Life on a farm is a school of patience. You can't hurry the crops or make an ox in two days. Haneri Alain Liogier

Taking a Breather

August is usually a bit slower paced so everyone can take a little breather before the long heavy days of the fall harvest.

The garlic has been collected and is curing in a shelter. Onions, carrots, and beets are picked as needed for the store. It's so nice to have tender fresh produce.

We've had sunny hot weather, but it hasn't bothered any of the livestock. The chickens and turkeys continue to grow on their diet of bugs and greens; the cattle and sheep are enjoying their lush pastures; and the guys appreciate cool showers from the irrigation sprinklers as they move them through the fields.

Martin always has some kind of a building project or two on the go. Work continues on the greenhouse/boiler building with heating ducts buried in the ground and a cement entrance poured. The floor will be mulch so any dirt spills won't be a problem when working on transplants in the spring.

The woodworking shop was gutted, and a new cement floor poured. The old floor made levelling equipment for straight cuts very challenging. It was so extremely uneven. The contractor poured a 4-inch thick cement floor because he didn't trust the stability of the old foundation. It's super smooth now!

Another project the guys hope to finish before the cattle are brought in for the winter is to build additional corrals. Expanding the herd last year meant tight quarters for some of the beef cattle this last winter. It was cozy, but made cleaning their pens more difficult.

The farm is a busy place no matter what season it is. Just sometimes it's slightly less hectic.

Yellow Jacket Wasps

Yellow jackets are VERY annoying at this time of year and not easily discouraged from partaking of the food on your dinner plate when you're eating outside, enjoying the last warm days of summer. And they are ready to let you know what they think of your attempts to chase them away. A wasp's sting is incredibly painful!

However, moving past their irritating behaviour and uncomfortable presence, yellow jackets are beneficial to the ecology and farmers. They are important pollinators that feed on soft-bodied insects that damage crops in gardens and fields.

• Because the adult yellow jacket diet consists primarily of sugars and carbohydrates from fruits, flower nectar, and tree sap, they are valuable pollinators.
• They are good at cleaning up fallen fruit or dead meat.
• Yellow jacket nymphs (young ones) require protein in their diet, so are natural exterminators of a lot of insects that cause damage to crops.
• They are food for animals, such as black bears, foxes, skunks, badgers, and moles. The thick fur of the mammal protects them from the stings and enables them to feed on the nymphs and larvae in the nest.

Yellow jackets live in colonies, like honey bees, and they build huge paper nests in trees, on buildings, old rodent burrows, or under workshops (see Martin's experience in Down On the Farm). To make the paper for their nests, they chew on bark or wood, and mix the pulp with saliva. Then, they add each mouthful to the nest, forming either six-sided cells, where the larvae are reared, or the multi-layered outside cover of the nest. Because each load of pulp comes from a different source, you can see a subtle pattern of grey bands in the paper of the nest.

In the fall, the colony breaks down, and only the new queens survive the winter, to start new colonies in the spring.

Unlike honey bees, yellow jackets are very aggressive, especially in late summer when they are defending their nest and looking for food.

Martin explains the benefits of raising broiler chickens on pasture and why he has chosen the portable cages you'll see in this video.

The birds are healthy because they get fresh air, sunshine, vibrant grasses, and real bugs, and they are not exposed to hazardous ammonia buildup in a confined barn. Portable cages on pasture provide a low stress environment resulting in a mortality rate that is nearly zero. The meat from pasture raised chickens is a richer color, tastier, and obviously healthier with no risk of salmonella or bacterial contamination.

The portable cages have a number of advantages for the birds and the farmers who tend the operation. The system is very simple to build and operate, and it's not noisy or invasive in the environment. It only takes about 1 hour and 15 minutes a day to move the units morning and afternoon, and to feed and water all of the chickens.

Another major advantage to portable cages is the spreading of the chicken manure evenly over the pasture without the use of machinery. The fields explode in greenery after the chickens have done the job for the farmer.

Pasture raised chicken is the clean, moral, ethical, and right way of raising a bird.

Fresh WHOLE broiler chicken will be ready Friday, September 16th and Sunday, September 18th.

Fresh chicken PARTS will be ready Sunday, September 18th.

You can place your orders now.

Harvest Haven lamb is raised on lush pastures, quality, non-synthetic minerals and salts, and Grander Living Water, which produce a tender, flavorful meat you will be delighted to serve.

We're taking orders for whole or half lamb, cut and wrapped, or just the cuts you like.

Whole lamb, cut and wrapped, is about $600 depending on the size. Half a lamb will be approximately $300. There is a $10 fee if we must freeze your lamb for longer than one week.

Lamb will be available on the following dates:

Friday, September 21
Friday, October 7
Friday, October 12

Order here.

Harvest Haven Pastured Ground Beef – A farm favorite with so many ways to prepare it. Our ground beef has just the right amount of fat to make it tender and flavorful. And grass-fed beef fat supplies your Omega 3's!

Harvest Haven Hamburger Buns, 6 pack – Light and fluffy homemade buns made with simple organic ingredients (unbleached white flour, eggs, oil, cane sugar, and sea salt) and baked in the wood-fired oven. Unique to Harvest Haven.

Harvest Haven Baby Carrots – Real baby carrots, none of those "made to look like baby carrots" you find in the stores. Fresh, earthy, and ready to eat. Serve raw or as a delicious side dish.

Wholesome Organic Brown Sugar, 454g – This soft, moist, and fine-grained sugar is perfect for all your baking needs, and is especially good in cakes, cookies, pies, and candies. Great on hot cereal.

Wholesome Sweeteners has a strong commitment to sustainable agriculture. In adherence with strict organic standards, the sugar cane fields are green cut and are not burned or treated with herbicides or synthetic fertilizers. This is better for the environment, which ultimately is better for everyone. This also creates the highest quality, most delicious-tasting, unrefined brown sugar you can find. No chemicals, bone char, or animal by-products are used to make or de-colorize this sugar.

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.

Organic Fresh Figs – Here's a special treat – fresh figs! Low in calories, but rich in nutrients, especially copper and vitamin B6. Promote digestive and heart health, along with helping to manage blood sugar levels.

They make a great snack, an excellent addition to salads and desserts, and delicious jam and preserves.

Fun Fact:

Certain types of fig are male and female and so require a special breed of wasp to pollinate the females.

The female wasp crawls inside through a hole so narrow that she loses her wings in the process and becomes trapped. If the fig is a male, she lays her eggs inside. These hatch into larvae that burrow out, turn into wasps and fly off, carrying fig pollen with them. If the wasp climbs into a female fig, she pollinates it, but cannot lay her eggs and just dies alone.

Luckily for us, the female fig produces an enzyme that digests this wasp completely. The crunchy bits are seeds, not wasp parts.

Simply Organic Ground Nutmeg, 65 g – Nutmeg is a spice made from the seed of the nutmeg tree (Myristica fragrant), a native Indonesian evergreen tree that is the source of two popular spices: nutmeg and mace. Nutmeg is the inner seed, while mace is the red, lace-like substance that covers the seed. Nutmeg is a quintessential autumn spice, frequently found in fall desserts and beverages. It can also be used in savory dishes, such as butternut squash soup, and pairs well with cream- or cheese-based recipes like a vegetable gratin.

Nutmeg has a very interesting history, dating all the way back to the 1st century A.D. It was a treasured spice, considered high currency for trade, and was even the cause of war; the Dutch conquested the Banda Islands, which ended in a massacre, to monopolize the nutmeg trade. This resulted in the establishment of the Dutch East India Company, an amalgamation of several Dutch trading companies.

Please note, all ingredients in our recipes are organic.

Close Encounters of the Painful Kind

I asked for a video update of Martin's progress with his tongue-tie, but he was way too busy. The procedure to expand his palate has been going very well for him; however some days are extremely painful with the sutures in the roof of his mouth breaking and spreading apart. It's quite noticeable how much his upper palate has spread, making room for his teeth to move into a proper position to facilitate breathing and eating. The old cliché, "Short term pain for long term gain," is definitely applicable here.

Martin had a couple of incidents recently where there would have been long term pain with questionable gain.

Stepping out of the music studio one afternoon, he slammed the door to make sure it was firmly closed. All of a sudden he heard a strange noise. Stopping for a second, he realized it was the angry buzzing of a swarm of yellow jacket wasps.

"Move it, Martin! AND MOVE IT FAST!" was all he could think. He booked it down the driveway faster than he'd run in years. He probably would have won gold for the 220 with his sprint.

He did leave the yellow jackets behind, but needed to deal with the nest on the eve above the studio door. Wasps are beneficial insects, but they need to know their place, and this wasn't it. This was too dangerous for those who use the studio or even walk by it.

Donning his bee suit, which was definitely not adequate for dealing with angry wasps, Martin fashioned a device for squishing the nest against the eve. He had to be quick and accurate in order to get most of the wasps in one blow.

"As mad as a hornet" is an apt description for someone who is beyond angry and full of rage. And that's what these guys were going to be when their nest was destroyed.

Fortunately, the yellow jackets' nest was fairly small, and Martin was accurate with his squishing device. He was able to get it cleaned up without further incident.

A couple of days later, when he was clearing out the woodworking shop, Martin noticed more yellow jackets flying into a crack at the edge of the wooden flooring by the overhead door. He was about to start ripping up this floor in preparation for a new cement floor.

Having just encountered a nest of wasps, he thought he should investigate where these yellow jackets were going before starting to tear things apart. He donned his bee suit again, covering his hands with heavy gloves, and began pulling up boards.

Yikes! There they were! A huge nest built into the space between the old cement floor and the wooden one on top. And they were ANGRY at being disturbed.

But, Martin came prepared. He had brought his flame thrower. We call it the Dragon because it has a loud roar when operating and breathes flames. It's actually a flame weeder which consists of a wand connected to a propane tank by a hose. The flame from the wand burns the weeds. This time it was going to burn yellow jackets.

Unfortunately, we don't have a video of the crazy maneuvers Martin was making as he danced around in the shop shooting down wasps. It took some time and precision firing to eliminate the invaders, but he got it done.

In contrast, honey bees are much "sweeter" creatures as you'll see in this video about a lady removing a hive from under the floor of a shed. She's not even wearing a bee suit.