Photo Journal: Agrifest 2006, Canning, NS

On Saturday, August 12th, Dave's mom, her man-friend and I went to Agrifest in beautiful Canning, Nova Scotia. (Dave stayed home with the doggies) :)

We had a fantastic time! The weather was just perfect, sunny with a cool breeze. Agrifest is a celebration of agriculture, with lots of events and seminars given regarding farming, farm-related issues, and home gardening - from customizing your compost for the type of crop you're growing, to an explanation of how a potato becomes a chip (or a crisp, as some call them), to a demo on all that's involved in shearing sheep and preparing wool to be used in clothing! With tons of information for professional farmers and curious members of the public, there really was something for everyone! So, for educational purposes :) here's a photo journal of our trip!

Quick Menu:
[ Overview • Booths • Horses • Moo-cows? • Sheep • Bees • Baby Chicks • Farm Machines • Vegetables • Food/Entertainment • On the way home... ]

Overview of the Fairgrounds

An overview of the sample gardens - each row is clearly marked in both official languages (English and Français). There was a great variety of vegetables which were just fascinating to see in their natural form (more on that below).

An overview of the fair grounds, with one of two banks of conveniently located portable restroom facilities (good ol'l' "Johnny on the Spot"s). Sometimes events don't have enough restrooms set up for the demand, but I'm pleased to say that Agrifest was well prepared. :) (An important thing when you're miles and miles away from the nearest restaurant or coffee shop with a bathroom!)

This was kinda funny, a woman dressed as a chicken with a "Follow Me" sign, walking around the grounds...I think she was trying to let people know where the sheep shearing and/or the baby chicks hatching areas were.

Booths

There were many, many, informational booths, with lots of pamphlets and brochures to read! I came away with a LOT of reading material! The only thing I was kinda surprisedd at was that there wasn't much opportunity to buy from farmers here - a couple of farmers s were selling cheese (YUM!) and some herb farmers were there, but I thought there'd be more fresh fruits and vegetables. But I suppose we are in the Valley, there are tons of farmer stalls on the roadsides... :)

There were booths from the Nova Scotia Cranberry Growers, Nova Scotia winegrowers s, seed companies, agricultural associations & schools, and tons more!!!!

Ross Farm - GOTTA go back there! We went twice during elementary school for school trips - it was SOOO much fun! You get to see tonnes of farm animals, and see how farms were run back in the 1800s. I have such fond memories, I really look forward to going back some day! Here we see a cooper booth (a barrel maker) - barrels made the old-fashioned way.

Pysanky Booth - A wonderful woman I've been in touch with for the last few years, named Marg Millard, had a great booth on pysanky at Agrifest this year! But in all the excitement of meeting her in person for the first time, and talking pysanky-talk, do you think I remembered to take a pic of her awesome booth??!! NO! Of course not!!! *sigh* Fortunately she has several pics of it on her website, as well as her ownreminiscencess of Agrifest 2006. Be sure to check it out: http://margmillard.ca/Page21_agrifest_Eggs.html .

Horses and Wagons

There were a couple of sets of horses at Agrifest, to give wagon rides around the grounds.

For the beginning of the day, these lovely blonde horses were giving the wagon tours.

While the blonde horses weregivingg tours, these deep brown (chestnut?) horses rest in the shade of the small forest on the side of the property. Such gentle ladies, these horses - they just looked casually at me while I came up close to them and took their pictures. :)

Later on, they're harnessed up and ready to pull wagon tours around the fairgrounds - this adorable little girl was very excited to get a chance to pet a real horsey! :)

Aren't they just gorgeous! So beautiful.

Moo-cows?

No real cows here, but they did have a pretend cow set up so you could give milking a try!

Sheep, Shearing, and Spinning

Sheep! These guys 'n' gals were being used in sheep shearing demos throughout the day. You can see the naked little sheep on the left was used in the most recent demonstration. :) They sure have a lot of wool to give - and a good thing too, it was the only thing that kept a lot of northern Europeans alive in the winter for centuries! The little brown girl closest to us was very friendly, and watched us with interest.

The wooly result of the shearing

Cute little ram (note the horns)

People showing the ancient art of spinning wool. It's really wonderful that there are people who still keep these traditions alive in one form or another (as you can no doubt tell from my LearnPysanky site, I'm big on remembering ourtraditionss and adapting and carrying them with us into the future). :)

Bees

Encased in glass (for safety's sake, just in case) was a big bunch of bees! You could see some honeycomb and everything, it was pretty cool!

They also had a sample of the type of setup beekeepers use instead of a natural (bee-made) beehive. Everything's in slide-out trays. :)

Baby Chicks

These little guys, in a warming pen, were born just the day before. They brought the eggs to the show, and they hatched while there! Must have been a fun thing to watch! They're really cute! :)

Farm Machines

For the Serious Farmer, all the newest farm equipment was on show, with representatives available to talk to. Of course, this stuff would be a huge hit with little kids, too - they always love to look at big machines!

And some equipment they used to use in the "old days" - Dave's mom's man friend remembers using a machine just like this when he was young on his family farm. Times sure have changed...

If you wanted to take a more modern form of tour around the fairgrounds, you could take a tractor-pulled wagon (instead of the horse-drawn one). It was much bigger, of course. :)

This was odd, don't really know what was happening here, which is why I took a picture of it. This large group of people were walking really quickly behind the wagon (as you can see, it's mostly empty), like they were trying to catch up to it and get on, but never quite being able to do so...were they following it to its next stop? Who knows? Odd...

This was a piece of equipment that the public could try out themselves - a disinfecting machine for shoes, meant for visitors and workers who want to enter a farm. Farms have to be very careful about diseases, bacteria, etc. coming into their farms and infecting their livestock. So people have to disinfect their footwear before entering barns, to ensure they don't track anything in. Cool, eh?

The Vegetable Gardens

The soil and weather in the Valley is a farmer's dream - and these vegetable gardens show why! All the best farm produce in Nova Scotia comes from here.

Broccoli - I had no idea the plants themselves get so BIG!

Eggplant (the little purple vegetable nestled in there)

I am SO jealous of the size of their tomato plants - they're at least twice the size of mine, and are LADEN with fruits!!! And not little fruits either...I'm talking 2-3 inches wide!

Great little rig they have here for their tomatoes, instead of using cages. They have a strong wire suspended high over the top of the plants, and strong cord tied from the bottom of the plant to the wire, and the vines can grow along the cord. I might use this idea next year!

Gorgeous colorful cabbage

Big pumpkins! Reminds me so much of autumn!

Watermelon - mmmm, looks juicy!

Purple Cauliflower - they have several different colors of cauliflower now, including this cute purple, and a cheddar yellow one too!

Kohlrabi - seriously, this stuff already looked like an alien vegetable in the grocery store, but seeing it in it's natural form, I think it looks even crazier!

Purple Kohlrabi - okay, even MORE alien!

Gorgeous Sunflowers, with their bright round faces following the sun.

A field of wheat, the "Staff of Life"

The Food/Entertainment Area

In the food area (there was a LOT of different types of foods available), and lots of places to sit. There was also live music playing - while we were there, it was a country'n'western band. Pete of Pete's Frootique is sitting at the green table with the kind of pinkish shirt on. He's become a local celebrity - he runs a couple of well-known exotic/specialty fruit/vegetable/meat/packaged goods shops in the Halifax Regional Municipality. He often does spots on TV regarding unusual foods that would be fun to try.

This food outlet was the most fun to watch - they made their own bread dough, and then would make you a custom pizza with it, fired in a real fire oven. It looked SO delicious!! Never had time to have any though... :\ Maybe next year.... I think this place was run by the Oakhaven Bakery, but I can't be sure because I forgot to take a pic of the sign. :)

On the way home...

I took this shot (from the car) of some of the beautiful fields of farmland in the Valley - Nova Scotia is densely forested over most of its area, so it's rather novel to see large areas of cleared land. :)

And on the way home, we stopped off and got a dozen of "Newcombe's Famous Sweet Corn". And man, was it awesome!! I cooked one up in the microwave as soon as we got home, and it was so tender and sweet! (Directions for those of you who might be in the area: Take Exit 12 off Highway 101. Follow Middle Dyke Road to Canard Street (H 341). Turn left & travel 2 kms until you see The CornMaster and Newcombe's stand on your right. Note: the CornMaster is an image of a giantfarmerr. :) The directions to the stand are very well marked on the road, you can't miss it.)

And after my corn, I fell into bed because I was so sleepy from all the great fresh air I got - and the rain we had been worrying about getting caught in on the way home finally came, and the sound of the rolling thunder carried me off to sleep...

A new batch of baby birds!

There's a new batch of young birds arriving at the feeder lately!

This adorable little guy is a baby Song Sparrow - you can still see some of his gray baby down sticking up through his new feathers - the old down will fall out eventually! His tail is very short still, he must still be growing out his full adult tail feathers. :)


These cute little guys are baby grey Juncoes - you can tell, because they have the same tails as adults, but they are brown speckled. I think I'm getting the hang of this birdwatching thing - I guessed because they were so speckled and brown that their nests must be built on the ground - this way the birds are camouflaged (and I looked it up, and I was right!) :D These two make these little trilling cheeps trying to get mom's attention - they can feed themselves, but if she's nearby, they will cheep at her and flap their wings to get her to feed them! Old habits die hard. :D (and she does feed them, too!)


And this sweet little doughboy in the centre is a baby American Goldfinch - you can see an adult male from the same species to his left (and the baby song sparrow on the right). He also can feed himself, but whenever the male comes close, he starts to flap his wings and cheep, hoping he'll feed him!! He can tell that he's the same species, but not that he's a boy! :D The adult male just flies away from him, with a "what are you doing, I'm not your mother!" sort of look! :D Very funny to watch! He's very cute, still full of a lot of baby down, that fluffs off him occasionally. I wasn't able to get a clear shot of his head, but it's especially downy-looking.

And the Nuthatches have come back from wherever it is that they spend the summer - welcome back little guys!

My favorite monkey pic

Monkeys are SO cute! They can be so human-like sometimes, it makes them extra-fun to watch. This is an adorable shot from our paper about 10 years ago, © Scripps Howard News Service. It features Tica the howler monkey giggling from a love-bite given to her by her handler/friend Nena Pena Baltazar. The look on little Tica's face is just priceless!

Had a quick trip to downtown Dartmouth to visit the dentist this afternoon - here's a shot of the harbour from there. You can see the two blocky blue Purdy's Wharf towers across the way, past the water, and the train tracks and compass in the bricks on the Dartmouth side of the harbour in the foreground. A gorgeous day, sunny (with a bit of cloud) with a cooling breeze. And my dental check was A-OK! :D

My photo of the week

This week's photo is a closeup of the gorgeous onion bloom in my garden! I was so lucky to get this lovely flower, about 2 inches across, from one of the onions I brought home from the supermarket. It had sprouted green tips in my storage bin, before I could use it. I put it in the ground, so I could harvest the greens all summer (they make a great addition to potato salad, fried rice, and lots more!). And then this lovely flower showed up!

OMG this is HILARIOUS!!! Would make a great gift for a sick or indisposed loved one!

Got a friend with an ulcer? Or a little one fighting a bad cold? Or someone you know who makes their own bread or beer using yeast? Or even a booklover whose collection has met the dreaded bookworm? Then this is the site for you!

GIANTmicrobes! has this incredible site where they sell (very inexpensively priced) plush toys of common and not-so-common bugs and microbes that might affect your life. They send along a pic of the real bug, along with some information about it. A great educational tool, or something sure to bring a smile to a friend! They look really well made and cuddly (which of course, the real things aren't!) :D

They ship from many different countries, just choose your country on the front page to see the site in your preferred denomination.

Seriously, check this out, it's well worth the visit!!

I've got this strange feeling someone's watching me...

You know, that feeling you just can't shake off sometimes, that someone is watching you from a distance? Well, sometimes maybe it's not really distant - sometimes that someone is right behind you...or maybe behind and above you, sitting on a shelf...


What a weird cat Baby Boy is sometimes... :D

Snowshoe Hare - Bunny Mystery Solved

Well, I suppose it wasn't really a mystery...but it turns out there's a good reason why we have seen more bunnies here this year than any in the last 10 - 12 years - they're going through a population explosion here in the Maritimes and elsewhere. Apparently, it is cyclic, occurring once every ten years or so, then the population decreases again. They had pics on the news, and so I was able to identify the little guy that comes by and eats weeds out of our lawn almost every evening (he's SO CUTE!) - he's not actually a rabbit, but a Snowshoe Hare. I think I'll still call him a bunny, though! That'd explain why the bunny feetprints in the snow last winter were so big - they're named after their big feet, after all!

From Hinterland: Who's Who (an organization that made extremely memorable commercials back in the 1970s with a vivid, haunting theme, educating the public about some of Canada's unique animals - everybody who was around then remembers them!):

"Snowshoe hares are very active between sundown and dawn, and they remain active all winter. Rain, snow, or wind often markedly reduce the hares'’ activity." We have certainly noticed this to be true of our little guy - we never see him when it's inclement weather outside, and he's always active from dusk to dawn (some nights when I'm going to sleep, I look out the window and see him there having a snack). :)

To learn more about our adorable hare (and tons of other animals that make Canada their home), check out Hinterland's Who's Who. They still make commercials, but not as cool as the ones back in the '70s. :D

Fun afternoon at the Park

Ever since she was a tiny puppy, I've taken Casey to the lake or the sea - I knew that if I wanted her to be able to go swimming when she was older, it was important to get her used to the water as early as possible. And she's such a little trooper, so eager to please, that when I'd go out a little ways into the water, and encourage her to follow me, she would! At first, she'd run in and out again very quickly back to Dave who was safe on dry land, and she'd cry a little, but she'd always be willing to give it a try again! (Frankly, she cries a LOT, over every little thing...she's a bit silly that way). But it was worth it, because now she loves to go for a swim!

Dave tosses some rocks out on the water, and she'll swim off and chase them. Here you can see the ripples from a rock just tossed, and the intense look of concentration she has, ears fully up, about to take off after it! Once she gets there, she sees she can't get it, so she looks expectantly for a new rock to be tossed. We had a lot of fun, she got a nice cool-down from the warm weather, and Dave and I got pretty damp ourselves from her shaking herself off. :D

We've got some lovely parks here in Nova Scotia - I highly recommend a visit! :)

BeanDreams Realized! (or, A Bean Come True)

Beans! I have BEANS!!! Wheeeee!!!

Just saw them today - one of them is really big already!! It shouldn't be too long now, till I get to taste one! :D Still has to turn yellow, though, so it will be at least a week. Terribly exciting though! I must say, it's very rewarding to grow your own produce! I remember from my parent's garden, that there's nothing to compare with eating veggies straight from the garden, the flavour is unsurpassed - and now I get to experience it again with my very own garden! :D

Tropical Storm Beryl

A shot of Tropical Storm Beryl (which for some reason, some people on the news pronounce as "Burl", rather than "BEAR-yl" - kinda amusing, it's just an accent I guess). :) Not that we'd know anything about accents out here in Nova Scotia... :D

Hopefully the garden will fare well, the winds are pretty gusty out there! And hope we don't lose power! Or worse yet, Internet access!

Glove-stealing NYC Kitty

This is a cute story I came across today - this kitty in New York, instead of bringing home kills as so many outdoor cats do, brings home neighbour's gardening gloves that have been left outside. The cat's owners have a huge collection that they hang outside their house, encouraging people to take back their gloves if they see them there. :D

Read the full story here.

BeanDreams, BlossomDreams

The garden's coming along really well!

The tomato plants are thriving nicely, but I'm sure they, like everything else, would benefit from some sunshine - it's been unusually overcast here in Nova Scotia this summer, we've hardly had any sun at all. But the plants are still doing okay. As you can see in this photo, the blossoms are getting ready to open (and some have already)!

The bean plants are doing well too, with lots of blossoms already - and there's plenty more summer left for them to expand and grow even more!

This huge plant is the couple of potatoes I planted, from ones that had sprouted in the bag - they're doing amazingly well! I'm sure I've got tons of potatoes growing under there!

And this, this is my one precious lettuce. For some weird reason, I CANNOT get the lettuce to grow - this little guy is the only one out of 3 (THREE) separate plantings to come to fruition! And even then, he got completely eaten down by slugs and had to start all over again. Poor little guy, he's such a trooper!

And check out the Empress of India nasturtiums! Wow! Gorgeous dark foliage, and beautiful orange/red blossoms - a fantastic addition to this year's garden!

And here's the lovely "regular" nasturtiums, a lovely orange with its typical lighter green foliage - all nicely offset with those really pretty red petunias I got from the garden centre a month or so ago.

So, everything's been growing well! :D Yay!

Squirrel squared

Honestly, this really does reach the top of the cute-o-meter!

New Design, a la Warhol

I've released a new design from my gift shop! A single pysanka - in the style of famed art icon Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe piece - replicated several times, & hand-colored in his wild style with bold colors. Super fun and eye catching! You can get this wild design on a large selection of tees, totebags, greeting cards and more, check it out!

What a change!

Thought I'd show you the difference that 6 months can make in a place. :D This first pic is taken out in the backwoods past our property, during our unusually mild January this past year (an old abandoned picnic table helps with the scale):


And today, I took this pic of the same area (you can barely make out the picnic table) - the amount of growth is amazing, isn't it? You'd never believe it was the same place. Mother Nature really is incredible! We're so blessed to live here and be able to see this sort of thing "up close and personal". :)

BBQ Bliss

I know -- propane BBQs won't ever really compete with the flavour of food BBQ'd over a charcoal grill, but boy it sure is more convenient! Just take off the cover, light it and away you go! And it is almost as good... :)

Late this afternoon, we had marinated steaks, mushroom & onions (the perfect steak side-dish), corn, and baked potatoes, all done on the grill so we didn't have to heat up the house by turning on the oven. Very nice! The potatoes were pre-cooked in the microwave for about 8 minutes on high (pierce first!!), then put on the grill while everything else cooks. The corn was purchased frozen - sealed tightly in tinfoil (aluminum foil) with a teaspoon of water and a pat of butter - put it on the grill for the last 5 - 10 minutes of grilling (careful when you open it though, there'll be a lot of HOT steam!). The mushrooms and onions are fried in a tinfoil pie plate with a little butter & canola oil (be sure to use some oil to counteract butter's tendency to burn); stir occasionally. Start them a few minutes before the steaks and they'll finish cooking at the same time. We marinated the steaks for several hours beforehand to impart an extra flavour into the meat, and to tenderize it. Worcestershire sauce makes a great marinade, if you don't have any packaged stuff. Sprinkle the steak with some steak spice too (I bounce around between several brands, featuring everything from garlic and peppercorns, to caraway seeds and paprika - it's all up to personal taste, try several brands till you find one you love), and you've got a great flavoured steak!

Here's a few of my BBQing tips:

1. Don't cross-contaminate plates and utensils - items that touched the meat or fish when raw should not be used to serve or carry cooked meat or fish (if you don't, you might get food poisoning, and no one wants to end a nice summer BBQ that way).

2. Keep your cold foods (like potato or pasta salad) cold - if you'll be eating outside, set up a thermos cooler with ice, and set your salads in it (again, helps prevent food poisoning).

3. Steak is a meat that needs to be baby-sat when it's on the grill. Put the BBQ on high for the first 5 minutes or so, and sear both sides of the steak to keep in all the juices. Then, turn the heat down low, and turn frequently - this will ensure even cooking throughout the meat, and prevent burning. Trust me, it's worth the extra effort!

4. If you use BBQ sauce that has sugar in it (and most do, around here in Nova Scotia), don't brush it on until the last 5 minutes or so. Sugar burns, and if you put it on too early, you'll end up with burned meat (or fish, veggies, etc.). A little burned taste is good, but too much is yucky).

5. If you give a steak bone to your dog, be sure they chew it under supervision. The bones can splinter and cause internal damage, or be a choking hazard - but dogs really love them, so if you decide you can't ignore their little puppy-dog-beggin' eyes, just keep a watch over them while they enjoy their treat.

As you can see, Casey really enjoyed hers:

Have fun with your summer BBQ!

Storm Front

Today it was sunny, hot and windy - but storm clouds have come in, and there was little rumble of thunder a moment ago...great clouds in the sky tonight...pity the camera can't really capture the depths of the clouds, but you get the idea. :D

Lilies in Bloom

The tiger lilies are in bloom - a lovely summer display of orange popping up here and there all over the property. :)

Doraku - traditional Japanese dinner

Update March 2012: The Doraku has changed names! Its now the Suzuki Restaurant. Hope to get back there sometime soon and see how the new compares to the old! :)

On Tuesday night we ate at Doraku - Dave wanted to eat at a traditional Japanese restaurant for his birthday. There are several to choose from in Halifax, but we settled on this one, partly because it had its menu online, so we could figure out ahead of time the types of things we wanted to eat. :)

Our waitress was terrifically helpful and friendly, very easy to talk to. We were blunt: we had no experience, and needed help! :) She said most of the things I had picked (online) were things she would recommend trying (yay! I did good!), and recommended a few others. We ate a LOT. LOT. LOT. But you know what? We were full, but we didn't feel logey (you know, that feeling after you've had a big steak dinner where you don't feel like you can move, and just want to go take a nap?). But here, we were full, but could still move comfortably! It was an interesting sensation, to be sure. We sat in the traditional room, a nice quiet place where the floor just under the table was recessed, so you could sit western-style (or kneel if you chose to, but my knees have never been great, and are especially so since my knee injury last year, so no kneeling for me). :) The waitress still had to kneel to serve you, because the table is on her floor level.

Everything's brought as it's prepared, so you have lots of little dishes on the table, and can pick away, a little of this, a little of that. Fun!

Imported Beer - Sapporo
Solid beer, made a nice compliment to the meal. Sake isn't generally served with sushi, so I understand, because it's a rice based alcohol, and sushi has rice in it - ergo, it's not a good compliment.

Miso Soup - Soya bean soup
Delicate, reminiscent of a mild chicken soup - threads of seaweed and some melt-in-your-mouth tofu were nice additions.

Sashimi Appetizer 3 Kinds - Tuna, Salmon, Octopus
Super-fresh, no worries about food poisoning here. The octopus was really interesting, I saw that the piece Dave took had part of a tentacle sucker on it...hee hee hee, I didn't tell him what that particular one was, until after he ate it. :) It was very chewy, not bad at all - glad I tried them all! I can't say I'd be jonesing for more, but it is certainly worth trying. So elegantly presented as well: lovely shreds of daikon radish, and thin slices of cucumber accompanied it, along with a dab of wasabi. The wasabi was incredibly hot, but only for a very short time, and when it disappeared, it disappeared completely (unlike when you eat hot peppers, for example). Very pleasant!

Tempura Deep fried 2pcs shrimp, sweet potato, zucchini, green pepper
Perfect tempura. Ideal tempura is really an art, having to consist of an ice cold batter, making a super-delicate lightly browned crust around the food when deep-fried. And it was perfect - the shrimp was my favorite, frankly I could have eaten more and more tempura shrimp all night! :D

Yakitori Chicken
Two grilled chicken skewers with yakitori sauce - very nice, basted in a tasty, thick sauce.


Pork Gyoza Pan fried pork dumpling (6pcs)
These were really good! They looked like little mini-perogies, and were DELICIOUS!

Overall, I'm sure I used too much dipping sauce/Japanese Soya sauce on all my foods (I understand that's something westerners do often), but I'm a big "sauce" girl myself - I can't help myself. :) And the Japanese Soya Sauce that they offered in the restaurant was REALLY awesome! It was hot and spicy - like regular Soya sauce, but with a great kick! Yum! They also gave us some extra wasabi and something else that escapes me right now, to put into it, to make it even better. Good good good!

Doraku roll (4pcs)
This is a BIG freakin' sushi roll! Like the sashimi, it was good (and great care was taken in it's preparation), but I don't think I'll be a person who seeks out sushi. They do prepare a great deal of sushi at this restaurant, and even offer you pencils and a separate order form just for sushi when you get your menu. Just check off the ones you want and send it off with the waitress. Very nice!

Harumaki Rice noodle, veggie spring roll (2pcs)
Mmmmm...very tasty! Filled with vermicelli rice noodles, and a little shredded carrot. Nicely browned, crispy coating.

Tonkatsu - Deep fried breaded pork, tonkatsu sauce
Nice thick sauce, Dave enjoyed it, but I preferred the spicy soya sauce. Since it comes breaded, you can dip it in whatever sauce you like.

As I said, the waitress was super-friendly and helpful, and what's also nice is your final receipt after you pay your bill is itemized, so you have a record to take home of what you ordered. Definitely worth a visit if you're in Halifax - Doraku is conveniently located on Dresden Row, just off Spring Garden in the downtown. It's the one with the adorable Maneki Neko on the sign.

Want to learn more about sushi? Learn from the Sushi Otaku! ;)

ADDENDUM July 2010: Directions for Doraku on Google Maps.