Sleepy G Farm

On Earth Day, 22 April 2012, we visited Sleepy G Farm - with Marcelle and Brendan, who run this incredible homestead farm on the edge of the Sibley Peninsula near the Sleeping Giant's resting head. The visit was arranged over a story for theWalleye - except theWalleye story was already written and submitted with photos of theirs from previous years. A wild spring snowstorm had interrupted the spring farm story, but I still wanted to visit the farm and take my own shots, and see for myself what they are up to.
It ended up being an unbeatable way to end Earth Day - after a day in the greenhouse planting basil and photographing things growing; new life was all over the farm with babies born before our eyes. I've haven't been able to put it to words...

We got lost on the way out. I was too excited to remember to read (or bring) the directions and was just running on memory from Marcelle's instructions and my image of the farm from photos on their website. Our teenager in the back seat wasn't impressed with our country drive, but I was - there's just something magical about being on the Sleeping Giant.
I admired the farm from the road the first time we passed it, even more so when we drove up to it again. The fields, tilled by oxen, lined the road to the farmhouse and barn, with an irrigation system greeting at the top of the drive.
Met by a friendly farm dog before meeting the farmers, who welcomed us like old friends, I was really surprised at their modest surprise that theWalleye was interested in their story... never mind all the words I wished I could have added to the story. How could we not all be interested in this? Thunder Bay (& area) now boasts a number of these young farms emerging from the landscape with passion and integrity; and its because of people like Marcelle and Brendan that a greater respect for local, ecologically raised food has developed.

I'm glad that both Brendan and I remember the Fort's farm in better days. It deserves that. Even more glad to see his traditional farming knowledge fundamental in their farming philosophy. Simple hard work, ecological farming - people who care about their animals, and the land they live off. They raise Dorper sheep, shorthorn milkers, and field run chickens along with their vegetable gardens.

It was great to see the little chicks; for me an instant flashback to my childhood
 - the smell of the chicken coop, the warming lights on straw, the feed. Hannah was able to hold a chick while I told her what it was like to keep them in the family room growing up, holding them in our laps while we watched television, or letting them run loose in our Lego™ village.

She was also lucky enough to hold a lamb, finally. After years of adoration and only seeing them at places like the Hymer's Fair, or at Featherdale in Australia - here she was on a working farm, seeing sheep being raised for food the way they should be, in the field eating grass, cared for like family. I was happy.


More incredibly, there in the evening sun, as we stood over the oxen yoke talking about farm days at Old Fort William, a ewe gave birth in the yard. Before our eyes an Earth Day lamb was born, and I find it really hard to find the words to describe the sight. It was such a beautiful spring evening; a best memory for sure. 

a new mother and her lamb
moments after birth
on Earth Day 2012

 ewes & babies

spring on the farm

Red and River, the Sleepy G oxen work the farm with Brendan and Marcelle. They are referred to as children, with anecdotal stories of calf-hood and playfulness. Lovely, sensitive animals - they are appreciated greatly for their contribution to the farm.

Red & River
Sleepy G Oxen

Red & River's oxen yoke
at Sleepy G Farm

The irrigation system, cleverly set up to pump fresh water from the creek that runs behind the farmhouse to a raised well near one of the large vegetable gardens, uses gravity to cover the area. The dogs fend off deer and rabbits to the best of their ability, working shifts between belly rubs and long naps. The whole farm is in sync.

onions growing
preparing for transplant

chicks grown up

We left the farm with eighteen of the freshest eggs, and a deep respect for how hard these people work day in, day out all year long. There are no vacation days or sick leave in farming. Their successful CSA program is credit to the extra effort they put into growing great food - organic, healthy, and most of all: fresh. 

You can find them at the Pavilion at Silver Islet every Saturday from 10 am – 12 pm June 30th to September 1st, 2012. Farm products from Sleepy G (including fresh lamb cuts) are also available at the True North Community Co-op in Thunder Bay - on Algoma Street with The Green House (previously Folino’s store).

They also keep up a blog with farm news and photos through their website: 

Sleepy G Farm

Brendan Grant & Marcelle Paulin welcome questions and comments. To learn more about their farm, here is their contact information:

RR 1 Pass Lake

Ontario, P0T 2M0

807. 977.1631

sleepygfarm@gmail.com

Dear Garden Diary,

Today is a foggy, autumn day in Thunder Bay.
All the leaves that were on the trees last week are now blanketing our garden, the streets, and sidewalks - I hear people crunching by as I type with mittens up above on this lovely balcony.

Below me, the front garden is on fire with colour. The cotoneaster is a rainbow of reds, oranges, and green - with little black berries speckled all over.
The elder is a popping shade of lime with other greens of hostas and lungwort - even the yellowed, hostas add some flare to the canvas.

In the backyard, the sumac is also wildly aglow.

a tree in the churchyard below
across the street

This year it seems Autumn has been particularly vibrant and long lasting. The colours everywhere are incredible - I'm happy I've enjoyed so much, soaking it all in from my balcony perches, trail rides, Sunday drives, and tree farms.

a Sunday drive on the Sleeping Giant
to Silver Islet in September

endless

A HISTORY OF Silver Islet AND IT'S Gardens

text and photographs by

Barbara Lesperance

978-09767736-6-5*

It was a journey dear to my heart through this book. Silver Islet sets the stage for some of my fondest and oldest memories. It hosted the photography leg of my first, and endless, date with Rohan. Always a visitor, I suffer pangs of envy every time; but the awe leaves me grateful for the opportunity, and for having this lovely location so nearby.


* Another treasure from the trove of Nana's Christmas book gifts. :)

Dorothy and Daffodils (but not Wordsworthian)

Shakespeare, in The Winter's Tale, speaks of "Daffodils that come before the swallows dare and take the winds of March with beauty."
[DAFFODIL] (Wachsberger & James), arrived for me today and within the first four lines, a Shakespeare quote!

...before I go any further I have to post a link to the Norana Earth Sciences Library at U of T or I will forget...

The book goes on to bring up names like Theophrastus, Alexander Neckham, and William Turner, turning into a page turner itself...it's had me thinking about taxonomies all the way home, which got me thinking about more courses to take (the first begins May 14th) Soil Composition and Plant Growth? I believe is the name - The Dirt on Dirt I call it, either makes me grin. I hope that by applying this gardenerding under some guidance might give me direction - I feel like I've got so much garbled information in my head and that if I could get it all into some coherent order I just might soar ;)
..then trip over my flip flops in the GH. Heh.

That's been on my mind, the greenhouse. Dorothy dies last week, her service was on Wednesday and I sort of wish I had gone, and I wish I could say something to her family. Feverfew is what I connect with Dorothy but really she talked to me about many flowers, and some weeds, and I remember her for thinking the same as I - that they were as pretty as any flower....she was so sweet. She was one of my favorites, and I'm going to think of her often on River Street this year.

I wonder about the man from Silver Islet - I didn't see him last year, but then I wasn't around the greenhouse nearly as much, it's more hopeful to think I just missed him. He always has a list, handwritten by his wife, of geraniums of specific colors, assorted pansies, marigolds and petunias and he loads flat after flat into the back of his truck while telling the most incredible story - all of which I heard over two seasons and several visits at the River Street greenhouse. He talks about gardening, and Silver Islet, and his experiences both there and on this side of the Giant with the soil, the weather, the climate, and the plants, people, his wife, their garden(s)...and I hope he knows how grateful I am to have privy to all that he has confided.

It's people like that, with their tales, that changes the greenhouse from being an ordinary laborious retail job...it's so much more. People and plants are drawn together for so many reasons and I've been soaking up these reasons for years without an outlet - damn me for not having been writing this long ago.

There was a man, a few years ago, who bought daisies. He told me as he chose them that he planted daises every year at his daughter's grave, they were her favorite. She died when she was 16. He had to have been in his late seventies, maybe eighties - and I thought at the time, as I do now about how I can recognize that he has been doing this for many years, many years without his daughter, and that is such a hurtful thought - but he was smiling at those daisies, and he was smiling at me, and that is what flowers do for people, which is such a significant reason for me enjoying my days at that greenhouse. I've never been able to look at a daisy since and not think of that girl and her father.

Somebody at work today smirked to me at the title of a book on the subject of plants of Middle Earth because there is just so much stuff on stuff and everything is written about. I was too embarrassed to admit that I had jotted down that title when I went through those slips earlier. I write down lots of titles though, so don't take anything seriously until you see me order it (I still have five more on the way) :P

Literature and people, people and flowers, people and their stories about their flowers, I'm really curious about it all.

I'm going to miss seeing Dorothy.