FEELING THE SHIFT

Most Recent / June 11th, 2023

There is always a point in each season that I start feeling the shift. You can smell it in the air on a warm day. Shifting to all that the newest season brings. This was the first week that I have felt our family make the shift to summer.

Schedules all but goes out the window, we eat smores every night of the week. We are dirty from planting, there are wet swim shorts on the floor. The animals are happy in their summer homes.

For the cattle that means being moved to fresh grass every day. Broiler chickens are almost three weeks old and will begin the transition to pasture living shortly. The dogs sleep under the shade of one of the many mature trees on the farm, our injured broiler chicken Sampson is with them for most of the day, until he waits patiently on the front stairs to be let in for night. It is a time that all feels right, a fresh start feeling that only a new season brings.

Our newly created and now completed no-till garden is almost finished being planted. I somehow forgot to order bush beans and sugar snap peas but they are on there way from West Coast Seeds and should arrive early this week. We are growing all the usual suspects, dahlias, zinnias, cosmos, eucalyptus, yarrow, scabiosa. The list goes on and on. But what I am most excited about is that we have hit the stage of growing flowers that we don't want to grow it all, we just want to grow what we love. The list of flowers was curated to favourites and for colour palettes that blend beautifully with summer and then fall.  Special flowers grown for our wedding work and not much more than that.

Although we spend a lot of time talking about flowers we actually grow more food than flowers. Tomatoes, kale, corn, carrots, lettuces, potatoes, swiss chard, herbs, apples, the list goes on and on.  Each year we get better at knowing what we like to grow, while also get better at storing our bounty over the winter. It's a pretty great feeling walking to the basement to go "grocery shopping."

It is looking like we should be receiving much needed rain tonight and tomorrow. The garden will certainly pop after a nice log rainfall. The wildfire smoke has come and gone for now.

I hope that the shift to summer has begun for you, and brought with it all the promise that it brings.

Here is to a long, hot, happy days filled with what and who you love.

Until next time,

 

Emma-Lee Harrison-Hill

img_5141
img_4924.jpg
img_4843.jpg
img_3140.jpg

We are the Harrison-Hills: Connor, Emma-Lee, Hudson and Forrest. We are the third generation of Harrison's to live and work on these beautiful 137 acres just outside of Lakefield, Ontario and we are so excited to share our farm with you.

xx Emma

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *