the quality of the oil impressed me. I couldn't get it off.

Farming by day (and sometimes night), working on the Driftwood Quarterly in my moments between meals, banjo and sleep...

Bread

Bread is a science, but a human science. Temperatures and time and ratios of ingredients and moisture and all those things form chemical reactions which produce a loaf of bread. But most people just learn the chemistry through feel, and that's what I'm doing.


O N E . L O A F . O F . B R E A D


1:
PROOF THE YEAST

Yeast is a little animal that eats sugar and poops out air and a bit of booze. It needs to be about body temperature to do this, and it needs sugar to eat in the first place.

One cup of warm water, a few tablespoons of sugar (honey, maple syrup, etc) and about 2 teaspoons of active dry yeast, stirred and left to bubble is part of the fine science. If the water is too hot you'll kill it. If it's too cold it will go to sleep.

2:
MAKE A SPONGE

Add about 2 and a half cups of flour (whatever flour), one tablespoon of melted butter and some more sugar (how sweet do you want it?), mix it all up and make sure it stays in a warm place. It will grow and bubble and be sticky.

3.
MAKE A DRY DOUGH AND MASH THE GLUTEN TOGETHER

I like to pour a bunch of flour on the table and pour my sponge onto it, working the flour from the table into the dough until the dough stops absorbing the flour. I had to go a little drier than my intuition told me. Knead the dough and imagine that you're mashing the gluten in the flour together so that when the yeast poops out the air, the gluten won't let it get out. This is how bread rises.

4.
LET IT RISE

Put some oil on your dough and place it in a bowl. Put it in a warm place to rise until it gets big.

5.
PUNCH THE AIR OUT

Punch it down so there are no giant bubbles and let it rise a bit more. After it rises, if you are making multiple loaves, divide them here.

6.
BAKE

Grease up a pan, maybe sprinkling some flour over it. I like to grease my loaf too. Preheat to 375, but turn it down to 350 when you put the loaves in. Bake until slightly gold on top, and hollow sounding when tapped, about 25-30 minutes. Brush the top of the loaf with oil to keep it moist.

Use cloth or paper to store it.

The clouds hang low

In the barn, shucking garlic to plant for overwintering. The second floor holds the advantage of seeing out an open sliding wall. It is nice to do the jobs where you sit and do something repetitive, to look over and see the dogs nesting in the hay, to hear the sparrows and the barn swallows flying above in the rafters.

More picking rocks and potatoes, the sound of pickings hitting the bottom of a bucket... grabbing an apple from a nearby tree and finding it sweet...

Not all days aren't ugly

Misty morning on neighbour's farm, digging up potatoes. Stole a dying piglet and kept it in my shirt, trying to keep it warm. Named it Clarence, and Maya, the old golden retriever, stared blinklessly at my belly in the truck ride home as I tried to rub the life back into it. Gave it milk and lay it down, and saw the bruising of what looked like a hoof, the mother sow weighing 600 some odd pounds.

It died while I was picking rocks out of next year's field, the newly naked soil dry and being lifted into dust with every move. After the hot, dusty afternoon I buried Clarence by the bees and gathered tiny peacock feathers.

Once I had a banjo, made it out of pine

If I don't keep track, I will forget.

Last night I took the dogs down to the creek and we muddled about in the woods. The grass and the rushes and the dogwood have grown to meet me eye to eye and I can barely recognize it from the Spring. We came to the end of the birch trees and maples and found the neighbouring bean fields, turning yellow against the backdrop of overgrown trees with a roof peaking out from beyond the hill, and I felt like I was in farmland Ontario in September, which I was. Which I am... and I am consistently reminded of it.

Caitlin came home and we harvested tomatoes until our only source of light was the almost-full moon. There was a few minutes where she disappeared completely as I waited by the wagon in the stillness of newly fallen night. I looked into the dark field and tried to catch the shadow of her movement distantly down the row. When she returned we hobbled up to the house, drunk on farming 'til sundown.

Slept in 'til 6:50am and dashed to market with enough vegetables to pack four tables and still have bins and bins full behind us. Yvonne ran the market and I sauntered off with my banjo and gathered toonies from the passers by until my string broke.

New Life in Autumn

I harvested ground cherries and tomatillos all afternoon, alone in the field with my thoughts, the sun and my music. By early evening I was cutting flowers and tonight I'll be rounding up the last of the tomatoes for tomorrow's market.

I have arrived and all my thoughts have already manifested: soon, we sow our winter grains and I didn't even have to order the seed. I have slipped into a life carved for me, a perfect fit. I am struck by how peaceful it is, and yet always poised to be disappointed because surely I will find a way to screw it up. But the disappointments are muffled and muted by the fact that out here, we have the land and the animals. I survive alongside them, and the hard work is rewarded with the bounty of harvest.