I think having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want to own. –Andy Warhol

Grapes and More Grapes

After the rains, the gardens are growing nicely AND so are the weeds. All hands are on deck for weeding right now. In the next issue we hope to show you a nifty piece of equipment for facilitating picking weeds and strawberries.

The grasses are lush and provide rich grazing for the sheep and cattle. Everything is growing fat and sleek, except the farmers who are clocking a lot of steps on their devices as they move livestock daily and help with weeding when they can.

Well, what about the title, Grapes and More Grapes? Here's the story.

Martin planted four grape vines next to his house a few years ago, but with all the other activities he had to tend to, the vines were neglected. Knowing that Igor, our on-farm computer programmer, has a penchant for doing detailed research and needed to get outdoors more, Martin asked him to take responsibility for the grapes. He did!

After many hours of searching on line and wherever else he could get information, Igor moved beyond the few vines in Martin's backyard to purchasing 50 grape vines of a number of varieties suitable to our climate. James used his small excavator to dig a couple of appropriately long trenches the right depth for Igor's grapes. Of course, everything is perfectly measured.

A simple project of tending four plants has escalated into a vineyard. Igor even has one vine planted in a container that will be kept indoors over the winter. It's all in the name of "research."

Martin, did you know we would have grapes and more grapes?

Here's a sweet story.

A new study found that flowers can hear bees buzzing and respond by making their nectar sweeter. How amazing is that?!

A research team from Tel Aviv University experimented with evening primrose, which grows wild around Tel Aviv and whose long bloom time provides substantial quantities of nectar.

The following excerpt is from STUDY: Flowers Can Hear Bees Buzzing and Respond By Making Their Nectar Sweeter

In the lab, they exposed the flowers to five different sound treatments: silence, the sound of bees buzzing, and computer-generated sounds in low, medium and high frequencies.

The flowers had no response to the silence or the computer-generated frequencies, they had an almost immediate response to the sound of bees, boosting the sugar content in their nectar by as much as 20% within 3 minutes.

In field trials, while the flowers seemed to tune out other noises, like the wind, they were particularly attuned to the low frequencies emitted by bees and other pollinators.

The temporary boost in sugar content apparently lasted for up to 6 minutes, as pollinators were 9 times more likely to visit a plant that had been previously visited by a pollinator within that time frame.

In retrospect, the researchers said it made sense that flowers would be the ears of plants. Their concave, satellite-dish-shape makes them perfect for receiving and amplifying sound waves.

"This specific flower is bowl-shaped, so acoustically speaking, it makes sense that this kind of structure would vibrate and increase the vibration within itself," study co-author Marine Veits said.

To verify, the team used a laser vibrometer machine to measure the minute movements in the flowers' petals and saw that the vibrations matched up (resonated) exactly with the wavelengths of the sounds of the bees.
"You immediately see that it works," Veits says.

You can read more here: Flowers respond to pollinator sound within minutes by increasing nectar sugar concentration

The strawberry field is full of blossoms and green berries. Shortly it'll be a sea of sweet red fruit. Yum!

If you want flats of Harvest Haven strawberries, please email your request now. We'll let you know when we have your order filled. Because these are June berries, there will be fresh fruit for only a few weeks.

For those who are in Calgary and any where between here and there, we can arrange to get strawberries to you.

Reminder: we are NOT doing U-pick anymore. We do the picking for you.

Harvest Haven Pastured Chicken Cutlets – Another new Harvest Haven product that is a "must have." Tender, moist, and delicious – quick and easy to prepare.

Harvest Haven Pastured Eggs – We all love these golden gifts from our happy hens that are out on pasture in the fresh air and sunshine. Eggs are a vital ingredient in every kitchen.

Organic Long Grain White Rice, 700 g – Rice is the perfect side dish for so many different meals and it soaks up sauces like a dream. Kids love it!

Harvest Haven Pasture-Raised Chicken Bone Broth, 1L – Bone broth has so many health benefits, especially for your joints and digestive system. Besides being a refreshing warm beverage, its use as an ingredient is invaluable in many recipes.

Harvest Haven Rhubarb – 'Tis the season for fresh rhubarb. Throughout history, it has been used for both culinary and medicinal purposes. Rhubarb became popular for desserts in the 18th and 19th centuries after sugar became widely available. But, it makes a spicey chutney or sauce to go with savory dishes, such as chicken or lentils.

L'Ancetre Organic Butter, 250 g or 454 g – Tasty and healthy organic Canadian butter from environmentally-friendly farms. Smooth, creamy, and flavorful – perfect for all your baking or just spread on your favorite Harvest Haven bread.

Please note, all ingredients in our recipes are organic.

Where's Wiener

We were very thankful for the 4 inches of rain we received a couple of weeks ago, even though it was cold and blustery. It was a drought in this area last summer. With very little snow over the winter and no moisture this spring, it looked like another dry summer. Then, the rain came and everyone and everything was happy.

Well, not quite everything. Shadow, one of our beef cows, gave birth to her calf in the heaviest, windiest downpour of the storm. Her poor little guy was not impressed, coming from the warm interior of his mother to this cold harsh environment. Brrr…

Martin and James braved the challenging elements to erect a straw bale shelter for the cows and their calves to get some respite from the driving rain. However, not satisfied with what was provided, Wiener, the new calf found his own cozy refuge. Being small enough to slip under the electric fence wire, he backed into the deep, thick grass outside the paddock. The heavy foliage made a comfy waterproof canopy over him. It also made it almost impossible for Martin to find him when the calves were counted, and he was missing.

After trudging through thigh-deep heavy wet grasses for half an hour, Martin finally found Wiener in his verdant shelter. He was warm and dry, and his mom was close by, so Martin left him.

That evening, when Martin checked on the cows and calves to be sure everyone was healthy, Wiener was nowhere to be found. Call out the troops to help!

Even with the whole family walking through the grasses, Wiener eluded them. He had disappeared. After an hour, the searchers gave up. Shadow didn't seem too concerned, so they knew Wiener was not too far. They just couldn't find him.

The next morning, anxious to see how his livestock endured the inclement weather, Martin headed out to the pasture. There was Wiener with his mom, as lively as could be now that the storm had passed.

Where had he hidden? How could they have missed him?

While discussing this mystery at lunch, Martin said he found small hoof prints in the garden about half a mile from the pasture where the cows were. Could it be Wiener's tracks? Could he have travelled that far from the herd?

"The tracks may not be his," pipes in one of the guys. "Some of the lambs escaped from their pasture this morning, and went wandering through the gardens over there."

So we have a mystery, and lambs nor calves are talking.

Note: a week later, Jeannie and I were looking at that garden as we took a little tour around the farm.

"I believe we found evidence that it was Wiener who was here. Look under these bushes in the tall grass. There's a small round area where an animal was sleeping and flattened the grass. And it wasn't the lambs because they weren't here long enough to lay down.

"It's a long ways from the beef herd, but we looked everywhere around the paddock and didn't find him," Jeannie tells me.

Mystery solved?