The world is turning:
My sweet corn is picked, at least three weeks ahead of last summer’s crop after an unusually cool summer. Not so this hot summer.
It was a pretty good crop, despite the prolonged drought conditions thanks to many buckets of water carried by hand from a dug well near the “hot garden” in the field near the house. The rainy season arrived, but too late to have much of an impact on the corn, except to make the picking of it more urgent.
My new Buddy here at Cathedral Drive Farm has taken to digging potatoes like he was born for the job. But being a German Shepherd I suppose there’s any number of things he might be able to turn his hands to, or rather, his paws. Continue reading
Sauble Beach is one of the most popular beaches in Ontario. In its natural state many years ago it must have been a wonderful sight: sand dunes stretching almost as far as the eye can see in a long, gentle crescent along the eastern shore of Lake Huron, one of the largest of The Great Lakes. Its sunsets are legendary.
By the mid-20th Century the beach and nearby resort community were well on their way to becoming the destination of choice for thousands of summer tourists, easily 25,000 or more on a summer weekend. Some estimates reach as high as 100,000. Continue reading
If I’m looking a tad smug and self-satisfied in that photo it’s because today was the day I started picking my sweet corn crop – and a good one it is too, if I dare say so myself.
All those pails of water lifted from the old dug well by hand and carried over to the corn during the drought appear to have worked; and not a sign of unwelcome visitors in those well-filled cobs of “peaches and cream.” There’s not much more a sweet corn-obsessed grower could want, except buyers of course.
It’s not like I’m on a main thoroughfare here at the end of Cathedral Drive in the most secluded little corner of Hope Ness on the Bruce Peninsula, Ontario, Canada.
So, if you happen to be that reader of my blog in Australia, and think you might just take a notion to jump on a plane and fly here for a feed of fresh-picked, corn-on-the-cob, be my guest. Likewise, you other folks wherever you are, near or far.
Spread the word: Phil’s got corn.
On a Cosmic scale our beautiful little blue-green jewel of a planet is some kind of rare miracle – perhaps the only one – in a vast Universe of unimaginable extremes of blazing hot and deep-freezing cold.
But global warming and the resulting climate change is now in the process of showing the world – that part of the world that’s watching, at least – how delicately balanced and vulnerable that miracle is.
Market gardeners and other farmers know a few degrees of temperature either way during the growing season, and the lack of a certain amount of reliable rainfall – say, at least a weekly centimetre or two, about an inch – can make all the difference in the health and well-being of crops. Continue reading
To compare moving from Toronto to the Bruce Peninsula 37 years ago to going back to a virtual Stone Age in some respects is taking way too much poetic licence to make a point, to be sure.
After all, here where I live, in the secluded little rural community of Hope Ness, electrical service arrived about 1950. I understand the electrical power for this part of the peninsula was initially generated at a small hydro-electric plant at Barrow Bay. Even the old semi-abandoned farm house I bought for $12,000 in 1979 was electrified and by then on the provincial grid.
Is Fibre Optics on its way to Cathedral Drive Farm?
Corn, beans, some pumpkin “volunteers” and kale. Let it rain
I’m going to make a concerted effort to look on the bright side.
Okay, so Hope Ness, like the rest of southern Ontario, is in the midst of a prolonged drought. There has been some timely rainfall, but not enough to give the ground a real, good soaking. I’ve been growing and digging potatoes for a lot of years, and I’ve never seen this clay loam soil so hard and dry.
On the other hand, I have corn that seems to be coping okay, and already well over my head in height as we head into August. The “silk” is showing nicely and the cobs are starting to form. Corn is a tough crop. The roots must be going pretty deep to find enough moisture. With any luck and maybe another timely rain I’ll have peaches and cream corn to pick my in two or three weeks. That’s not bad for just south of the 45th Parallel.
white-tailed deer have been feasting on my sweet peas
I noted with more than passing interest the news that black bear have been making appearances and causing problems in the Shallow Lake area, brazenly killing and eating chickens close to homes, and breaking into wooden garbage containers at Sauble Beach.
There certainly are black bear up here in heavily-wooded Hope Ness, on the Georgian Bay side of the Bruce Peninsula, where I live. I saw a big one from a safe distance crossing the Hope Ness Road out by Bruce County Road 9 a week or two ago just after setting out for a trip to Owen Sound. Most of my neighbours live out there, compared to where I am at the end of Cathedral Drive. That’s a “No Exit” road that leads to the Hope Bay Forest and a fairly popular section of The Bruce Trail through the mature hardwoods to a wonderful lookout from the Niagara Escarpment cliffs above Hope Bay. Continue reading
My granddaughter, the irrepressible and delightful Asia at her favourite place, the lookout over Georgian Bay from the Niagara Escarpment cliffs, just a short walk from “the family farm” in Hope Ness on the Bruce Trail.
I happened to be in Wiarton twice the day before the start of the Canada Day long holiday weekend, on my trip to and from Owen Sound to run a bunch of errands. Both times the northbound traffic was as heavy as I’ve ever seen it, in 37 years of living on the Bruce Peninsula. Continue reading
I was browsing the troubling, even downright depressing news headlines of the day when I finally landed on Donald Trump and his half-hearted choice of Mike Spence, Governor of Indiana, as his vice-presidential running mate. Then, for no apparent reason out of the blue, so to speak, I thought about the intelligence of plants. Continue reading
Finding Hope Ness 