Archives 2021

Posted by Mom on May 9, 2017

This past autumn and winter saw Dad and I researching, planning and dreaming about increasing our self-sufficiency. Our ultimate goal is to decrease our consumerism and increase our ability to live off our land and enjoy the fruits of our own labours. We immersed ourselves in permaculture* literature and videos and came away inspired to try new techniques for resilient living.

As noted in our last post, we have a flock of laying hens producing over two dozen eggs every day. These hens provide us with an exceptional source of protein and we consider our eggs to be over-achievers in health department because we know the hens who lay these eggs and the conditions in which they live. The hens are free to behave the way God designed them to behave and forage all over our yards and pastures for any creep-crawly dainties they can find. The result is a deep yellow-orange yolk, not the pale variety of grocery store eggs. We also supplement their foraging with an organic feed.

Dad Harrold is keen to expand our chicken husbandry and wishes to raise some meat birds. Doing so requires a bit more preparation and infrastructure before we’re ready to take it on.

Something much smaller scale than meat chickens that we’ve already accomplished is moving our raspberry patch. We dug up the roots from an old patch that was becoming shadier and shadier each year and consequently producing less and less fruit, and added them to a new patch in a much sunnier location.

But we have made progress in another area: our orchard! The past weekend we made a trip to Wiffletree Farm to pick up our order of 36 trees and shrubs. We brought home both fruit trees (10 apple, three plum, four pear, three peach, three apricots) and nitrogen fixing trees and shrubs (six sea buckthorns, two honey locusts, two autumn olives and three Siberian peashrub). If you’ve ever planted a tree, you’ll know how much work planting 36 trees can be. Fortunately, a helpful neighbour came over with his “mighty machine” and dug the 36 holes for us in less than an hour. If only planting could have been so quick…

Dad and Mom managed to get the 36 trees and shrubs planted over two days with some assistance from the little Harrolds. Their involvement on day one was primarily finding worms, grubs, and beetles in the upturned dirt and feeding them to the chickens. They were more involved on day two, as we rewarded their efforts with hot cocoa (after a cold, drizzly morning) and popsicles (after the sun broke out and the humidity ratcheted up).  I’m writing this post a full four days after we finished planting and my body still aches from all the shovelling. But it’s not my back or legs that hurt, it’s my pectoral muscles?!?! I didn’t know that shovelling used those muscles so much.

The very day we finished planting a week of cool, wet weather set in; providential for newly planted trees.

From the fruit trees we’ve planted, we hope to expand our orchard through rootstock propagation and grafting. If it all works, we can plant the orchard in the field currently used for cash crops. A future with a permaculture apple orchard next to our home is a much rosier future than one with a field of soy/corn as a close neighbour.

Following are some photos of the progression of our new orchard.

*permaculture – the development of agricultural ecosystems intended to be sustainable and self-sufficient.

Posted by Mom on April 25, 2017

We have ourselves a new group of chickens. After selling our old flock to new homes, cleaning and renovating the coop and enduring over a month of buying eggs, we brought home 31 new chickens; that’s 30 pullets and 1 rooster to keep them all in line. That’s also 31 new names the girls are choosing. The rooster was easy: Sir John, named after a character from a book we’re reading, Men of Iron by Richard Pyle. I believe the hen names include Mary, Esther, Elsa, Friend, Feisty and Penny.

Our birds came from Frey’s Hatchery and were delivered to our local feed store where we found them clucking away in crates waiting to be picked up. The excitement of 30 new chickens motivated the Little Harrolds to be especially cooperative and efficient during morning lessons. They finished their work and piano practice before lunch with time to spare. If only every day could be so smooth!

From the feed store three crates of chickens were crammed into the minivan to the delight of the Little Harrolds who reached out and stroked their feathers through the crates. They spied three eggs within the crates and even witnessed a hen laying an egg while travelling in the van. Once unloaded from the crates the birds familiarized themselves with the run and quickly found the water and set to scratching about. Before they arrived, we filled the run with leaves that we had raked last fall and set aside in a pile to rot away. Into these leaves we tossed in some barely composted fruits and veggies. The chickens seemed quite pleased with their new surroundings.

Come nightfall the chickens did not know to go into the coop and up onto the roost. We found them as a huddled mass in a corner of the run and picked them up one at a time and pushed them through the run door into the coop. From there we picked them up one-by-one and placed them on the roost. It took a few more nights before they all learned to file into the coop and up onto the roost for the night.

The pullets quickly found the nest boxes and began to use them. We have ten boxes they can choose from but they favour the bottom row of boxes. A handful of hens prefer to lay their eggs outside in the run nestled among some dry leaves. We expected the hens to begin laying within a few weeks of their arrival, but the girls came with eggs in the crate and haven’t let up. We’re collecting around two dozen eggs a day. 

Ahhh… fresh eggs from the henhouse – can’t beat it.

Posted by Mom on March 30, 2017

Crop rotation is an essential strategy for organic gardeners. By alternating the crops planted at a particular site, a gardener can avoid soil-borne pathogens and pests, replenish nutrients in the soil and take advantage of symbiotic relationships.

After we’ve taken stock of our seed supply and ordered new seeds, it’s time for us to decide what real estate each crop will have in the garden. We begin by pulling out the garden plan from the previous year to refresh ourselves as to where each crop had grown the previous season. This plan is a simple map sketched on paper and is invaluable because it is amazing how poor our memory is from one year to the next!

We adopted our system of crop rotation from an article by Carol Hall in the book Living the Country Dream, in which a simple, four-year rotation is presented. Hall recommends dividing your garden into four quadrants and rotating those quadrants each year. The first quadrant contains the cabbage family (brassicas); the second root crops; the third legumes, cool-weather crops and salad crops; the fourth warm-weather crops (see table below). The rotation ensures that vegetables that are compatible with one another stay together and that nutrient recycling within the soil operates optimally. This system works well for us and we use it in our four raised gardens.

We also grow veggies in a reclaimed strip of a former hay field. The field had grown hay for over a decade before we arrived on the property. The hay, however, was losing ground to grasses and weeds and would be turned over by the renters for soybean and corn (we hope to reclaim the remainder of this 7 acre field in time and are currently hatching up a scheme). We wanted to expand our gardening space and knew the soil beneath the hay crop was well over the minimum 3 years without the application of non-organic materials that is necessary for organic certification. It was now or never if we wished to make use of the soil for our gardens. We chose the ‘now’ option and rototilled two 15ft x 30ft rectangles. That was in 2013.

In the past, the crops we grew in the field were those that garden-raiding-herbivores found less palatable. Their favourite delicacies we planted in our raised beds – too high for them to jump/climb into and protected by a fence. Fortunately, we don’t have to contend with deer raiding our garden.

It’s in the field where we grew our squashes, corn, melons and potatoes; crops that needed lots of room to sprawl of that we wanted to produce a larger harvest than a raised bed would accommodate.This year we will use a fence around the garden to keep out our foraging chickens and (hopefully) the rabbits and groundhogs too. The fence will allow us to try to grow the rabbits’ favourites (peas, beans, cabbages, lettuces and beets) and permit us to grow something from each quadrant that Ms. Hall identifies in her article. If the fence works, we can take full advantage of crop rotation in the field garden as well.

The second plot in the field is the site of our permanent crops: asparagus, strawberries and rhubarb. These three perennial crops are traditional plants for a northern homesteader. Once established, and with a little bit of maintenance, they will continue to produce for decades.

Quadrant 1: Brassicas	Quadrant 2:Root Crops	Quadrant 3: Legumes, Cool-weather crops, Salad crops	Quadrant 4: Warm-weather crops
Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, collards, cabbage, Chinese cabbage, kale, cauliflower, kohlrabi.	Carrots, salsify, parsnips, potatoes, rutabagas, winter beets, winter radishes.	Swiss chard, turnips, beans, peas celery, onions, leeks, lettuce/salad greens, spinach, summer beets, summer radishes, summer turnips.	Cucumbers, corn, melons, eggplants, tomatoes, peppers, melons, squashes, zucchini.

Hal, C. (2007). Plotting With Nature. In Cruickshank, T. (Ed.), Living The Country Dream (pp. 61-66). Richmond Hill, Ontario: Firefly Books Ltd.

Posted by Mom on March 15, 2017

In the summer we share our country home with bats. We welcome the work these Big Brown Bats (Eptesicus fuscus) do to control the insect populations. Living across from a large wetland and having a lot of shady gardens, we have an overabundance of mosquitos. During wetter summers they torment us to no end! Given that the bats will eat their own body weight in flying insects during a single night, we gladly welcome these bats.

The mama bats use the barn’s loft as a safe place to raise their young. Typically, such maternity colonies of Big Brown Bats consist of 20 to 300 bats with the majority of the females being related to one another. One evening in May we counted the bats exiting the back of our barn and tallied over 80. Since the females give birth from May through June, all of those bats were mothers. The youngsters still within the barn likely numbered between 80 and 160 (given that the eastern populations of Big Brown Bats tend to have twins, a number closer to 160 young was likely). Our barn could have housed a Big Brown Bat colony of 240 individuals!

We found ourselves in a quandary; we wanted the bats to continue to live alongside us, but did not want them living in our barn and leaving their toxic mess behind. We also know that bats are under attack from a fungus (White Nose Syndrome) that affects their ability to hibernate, leading infected bats to prematurely awaken from hibernation and subsequently die from cold and lack of food. The fungus spreads rapidly throughout the bats as they hibernate together. Being inclined to promoting ecological integrity at our country home, we did not wish to contribute to the demise of the bats by adding habitat destruction to their gauntlet for survival.

A potential problem of removing the colony is that the females will need somewhere to raise their young and if they cannot find an alternative they may leave the area. Their absence will cause a spike in the local insect population for years afterward. To encourage our bats to stay, Dad Harrold built four bat boxes, which female Big Brown Bats can use as maternity colonies. An added attractant to bring the bats to these new boxes is the aroma of the wood… the boxes were built from pine boards recovered from the barn’s loft – complete with bat dropping stains. Hopefully, the returning mama bats will find the smell of these boxes irresistible.

During a mild day in March we hung the new boxes around our property. We had two bat boxes on the south side of our barn which bats already use, so we added another box to the west side of the barn. The other three boxes we hung from large trees where the sun will shine upon them and warm them. Big Brown Bats are traditionally forest dwellers, so we hope they will readily take to the new boxes when they find they cannot enter the barn.

We’re looking forward to spring to learn if our mama bats will move into the boxes. Here’s hoping we still have bats wheeling through the twilight at our country home!

… though I don’t think the Screech Owl roosting on the top of a bat box will be very welcoming.

Posted by Mom on February 14, 2017

If you want to be a purist when it comes to organic gardening, it will take more than following a few principles surrounding composting and mulching; you need to consider the plants themselves and the seeds from which they came. Here is some information on the seeds that we grow at Harrold Country Home.

First off, gardening is a lot of work. Organic gardening is even more work, but the rewards are sweeter. And, f you want a truly organic garden, you need to populate it with seeds or seedlings that originated from an organic plant. At Harrold County Home, we plant our vegetable gardens with either seeds purchased from certified organic growers or from seeds we’ve saved ourselves from previous years. This past year we also bought organic seedlings.

Purchased Organic Seeds

To be certified organic, a seed must be grown by a certified organic grower. Certified growers do not expose their seeds to any chemicals during the growth of the parent plant, the harvest of its seeds, or the post-harvest processing. We purchase our seeds from two Ontario suppliers of organic seeds: William Dam Seeds and Terra Edibles. These suppliers sell organic seeds in addition to conventional seeds.  We are especially fond of Terra Edibles because they sell primarily heirloom varieties, some of which are hard to find elsewhere.

We like to search out organic and heirloom seeds for our gardens because, well, we enjoy eating the produce, but also because we like to perpetuate seeds with a history. Our ancestors grew these seeds for two main reasons. First, because the plants were so well-suited to the local growing conditions that they could complete their life cycle and leave seeds to propagate the next generation. Second, these seeds are dependable, and when growing food for a family, you want to save and plant the seeds you can depend on.

The seeds our ancestors grew were also tasty! Unlike conventional agriculture, where seeds are treated and bred to produce an easy-to-grow and easy-to-ship commodity, heirloom varieties taste better and are infinitely fresher. I think the best example of this is the tomato. Typical tomatoes – red, glossy orbs – bought at a grocery store are not picked at their ripest (nor tastiest). Instead, the harvest is timed to ensure the fruits remain aesthetically pleasing upon their arrival at the store and while sitting upon the shelf. This means harvest occurs before the fruit is fully ripe. If the tomatoes are too green, a shot of ethylene gas will quickly redden their skins to give the appearance of ripeness while keeping the tomatoes firm enough to withstand the rigors of transportation. In contrast, heirloom tomatoes show greater variety in shape, size, and colour than those bright red spheres we’ve come to think of as tomatoes. And all that variety in appearance coincides with a variety in tastes and uses. The organic heirloom tomatoes that we grow are picked when they are ripe and flavourful and transportation consists of walking from the garden to the kitchen.

Saved Organic Seeds

Purchasing seeds that are certified organic is a good start. Going forward, you can save seeds from your favourite plants and try to sprout them again the following year. We’ve not been too adventurous with seed saving yet; so far we’ve stuck to the easy-to-save seeds from melons and squashes. We simply lay the seeds out on a paper towel to air-dry completely. Then fold them up within the paper towel and put the towel into a small paper envelope, label it and file it away in our seed box.

The pumpkin, butternut and acorn squash seeds I saved from last year did sprout and grow this year. Our daughter was also keen to save and plant some seeds from a grocery store cantaloupe (cantaloupe being her favourite fruit). For the learning opportunity, we grew what is definitely not an organic plant. She helped to plant, nurture, transplant and weed  her plant until she was able to pick her very own cantaloupe. The melon was much smaller than its grocery store prodigy, but it definitely looked and tasted like a cantaloupe.

Purchased Organic Seedlings

Where growing from seed is not an option, or very difficult (i.e., herbs), gardeners can plant certified organic seedlings. My basil seeds did not sprout this year. I was anxious to find some organic basil for our garden. Dad found some at Sheridan Nurseries and brought them home as a pleasant surprise for me. I like to grow basil next to the tomatoes to repel some of the tomatoes’ insect pests. We also like to eat the basil as pesto, in a fresh tomato salad or with pasta. Needless to say, I really wanted to find some organic basil plants to compensate for my failure.

Finding organic seedlings can take more searching out than finding organic seeds. The vast majority of seedlings bought from a nursery, unless labelled organic, are sure to have been treated with some form of synthetic pesticides, fungicides, herbicides or fertilizers. Among these treatments are the neonicotinoids; a persistent insecticide that inhibits the ability of bees and other pollinators to navigate, feed or reproduce and increases their susceptibility to diseases. We do not want to grow such plants in our garden and will forgo planting a vegetable, choosing instead to purchase from a local market, if we cannot find an organic source to plant.

If you are what you eat, then we want to feed our family the freshest, healthiest, and most ecologically viable food. The best way to ensure that is to grow it organically ourselves.  

Posted by Mom on February 2, 2017

I imagine our tree beginning as a feeble seedling struggling to put down roots in the shady forest floor a hands-throw away from the Old Detroit Road. Through its first years it only produces a handful of leaves while waiting for the one-in-a-million chance that a giant, towering above it, will topple. And then it really happens; but not at the hand of wind, ice or old age, but by the thwack of axes.

Recognizing the Old Detroit Road’s military importance, the government of Upper Canada soon upgrade it to a corduroy road; an improvement requiring copious amounts of trees. Soon giants fall in the forest around our struggling seedling. With the sunlight and rain pouring in upon it, our seedling quickly spreads it roots and branches and races to fill the gap. The War of 1812 begins and our tree is witness to British and American forces moving along the road. But all of this is unknown to the tree and it does what it is designed to do; it reaches for the light and grows.

Traffic increases along the road following the war and now stagecoaches, freight wagons and private carriages pass by our tree. But the bone-jarring rides along the corduroy surface precipitate improvements. Our tree is once again passed over in preference for the pines that become planks for the improved roadway, known now as the Stone Road. This new road permits quicker settlement to the area and behind our tree a family establishes itself. In quick succession, our tree’s neighbours all but vanish as the family clears the land and begins to farm. With minimal competition our tree enjoys the power of the sunlight that fuels its growth.

Traffic passing our tree continues to increase and again the roadway requires improvement. If it were aware, our tree could watch the workers pulling up the planks, raking gravel and flattening the roadway. The smoother surface allows farmers to take their produce to markets and now a variety of carts, wagons and buggies pass before our tree as the surrounding countryside becomes more pastoral. The bustling roadway draws the family, and after decades of clearing land and building their farm, they choose to move closer to the Stone Road. One day oxen appear; straining to pull a two-story brick house on log rollers. The oxen draw closer and then turn from the road and pull the house to its new location behind our tree. Over time the tree witnesses the coming and going of the farm’s barns, outbuildings and greenhouses, as well as horse-drawn wagons, tractors, cars and trucks as daily life and farming practices modernize.

The tree celebrates its first centennial as bus services replace stagecoaches and the first personal automobiles appear along the roadway. World War I comes and goes and tractors, cars and trucks replace the horse-drawn traffic. The Depression settles in and the road becomes a make-work project. Its new paved new condition deserves a new name: Brant County Highway #53. World War II arrives and agricultural production in the surrounding landscape intensifies. As the decades continue to march on our tree just keeps on growing ever higher and ever wider. It sees five generations of the pioneering family use the land, modernize, and eventually downsize. It sees the last of the family leave for the final time and a succession of new owners take over. Our tree celebrates its second centennial amid the uncertainty of Y2K.

Posted by Mom on January 11, 2017

We received a book about children and gardening as a gift; and I am so glad we did! The author is a gardener with a passion: inspiring children to enjoy the creativity, beauty and usefulness of gardening. The book has inspired my daughter and I to get our hands dirty.

The book, Roots, Shoots, Buckets and Boots: Gardening Together with Children by Sharon Lovejoy, begins with an annotated list of the top 20 garden plants for children. It then proceeds to describe nine themed gardens, such as the Snacking and Sipping Garden, the Flowery Maze and the Sunflower House. For each of these gardens, Lovejoy describes the garden’s purpose, lists its plants and how to care for them, presents the garden’s plan and lists activities for children to help them explore their garden. The book ends with some basic tips for planting and tending gardens. Throughout the book is beautiful hand-painted artwork by the author. When I first flipped through the book it was the artwork that drew me in. I found the text to be just as enticing. For a family with an interest in gardening, this book is a gem.

My interest in the book was renewed with the arrival of our first seed catalogue from William Dam Seeds. Despite the fact that our gardens are blanketed with snow, the bright colourful images of the catalogue inspired my imagination to paint serene, colourful garden scenes; it had an almost hypnotic effect on me as I paged through. I’ve since circled plants in the catalogue that Lovejoy lists in her book and that I would like to grow in our gardens. I requested Dad take me on a trip to William Dam’s store as our Valentine’s Day date.

Our youngest daughter shows the keenest interest in gardening. She sits beside me as I flip through the catalogue and circles the flowers she likes best. She was very excited to find one that shares her name. I like to spend this time with her. We share the same interest and it brings us closer to one another. Gardening is therapeutic for the body and mind and having my daughter get excited and dream about floral possibilities is special to me.

I enjoy gardening, especially when I consider some of the benefits of the activity. Here is a quick summary of the benefits of spending time in the dirt with plants:

1. Relieves stress (reduces the level of cortisol, the stress hormone)
2. Builds immunity (direct exposure to dirt and plants boost the immune system)
3. Provides exercise (3 hours of moderate gardening = 1 hour gym workout)
4. Stimulates the brain (daily gardening can reduce risk of dementia)
5. Improves diet (growing veggies makes us more conscious of the food we consume)

Given those benefits, I’m going to be tinkering in the soil for as long as I am able. If I can get my children hooked on gardening too, then I’ll be a happy mom. As for my youngest daughter and I, we’re planning to try the Sunflower House garden this summer. If we succeed, then all of my little ones will see that another benefit of gardening is creating a safe place for imagination and play. 

Happy Gardening!

———–

Harding, A. (2011, July 8). Why Gardening Is Good For Your Health. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/07/08/why.gardening.good/

Jacobs, R. (2014, September 14). 6 Unexpected Health Benefits of Gardening. Retrieved from http://learn.eartheasy.com/2014/09/6-unexpected-health-benefits-of-gardening/

Lovejoy, Sharon, 1999. Roots, Shoots, Buckets and Boots: Gardening Together with Children. Workman Publishing: New York.

Posted by Mom on December 13, 2016

Ahh… Christmas… Is it not a magical time to be a child? I have fond memories of Christmases past and want to give similar memories to my children. What I remember is not the gifts I received but the emotions of expectation, an atmosphere of restfulness; of a sacred time set apart for the family.

I recently read H. Clay Trumbull’s book, Hints on Child Training (1891), in the months leading up to Christmas. Within the book Trumbull has a chapter on why it is worth the parents’ energies to make Christmas a special time for children. The holiday is a great opportunity to bestow love upon children. I for one don’t want to miss this chance because I’m caught up in the busyness of the season. Upon reading Trumbull, I find myself encouraged to embrace Christmas and once again look forward to the season from a childlike perspective. Trumbull emphasizes that to children, the gifts they receive have a greater or lesser value depending upon the proportion of the giver’s self that is invested in the gift. Therefore, the value increases with the effort parents’ devote to making the atmosphere in which those gifts are received a special, memorable one. Naturally, Christmas is the most important day to children and their anticipation for it is intense. If mom and dad join in the excitement too and give of themselves, the children perceive this and the anticipation ratchets up even more.
“It takes time and work and skill to make the most, for the children, of a Christmas morning; but it pays to do this for the darlings, while they are still children. They will never forget it; and it will be a precious memory to them all their life through.”  (Trumbull, 1890)
Trumbull concludes his chapter with the ultimate reason for putting all that effort into making Christmas a magical time for children: when a person gives himself with his gifts, he is imitating, to a small degree, the love of Christ, who gave Himself to us and who offers the hope of something beyond our understanding that will satisfy our every longing. After reading Trumbull’s words and pondering what that would mean to us, I am excited about December and the family traditions we enjoy. Below is a list describing the traditions at Harrold Country Home that lead up to the big day. Maybe you too enjoy some of these traditions?

Advent calendars – more that just chocolate
We have three calendars to celebrate the advent season, and each one has a daily activity to count down the days to the 25th. Our first is a cloth wall hanging with a heart that the children move from one pocket to the next to countdown the days. The second is a wooden box, built by Dad, with 24 small compartments and a much larger one for the 25th. Within each box the little ones find a Bible verse or two describing the birth of Christ, an object to coincide with the verses, and a clue to the location of chocolates hidden in the house. Within the last compartment they also find the missing baby Jesus for our nativity scene. Our last calendar is a daily dose of audio drama with a Christmas theme from Adventures in Odyssey’s Advent Activity Calendar.

Trimming the Christmas tree and decking the Halls
At some point during the first few days of December we go select a tree. Our top choice is Fraser Fir due to its longevity to retain needles for weeks on end while propped up indoors. Come Saturday, Dad makes a pot of eggnog and we pull out the ornament box. The little ones examine and exclaim over each ornament, recalling it from the previous year, before hanging it upon the tree. I admit, once they go to bed I re-distribute the ornaments so they are not all clumped on the bottom half of the tree. However, the ornaments on the bottom half of the tree never seem to stay where I put them…

The same week as the tree appears the festive decorations also come down from the attic. Again, the little ones unpack the boxes and find homes for these special guests while recalling their memories from past years. We also have some decorations that Grandma and Grandpa passed along to us. These items are special because of all the memories they hold and the smiles they bring to the Grands faces when they see them upon the tree.

All of these colourful ornaments present a great opportunity for Eye Spy.  We also have a glass pickle ornament with the esteemed purpose of been hidden in the tree for someone else to find – this is a German tradition from when I was little.

Christmas storybooks and songs
We also have a collection of books with a Christmas theme that are kept separate from our other books and hold a place of honour in our home for one special month. The little ones recall these stories and describe their favourites before the books appear. We have a few with a jolly man in a red suit, but the majority of our books centre on the nativity story or acts of charity and kindness. Favourites include The Little Crooked Christmas Tree (Michael Cutting), The Legend of the Christmas Tree (Rick Osboure), and On Christmas Eve (Margaret Wise Brown).  

Just as anticipated, if not more so, is the Christmas music. These CDs are stored along with the storybooks awaiting there one-month-of-stardom. The music is primarily carols re-mixed by modern worship artists, such as Chris Tomlin, Third Day and Paul Baloche. The little ones each have their own musical taste and when it’s their turn to pop in the next CD, it’s their go-to favourite that we listen to next. My eldest daughter’s first choice is Josh Groban’s Christmas album, my second daughter prefers Matt Anderson’s album, and my little boy’s pick is Family Christmas by Kidzup (just imagine carols to modern, upbeat tunes with high-pitched voices).

Journey to Bethlehem meal
This is the favourite tradition. On Christmas Eve, we turn out the lights and have a picnic in the candlelight. Our meal consists of foods similar to what Joseph and Mary might have eaten on their way to Bethlehem; some hummus, pitas, olives, and pickled herring (the fish element of the Mediterranean Diet). While munching on dessert (pomegranates), we read the Christmas story from Luke chapter 2. Then the little ones have another annual viewing of the movie The Nativity Story (2006), starring Keisha Castle-Hughes and Oscar Isaac. Then it’s off to bed for the most excited sleep of the year.

Trumbull, H.C. 1891. Hints on Child Training. John D. Wattles, Philadelphia.

Posted by Mom on November 22, 2016

If you want to be a purist when it comes to organic gardening, it will take more than following a few principles surrounding composting and mulching; you need to consider the plants themselves and the seeds from which they came. Here is some information on the seeds that we grow.

First off, gardening is a lot of work. Organic gardening is even more work, but the rewards are sweeter. However, if you want a truly organic garden, you need to populate it with seeds or seedlings that did originate from an organic plant. At Harrold County Home, we plant our vegetable gardens with either seeds purchased from certified organic growers or from seeds we’ve saved ourselves from previous years. This past year we also bought organic herbs.

Purchased Organic Seeds

We purchase our organic seeds from Terra Edibles, an organic seed producer here in Ontario. To be a certified organic seed, the seed must be grown by a certified organic grower; these are growers who do not expose their plants to any chemicals during the growth of the parent plant, harvest of its seeds, or post-harvest processing. We are especially fond of Terra Edibles because they sell primarily heirloom varieties, some of which are hard to find elsewhere.

We like to search out organic and heirloom seeds for our gardens because, well, we enjoy eating the produce, but also because we like to perpetuate seeds with a history. Our ancestors grew these seeds for two main reasons. First, because the plants were so well-suited to the local growing conditions that they could complete their life cycle, thereby leaving seeds for the next generation. Second, these seeds are dependable, and when growing food for a family, you want to save and plant the seeds you can depend on.

The seeds our ancestors grew were also tasty! Unlike conventional agriculture, where seeds are treated and bred to produce an easy-to-grow and easy-to-ship commodity, heirloom varieties taste better and are infinitely fresher. I think the best example of this is the tomato. Typical tomatoes – red, glossy orbs – bought at a grocery store are not picked at their ripest (nor tastiest). Instead, the harvest is timed to ensure the fruits remain aesthetically pleasing upon their arrival at the store. This means harvest occurs before the fruit is fully ripe. If the tomatoes are too green, a shot of ethylene gas will quickly redden their skins to give the appearance of ripeness while keeping the tomatoes firm enough to withstand the rigors of transportation. In contrast, heirloom tomatoes show greater variety in shape, size, and colour than those bright red spheres we’ve come to think of as tomatoes. And all that variety in appearance coincides with a variety in tastes and uses. The heirloom tomatoes that we grow are picked when they are ripe and flavourful and transportation consists of walking from the garden to the back door.

Saved Organic Seeds

Purchasing seeds that are certified organic is a good start. Going forward, you can save seeds from your favourite plants and plant them again the following year. We’ve not been too adventurous with seed saving yet; sticking to the easy-to-save seeds from melons and squashes. We simply lay the seeds out on a paper towel to dry completely. Then fold them up within the paper towel and put the towel into a small paper envelope and file it away in the seed box.

The pumpkin, butternut and acorn squash seeds I saved from last year did sprout and grow this year. Our daughter was also keen to save and plant some seeds from a grocery store cantaloupe (cantaloupe being her favourite fruit). For the learning opportunity, we grew what is definitely not an organic plant. She helped to plant, tend, transplant and tend some more until she was able to pick her very own cantaloupe. The melon was much smaller than its grocery store prodigy, but it definitely looked and tasted like a cantaloupe.

Purchased Organic Seedlings 

Where growing from seed is not an option, or very difficult (i.e., herbs), gardeners can plant certified organic seedlings. My basil seeds did not sprout this year. I was anxious to find some organic basil for our garden. Dad Harrold found some at Sheridan Nurseries and brought them home as a pleasant surprise for me. I like to grow basil next to the tomatoes to repel some of the tomatoes’ insect pests. We also like to eat the basil as pesto, in a fresh tomato salad or with pasta. Needless to say, I really wanted to find some organic basil plants to compensate my seedling failure.

Finding organic seedlings can take more searching out than finding organic seeds. The vast majority of seedlings bought from a nursery, unless labelled organic, are sure to have been treated with some form of synthetic pesticides, fungicides, herbicides or fertilizers. Among these treatments are the neonicotinoids; a persistent insecticide that inhibits the ability of bees and other pollinators to navigate, feed or reproduce and increases their susceptibility to diseases. We do not want to grow such plants in our garden and will forgo planting a vegetable, choosing instead to purchase from a local market, if we cannot find an organic source to plant.

If you are what you eat, then we want to feed our family the freshest, healthiest, and most ecologically viable food. The best way to ensure that is to grow it ourselves.  

Posted by Mom on October 25, 2016

Living where we do, we come in contact with plenty of insects and plenty of learning opportunities. Within our homeschool, we wish to better understand the world around us, and insects, particularly butterflies and moths, give us a glimpse into a very different, miniature world.

Each year we keep a chart of the butterfly species we spot around our yard. We are far from expert entomologists, but we are learning to recognize our local butterflies. Our average number is 18 species; including the Spring Azure, Red Admiral, Monarch and Eastern Comma. These insects do have some interesting names!Around our home we have several different habitats and these attract their different species. Monarch, Red-spotted Purple, Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, Painted Lady, and Silver-spotted Skipper are all visitors to our flower gardens. In the grassy fields we find Milbert’s Tortoiseshell, Inornate Ringlet, Clouded Sulphur and a variety of the smaller skippers. And in our vegetable garden we see Black Swallowtails and, rather to my chagrin, plenty of Cabbage Whites. We are always excited to see the larger and rarer Giant Swallowtail, Great Fritillary and Common Buckeye when they grace us with their presence.

One year we ordered a Monarch kit from the Cambridge Butterfly Conservatory and reared a handful of Monarchs from caterpillar through to adult butterfly. The little ones enjoyed this so much that we’ve kept the butterfly cage on our front porch each year and raise moth and butterfly caterpillars. 

Last fall we found four Polyphemus Moth cocoons and two Promethea Moth cocoons and put them into our cage. Both of these species of silkworm spend the winter as pupae within the cocoon so we left them all winter on our front porch. Finally, in June, the adults emerged. My little ones looked into the cage each morning to see who they might find fluttering about. The Polyphemus Moths were huge and spanned the width of two 8-year old palms. They were also cooperative and did not take flight immediately but remained on her hands for several minutes for a close-up look. When the Promethea Moths emerged we learned that we had a male and a female. Even though they emerged a day apart, they soon found each other again and proceeded to start the next generation right in our garden.

This summer we discovered the caterpillar of a Cecropia Moth munching on our plum tree. It too went into the cage, along with some plum branches for sustenance. Unlike the other two moth species, we were able to watch this caterpillar anchor itself to a branch and spin its cocoon. It will sit on our porch all winter long and we look forward to seeing its again in June. I find these large silk moths very interesting to observe since the adults are nocturnal and are about their business for only a short time in late spring. Keeping the cocoons in our butterfly cage enables us to study and come to know creatures that are seldom experienced any other way.

And of course, we also raise butterflies in the butterfly cage. In addition to the monarch kit from the Butterfly Conservatory, we also reared in our butterfly cage some Monarch caterpillars we found living on the milkweed in our field. The little ones were excited to find the caterpillars because the previous fall they opened and threw into the wind every milkweed pod they found. I encouraged this dispersal because Monarchs need all the help they can get; their populations are threatened by habitat loss and the butterflies are a Special-at- Risk here in Canada (sararegistry.gc.ca).

The Monarch caterpillars only remain in the chrysalis for 9 to 18 days before emerging, fuelling up on nectar and beginning their marathon migration south to Mexico. So unlike the silk moths, it is easier to keep the little ones engaged in the the Monarch’s life cycle. Although they can’t really grasp the distance the butterfly has to fly, they come to appreciate how delicate the butterfly is and how amazing is its journey.

Another butterfly we’ve reared in our cage is the Black Swallowtail. We find the caterpillars on dill, parsley and carrot plants in our garden and move them into the cage. An interesting feature of these butterflies is their ability to form a uniquely patterned chrysalis to match the object to which they are affixed; grey wood grain to match the greying Red Cedar. Depending on the season, the caterpillars will either emerge as adults within a few weeks or spend the entire winter as pupae within a chrysalis before revealing themselves in May. We’ve hosted both chrysalises in our cage.

My children find insects fascinating and I’m glad we have a butterfly cage. It has given them opportunities to study moths and butterflies up close. When the adults emerge, the girls sketch them in their Nature Notebooks and I read to them some interesting tidbits about the creature they just met. They come away with a deeper knowledge of the insect and a wider appreciation for the magnificence of creation. When they next see a Black Swallowtail caterpillar or a Polyphemus cocoon they will recognize them as familiar friends.