Whether it's on the tractor or in the pasture with the cows, I just love being able to take my kids to work when I need to. – Will Collier

Spring Returns

After a couple of weeks of winter, we're back to the warmer days of spring and bright sunshine. Feels so good!

The lambs are romping around the coral and growing obviously bigger by the day.

The broiler chicks are doing well and keep James busy feeding them and rounding up the escapees from their cozy circular enclosures.

Martin's recent hatching of layer chicks didn't go well, though, and he's not sure why. Only about 30% of the eggs hatched in the incubator. It seems the eggs may have gotten chilled at some point.

Incubation must have consistently warm and humid conditions for the chicks to grow inside the eggs. And the eggs need to be rotated regularly. It makes you wonder how hens in the yard and birds in the wild manage to hatch their babies. Life seems so precarious.

We'll see how Jeannie's perennial flowers are after the freezing temperatures and snow they were subjected to. Just before the cold weather, tiny shoots were poking their way above the ground.

And Martin is poking his head up, too, having finally finished taxes. He's much more cheerful.

"Taxes are absolutely the worst of the worst jobs I have ever had!" Martin exclaims emphatically and excruciatingly. "Doing taxes is like having to wash dishes in a sink of water with a liter of tallow poured into it and only a couple of drops of dish soap AND you're blindfolded. You're expected to get the dishes clean but you can't see what you're doing, and everything feels greasy.

"I don't mind doing math and checking off boxes, but the Government changes things every year and I don't have a clue what they're asking for. And try to find some government official who does…"

"Well, taxes are done, and I can get on with my life," and he smiles.

Another unique product coming from the Harvest Haven kitchen…dehydrated organic sourdough starter.

What is a sourdough starter?

The quick version: a sourdough starter is an active colony of wild yeast and good bacteria cultivated by combining flour and water and allowing it to ferment. By feeding it continually and keeping it in happy conditions you will have a reliable "natural yeast" culture that can be used to leaven (raise) breads and pastries of all kinds.

The science: a sourdough starter is a symbiotic community of lactic acid bacteria and wild yeast. Both yeast and bacteria feed on the carbohydrates present in flour when hydrated with water and allowed to ferment. As you refresh the starter with new "food," each microbe gets stronger and more vivacious, releasing gases (providing air and lift) as they consume. These two live microorganisms exist in harmony within your starter, creating an environment rich with lactic and acetic acid. These acids provide both flavor and nutritional benefit.

Breads that are made exclusively with sourdough are referred to as naturally leavened. Naturally leavened breads have a longer fermentation time than commercially yeasted breads, which allows the lactic acid in the sourdough to "unlock" the nutrients within the flour. This creates a more flavorful, digestible bread with more readily available nutrients. From The Basics Behind Sourdough Starter

Harvest Haven starter is made with organic flour and Grander water, both of which produce a healthy, vigorous product. This is the same starter we use to make our naturally-leavened bread that is so popular.

Because the starter is dehydrated, we can package it in small packets and ship wherever.

Instructions for rehydrating:

Combine the full contents of the package into a clean 1 quart glass jar or bowl. Add 50 grams of all purpose flour and 150 grams of warm water.

Cover the jar loosely with a lid or the bowl with plastic, and allow it to sit at room temperature (22C/72F) for 12 hours.

Place another 1 quart container or glass bowl on a scale and press the tare button on your scale.

Transfer 150 grams of the starter mixture (half) into this new container. Add 75 grams of flour and 75 grams of water to the new container. Mix, cover, and let it sit for 12 hours at room temperature. You can discard the starter from the original container.

At the end of 12 hours you should see signs of bubbling and rising levels of the starter.

Your starter should now be out of dormancy and can be maintained daily by removing half the volume by weight and then adding that same weight in equal amounts of flour and water. This should be done every 12 hours.

There are lots of links on maintaining starters. Here are two we found helpful: Sourdough Starter: Everything You Need to Know and How to Feed, Maintain, and Store a Sourdough Starter.

It's hard to find convenience without some kind of compromise. But, at Harvest Haven you don't have to worry about compromising.

We have a tasty selection of sausages and deli meats made from our pasture-raised beef, lamb, chicken, and turkey. All of these are made from quality meat (no strange parts), sea salt, and spices. No fillers or harmful preservatives are added.

The sausages are Smoked Ready to Eat or Cook and Serve. The deli meats are Ready to Eat and thinly sliced, perfect for a sandwich or pizza.

The Smoked Ready to Eat Beef sausages are garlic, pepperoni sticks, smokies, and wieners (yes, wieners that are made with good quality ingredients).

Cook and Serve Beef sausages include breakfast, garlic, Italian, and onion. These are delicious served on their own or added to a casserole or soup.

The beef deli meats are beef salami and sliced pizza pepperoni, great to have on hand for a quick bite.

We have three varieties of Cook and Serve Lamb sausage: curry, garlic, and Moroccan. Also, Ready to Eat lamb ham is excellent.

In the poultry section, you'll find Ready to Eat chicken franks, turkey kolbassa, and turkey pepperoni (a handy snack). Chicken Breakfast sausage is a nice Cook and Serve variety. Poultry deli slices include smoked chicken breast, turkey salami, and smoked turkey breast (a favorite).

Go to Harvest Haven Meat for a list of all our meats and the prices.

Harvest Haven Pastured Beef Breakfast Sausage – These all-beef sausages are a scrumptious addition to a hearty breakfast with pancakes and eggs.

Harvest Haven Eggs – We all love these golden gifts from our happy hens. Eggs are a vital ingredient in every kitchen.

Harvest Haven Dehydrated Organic Sourdough Starter – Here's the first step to great naturally leavened bread and baked goods. Simply rehydrate and start baking.

Organic Quick Oats, 5 lb – Rolled oats are great for cooking oatmeal or for adding nutrition, fibre, and flavour to your baking. They're thinner cut, and therefore quicker to cook than regular oats.

Organic Ambrosia Apples – Originating in Similkameen Valley, BC, this apple is not the result of a lengthy scientific breeding program, but the finding of a chance seedling in an orchard. It was growing in an orchard of Jonagold trees, therefore its parentage is unknown. It seems likely that it is a cross between Jonagold and Golden Delicious.

Ambrosia apples are known for tasting sweet as honey. They're mildly aromatic, but overall have a straightforward flavor. In a perfectly ripe Ambrosia apple, you'll taste floral notes similar to a wildflower honey. These apples are very low in acid. They won't taste tart or tangy, just mellow and sweet.

Ambrosia apples benefit from being kept chilled and eaten from the fridge, because the crispness fades fairly quickly once it is left in the fruit bowl.

Harvest Haven Raw Honey, 350 g or 600 g – Yes, we have bees that provide us with delicious honey. Like everything else on our farm, these busy workers live without nasty chemicals, such as miticides or fungicides. They forage on our strawberry and raspberry blossoms, sweet clover, alfalfa, dandelions, maples, and all the other flowers growing here, so they don't need to roam onto chemical-laden canola fields.

Our raw honey is not heated in anyway, so it has all its natural goodness.

Please note, all ingredients in our recipes are organic.

Kids' Comments About Work

The Van Popta children often work with their parents on various tasks. Life lessons are in the everyday activities and working along with adults is very valuable.

Here are the kids' descriptions of some of the jobs they do. Konstantijn is 14 and likes to work, strange kid. The twins, Marseilles and Mathijs, who are 11, are exact opposites in many ways as you'll see in their reports.

My Work by Konstantijn

I do chores in the mornings and afternoons. It's nice to see the animals in the morning, especially the sheep and their lambs. Sometimes some lambs get out during the night and jump all over the stack of hay bales and knock them all over. We thought our yard sheep, Ivan was doing it, but it turns out it wasn't him.

One of the other pens I feed has Jess, a milk cow, and her calf Luis, along with two other steers. They are very friendly, especially Luis!

Most of my usual work during the winter is in the store. It's nice to have a job very near home.

I help set up the store in the mornings. I sweep the floors and restock the produce cooler. Then I package anything that needs to be packaged like nuts or seeds or dried fruit. I like it when there are lots of customers and people working in the store at the same time.

On Tuesdays the produce and dairy order comes in, and I put that away. Often other orders come in like the ones with dry goods and snacks.

On Saturday evenings, my little siblings and I prepare the store for the rest of the week. I stock the shelves and they clean the shopping carts.

Soon the summer will come and there will be lots and lots of work to do!

[Editor's note: Konstantijn mentioned only about half of the work she does. Besides doing her schoolwork daily and helping her siblings with theirs, and spending hours playing piano, she prepares dinner for the family at least a couple of times a week, and keeps her dad's cookie jar stocked for before bed cookies and milk. Did I tell you that she likes to work?]

Chickens With Mom by Marseilles

Collecting eggs with my mom is fun, even though the chickens SQUAWK. REALLY LOUDLY. Whenever someone new collects eggs with us, they squawk even louder, especially Cecily the Brown Hen. She does this thing where she goes on the fence until we enter. Then, she jumps off, squawking and screaming until she lands.

Then, there's Silver and Platinum, our shiny silver-colored hens. They're sweet and don't have too much to say, but they're very pretty.

There's Chicken, our rooster. You'd probably recognize him by his large comb and short tail, along with his shiny green and brown feathers.

And then there's Big Fatty, my favorite rooster. He's a broiler!

He saved his feathers by temporarily fasting until it was time to pick them up and send them to Prairie Meats. [Editor's translation: Big Fatty "saved his skin" by not eating enough when he was young, so that he was too small to take to slaughter. He was allowed to grow big and fat with the laying hens.]

Now he's a free rooster!

There are a lot more chickens, but they're just your average chickens, as far as I know.

After we collect eggs, we take them to the room where we wash eggs. We own this little gadget named "The Little Egg Scrubber," which works much better than human hands.

After the eggs get washed, we weigh them and take them to the store, where we put them in the cooler to be sold.

We sell a lot of things in these coolers, like cheeses, butter, milk, and creams.

In the freezer on the other wall, we sell things like pesto, ice cream, and meat.

In yet another place in the store, we have a display cooler, where we sell greens and fruit.

Outside of this cooler, we sell the things that don't have to be refrigerated, like dish soap, baking materials, magnesium capsules, and chocolate chips. We get most of this stuff from Pro Organics (the greens), UNFI, and Horizon (the processed stuff).

I also like working at the check out counter with my mom. Maybe I'll see you there!

[Editor's note: Marseilles has a wonderful sense of humor and keeps us entertained with her cartoons about current events and everyday life. You'll see her creativity in the bookmarks she has for sale in the store.]

Helping Dad by Mathijs

Today I was helping my dad organize the work shop. It had become messy, and we are renovating the walls and floor.

I thought it was pretty fun. Most of the time I was warming up the labels on the Rubbermaid totes. Then I peeled them off, which was pretty fun. After that we took all the totes to the machine shop and put them on a shelf.

We store extra parts and supplies for farming in the totes. Things like waterer heaters, fence chargers, wire insulators, and pipe fittings.

I have also helped my dad put in new flooring in the music studio and in the house. The floor in the studio is vinyl plank flooring and in the house it is laminate flooring. I helped by moving the flooring where it needed to be.

Once the workshop renovations are finished I can make more wood projects. I make tree decorations and tic tac toe games. I want to make candle holders, coasters, and wooden key chains. You'll see these for sale in the store.

[Editor's note: Mathijs is very precise as you can see…nothing superfluous. He didn't mention how much he enjoys investigating mechanical components and computers, and helping his dad sort out problems in those departments.]

Everyone at the farm appreciates the Van Popta children and finds it a pleasure to have them to work and visit with. We are blessed.