Time Warp

My Christmas present to Lorenz sort of fell into the "make it yourself" category: I spent some time on a few evenings designing the tractor calendar. (The actual production, however, was far from home-made: I had it done professionally, on high-gloss 12x18 card stock, with shiny colour laser ink.) I gave it to him the night before he left for Germany, at an informal Christmas / goodbye Tara party. I was so proud of it, I wanted everyone to see it. And Lorenz liked it enough that he wanted more copies, so the people at M&T Printing were kind enough to do a rush job the next day so that they could be printed and bound before Lorenz went to Germany.

Back up, eh. Goodbye Tara party? Yep, I casually slide that in, acting like you know this already, in the hopes that you don't notice my, um, slacker approach to barn trolling over the past months. I've thought of writing a couple of updates and back-dating them, even. But no... So. Let me update you.

Tara is leaving Greenfields. Her first stop in post-Greenfields adventures is Japan for Christmas. How exciting is that? I expect she'll also put in some appearances in her hometown of Bathurst, New Brunswick. And I wouldn't be surprised to see her in these parts again, either. But for now, Tara wants a break from driving the van known as the Turnip Train, being the public face of Greenfields at all the markets, putting up with barn trolls, volunteers, the horse barn people and Lorenz, feeding the chickens, and petting the smelly dog. Actually, maybe she doesn't need a break from Boris, but the rest of it and us I'm sure she can do without for a while!

Replacing Tara is Tarrah. Neat, how Lorenz replaces staff with people who have the same name. It makes it much less confusing! I think from now on all people who work in the field should be called Simon, to cut down on confusion on that front. The new Tarrah comes to us by way of Everdale, and she's only with Greenfields for a few months. The two Tar(r)a(h)s are of similar build, and when I looked out the window at them walking the other day, I remarked "twins" to Ruth. I'm sure if they were both staying here, I'd rename them something like T-square(d).

Ruth! It's a long list of updating today. Yes, Ruth was over for tea. She's here a lot these days, because she once again has horses in the barn: my perennial favourite, the gentle Odin, and his new girlfriend, a little mare named Tanya that Ruth is currently breaking. Soon, though, Ruth will make herself scarce again too - she's relocating to Florida for the winter, to continue working with the racehorses (Ruth has been working for a trainer at Woodbine this past year, she's a "rider", which means she is one of the people who are on the horses during the non-race working part of the horses' lives). After that, though, I have a hunch Ruth will be living here for a bit, before skipping off to Argentina in August.

Besides Odin and Tanya, the barn contains many horses: Kim's operation is, as usual, at capacity. She runs a good barn, and always has a waiting list. Thanks to Kim and Piet, the buildings are well maintained and the driveway gets cleared even when Lorenz is away. Kim is kind enough to put up with the other animals that hang out in the white barn: the cats, Emma, the chickens, and often Boris. No news on the cats, though I'm told Kim got Brooke another cat to replace the departed Minou, but she's an inside-only cat and thus not in the barn. Emma continues to lead her crazy blind donkey life, trotting aroud in circles and stealing the best hay. If the first person to go into the barn in the morning doesn't let her out right away, she brays like, well, a donkey. She's discovered a fringe benefit to wintry conditions these days: this morning, I caught her licking all the salt off my car.

The chickens are half as many as they were: the old layers have been turned into frozen soup hens, which are being sold at the Wednesday on-farm market. The young hens are fully mature now, and producing eggs as if we'd openend an omelet restaurant at the roadside stand.

The roadside stand! As you can imagine, Tara has not been standing out there, freezing both herself and the vegetables: when October is done, the roadside market moves back into the red barn. The roadside stand was thus empty. So Lorenz rented the space to a Christmas tree operation, and it's pretty nuts out there: there are icicle lights and decorated trees and a giant illuminated Christmas scene on top of the hut and a flashing sign and, best of all, rows and rows of trees. The tree guy planted trees! With root balls and everything! The idea is that you can buy a real tree, to extend the operation beyond the cut-tree Christmas rush.

Christmas. We're back to that word that reminds me I need to finish the present-buying and scare up some wrapping paper and... oh crap, I'll panic if I think about it too much, so let's go back to the Greenfields update. It is, indeed, winter. And Lorenz is once again in Germany, this time with the kids. This means that Boris is temporarily my dog again, and as I type this, my bare feet are curled into his belly fur. Last time Lorenz was away, Boris declared himself unhappy at being in the house on his own. Even though I tried to spend at least an hour a day with him, he gave me a very dirty look when I put him in the house and locked the door behind him. He expressed his frustration by pooping in the house. So this time, he's made it clear that he will only be in the house if I'm there too. This means that, since Lorenz left, Boris has been sleeping in my apartment.

The fields are now snow-covered, and harvesting has stopped. Until very recently, Lorenz was still bring spinach and kale down, but now winter really has settled in. The furnace is roaring regularly, which means the house smells like wood fire and is even cozier than usual. The horses are in the barn at night, so the barn smells all warm and equine. You would be forgiven if you thought that farmers now sit around and doze, but, farmer's markets aside, the planning for next season has to begin soon: seeds and potting mix need to be decided on and ordered, the greenhouse will start up in early spring, staff needs to be in place by April, and Revenue Canada would like to see some tax returns, too. And the chickens! If the farmer is dozing, who will feed the chickens?

(and I just realized that it's Saturday morning, the Tar(r)a(h)s are at market, Lorenz is in Germany and thus, the chickens have not been fed. So uploading pictures will have to wait, I'm off to do that chore)