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The Common-Tater
It’s always a pleasant surprise to get a text from a friend informing you that your farm has been highlighted in a local newspaper. “From Their Farms To Your Fork” was written by Blair Matthews and is published in the November edition of the East Gwillimbury Bulletin. Blair’s article highlights his experience at three of the seven farms on the Farm To Fork Tour: King Cole Ducks, the Sharon Mushroom Farm and Thompson Potato Farm. Luckily he arrived at our farm as the tour was winding down so he was privy to an extended behind the scenes tour that included climbing up on the bin filler to have a closer look at how our potato storage equipment operates. It was a pleasure speaking with Blair and I hope he comes back again one day! To read the entire article click on the PDF file above. For more information about the tour you can visit “Tater Tales Sept 29th: Farm To Fork Thanksgiving Tour.”
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If our tractors could talk…what a tale their thoughts could tell (to borrow a line from a famous Canadian songwriter.) Fortunately there’s someone driving the tractor that has eyes and opposable thumbs to take pictures to show us what sights are out there! It’s not easy to grab a phone to snap a quick picture while towing an implement down a bumpy farm lane while you’re in a hurry to get to the fields. This slideshow is a compilation of snapshots RJ took while he was out and about over the last few months. From unexpected encounters with wildlife to beautiful pictures of the potato fields, it’s easy to see how much he appreciates the scenery around him. And I think you will agree that the artistic side of the farmer shines through with his stunning sunset and trillium photos. If you would like to see more pictures of some of the animals that live here at the farm with us you can visit “Pond Life Part II.”
This past weekend was RJ’s annual reunion with his classmates from university. Over the past 23 years we have visited many farms across Southern Ontario to catch up with good friends from school. This year we were lucky enough to visit a dairy farm outside Guelph that is owned by Farmer Tim. When I saw his two herds of cattle grazing peacefully on each side of the lane way when we pulled into his farm, I knew I was going to have an incredible photo opportunity to share.
Farmer Tim owns and operates one of Canada’s 11,000 dairy farms. His devotion to the welfare of his 40 dairy cows was immediately apparent as he animatedly explained to me the pedigree, personality quirks and names for all his cows as we walked through the milking barn. His cows know and thrive under their structured daily routine which consists of one morning milking, loads of food, quite a few naps while hanging out with their buddies in the pasture, one evening milking and then bedtime. Sounds like what I look forward to in retirement! Education about dairy farming is one Farmer Tim’s greatest passions. His patience with all of us invading his barn while he was doing his evening milking was much appreciated. He took the time to show us step by step what he was doing and why. I even had a chance to try milking a cow myself! Farmer Tim’s cows each yield about 40 litres of milk per day. The milk is piped to a huge holding tank and picked up every other day. I won’t even attempt to explain all of the complex factors and rigorous quality standards that are involved in safely collecting and storing the milk as I’m sure I would get something wrong. Instead I will leave that for the expert! I encourage you to visit his very active Facebook page and learn all about his dairy farm in his own words. “Farmer Tim” I was holding off posting this collection of predators until I was able to include photos of a hawk and a snake. Even better would have been a hawk catching a snake! However, the hawks won’t cooperate by pausing their flights long enough for me to capture them with my camera and I have never seen a snake here (which some people would say is a good thing!) So here is my “hawkless” and “snakeless” presentation of predators found around the farm. In order of appearance on the slide show, I present a coywolf in our sweet corn field, a turkey vulture, a murder of crows that landed in our winter wheat, a Nursery Web Spider and a Bold Jumping Spider. (As if regular spiders aren’t creepy enough, we have to have both one of the biggest spiders in the arachnid family AND a jumping one…that’s bold….yuck.) If you prefer seeing adorable animals at the farm, you can visit Tater Tales July 25 to see the likes of bunny rabbits and ducklings.
I had the great pleasure of spending some time this week with my good friend Chef Derek Roberts. We had a two day cooking blitz creating new potato recipes for our website. We worked on nine different recipes during the short time we had together, including four different potato salad recipes! Chef Derek was a wonder to watch in the kitchen as he cooked our potatoes with his special touch. I am looking forward to sharing these recipes with you over the next few months. Special thanks to Chris Aiken for joining us and helping clean up the enormous mess we created in the kitchen! If you are ever in the Fergus area, I encourage you to stop in at Fraberts Fresh Food, which is the store he owns and operates with his partner and wife, Jackie Fraser. In the meantime, you can see our featured recipes at “Spud-Smarts – About Cooking Potatoes.”
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