Long Time No Blog! by Chelsea Tims

6/29/2016

Hello from the farm crew! It's Chelsea writing to you this week after a brief lapse in our blog updates. With summer upon us, things are busier and more bountiful than ever at the farm. As the heat starts building from 6 am onward, our window for certain tasks gets smaller and smaller, and with double harvest days (market & CSA), our weeks are full to the brim. Fortunately, we've managed to find some time in between to go on off-farm adventures like the 2016 Wild Salmon Caravan which happened this year at the Adams Lake Band Community Hall. It was an amazing celebration of Secwepemc culture and the sacredness of the wild salmon that they and many other First Nations people have relied upon for generations. We were lucky to experience the songs, stories and dances created to honour the salmon and to remind us of why we must work hard to protect them. Like the fish, we also rely on the cold Shuswap waters of the Thompson river to bring nutrients and life to the valley and to keep us from melting on 30 degree days like today. The photo above is the view of Little Shuswap Lake from the Chase bridge just before it turns into the river.

Colour is currently bursting from every corner of the farm and our harvests get more exciting by the week. The top photo is a shot of our first CSA share -- radish, beets, strawberries, Freckles romaine lettuce, snow peas and kale galore! Having new items to put in the share is always exciting as we send our veggies out into the world. This week we pulled our first carrots, purple kohlrabi and golden beets, all of whose colours draw marvel at the market -- especially when paired with our new home made market signs.

Witness the heavens above shining down on our freshly dug carrots!

Beauty is not only found in the vegetables, however! The flowers all over the place have been helping our newly settled bees thrive (see Hollyhox below!). After just two weeks, they had already started a honey flow, and most recently broke off into a new swarm! This occurs when the colony reaches a certain size and splits off to start a new hive, which requires a quick catch and a new home from the beekeepers who want to grow their flock. Props to Tristan who assisted Michelle in guiding the swarm from the buzzing apple tree branch to their new home. We're so happy to have these incredible creatures here and to witness the hard work they do for us and for nature.