Table of contents for Spring 2018 in Harrowsmith

CATHERINE AGAR grew up on a dairy farm and is passionate about agriculture and food. She has a degree in agriculture economics from the University of Guelph and is currently taking professional writing classes at Western University in London, Ontario. After almost 19 years of doing double time, with an off-farm job as an agriculture lender and raising her family on a dairy farm, she recently hung up her banker’s hat for good. She is enjoying days on the farm with her four young children and tall Dutch husband, along with her Holstein cows and brown chickens. Her recipe for Nutty Berry French Toast was published in the 2014 Milk Calendar and can be found at dairygoodness.ca. MARK CONBOY is the program coordinator of the Long Point Bird Observatory, a…

It’s 6:30 on a calm September morning. A great expanse of marsh is slowly materializing out of the waning darkness. Venus and Sirius hang in the sky like beacons. There are birds here, too—hundreds and hundreds of birds. Although I can’t yet see them, I can hear their calls as they migrate overhead. From high up around Orion’s Belt comes the odd grunting chatter of a cuckoo. From Leo comes the distinctive rising pwee of a Swainson’s thrush. From over in Cetus, the burry call of a rose-breasted grosbeak. There are warblers aplenty, some of which I can name by their faint and fleeting sounds; others are just too similar to identify with certainty. The sky rings with sound, but it takes a trained ear to hear it, never mind…

An acre of land between the shore and the hills... A garden I need never go beyond, Broken but neat, whose sunflowers every one Are fit to be the sign of the Rising Sun...– Edward Thomas, “For These” Shopping for garden plants is much like shopping for anything else: there are plants that provide great value and others that, well, not so much. In my books, the plants that put on the best show are worthy of my attention when I am looking over the inventory at a Canadian garden retailer. Many plants provide a shot of colour that is paramount to fireworks in the garden. Here are some of my large-blooming favourites. Peonies What they lack in the length of their blossom time, they more than make up for…

I grew up on a dairy farm and was cow crazy from a really young age. I remember going to the barn with my favourite stuffed animal and Mom having to wash it before bedtime because I dropped it in the poop. In my teen years, summers were filled with getting my 4-H calf ready for the fall fairs, and at the end of those long days I could be found curled up in the straw, resting with my calf. Naturally, I attended the University of Guelph to study agriculture, and on an agriculture bus tour I met my future husband, who was also from a dairy farm. We’ve worked together for 20 years, taking over his family dairy farm and making it our own, along with raising our four…

Old kitchen and bathroom cabinets are like bell-bottom pants: what looked good in 1977 doesn’t necessarily look so hot now. The good news is that if your cabinets show way too much wood, way too many dirt stains around knobs and drawer pulls, and way too many chips and scratches, there’s an economical alternative to total cabinet replacement. It’s also the ecologically responsible thing to do. Painting cabinet doors, drawer faces and face frames is a fast, simple, fun way to completely transform the look of your kitchen or bathroom for very little money. It’s also easy to get excellent results if you follow basics that aren’t immediately obvious. STEP 1 Determine what you’ve got When people get tired of their cabinets, it’s usually not the entire cabinet that bugs…

There is a gentle rocking to the kayak as it is pushed along by the tidal forces. I rest my paddle, lean back, turn my face to the sun and close my eyes. I want to remember the smells, the feeling of deep solitude and the incredible life force of the landscape that I have been enveloped in. It is the final day of our sea kayaking trip in Haida Gwaii, and I am already plotting my return. Haida Gwaii captured my imagination as a wide-eyed child spellbound by images of mysterious, weather-beaten totem poles shrouded in mist. My siblings and I grew up near the Six Nations reservation in southern Ontario. My mother wanted us to experience First Nations culture, so she took us to annual pow wows and…

This photo contest is the cat’s meow! Send us your favourite snapshots of pets caught in action—where they shouldn’t be! Like, lying in your strawberry patch (or eating your strawberries). Or digging up your potatoes or sleeping in the shade of your pumpkin patch. Winners will receive a copy of Harry: A Wilderness Dog Saga by Chris Czajkowski or Tails Don’t Lie 2: A Pack of Dog Cartoons by Adrian Raeside. All submissions should be sent to contests@harrowsmithmag.ca by May 1, 2018. Stay at Lake & Vine and enjoy Beaches, Winery Tours, Breweries, Artist’s Studios and so much more in Prince Edward County Close to • Sandbanks Provincial Park & Beaches• Wineries & Studios Walk to • Downtown Picton• Local Brew Pubs & Restaurants• LCBO and Shopping• Live entertainment• The…

Harrowsmith is not just a magazine—we’re a community. And as such, we’re all for some neighbourly chats and exchanges! Got something you’d like to share? Send your questions and suggestions to contests@harrowsmithmag.com.We’ll print them in our upcoming issues so you can see what your fellow readers have to say! Each issue, contributors will be entered in a random draw for a chance to win a book prize. TIP! When company leaves their mark Imagine our surprise (and horror) when we woke up and noticed that our just-purchased acacia wood dining table was covered in water rings from entertaining friends the night before. We had assumed that the tabletop was a resilient surface. Who wouldn’t? Every bottle of beer and a sweating bottle of white wine left their mark. But, thanks…

“Man is rated the highest animal, at least among all animals who returned the questionnaire.”– Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com If you are fortunate enough to have a yard where a pet can run and skip and chase squirrels, I have some advice for you: before you bring a pup home, consider how you can design your yard and garden to best suit your beast and your lifestyle. Here are 10 ideas for a pet-friendly garden. 1. Remember that dirt equals mud. If you already have a pet, chances are that you know where they like to travel in the yard. A beaten-down path through the lawn and garden is your cue to put down a hard surface like patio slabs or interlocking brick. Dirt, after all, becomes mud—especially in the fall,…

The next best thing to staying at a bed and breakfast is breakfast in bed. Ideally, when somebody else is prepping it! Our food editor duo, Latham Hunter and Rebecca Kinghorn, has designed the tantalizing menu—all you have to do is pick the lazy Sunday and impress the one you’re with. From savoury egg and bacon bundles to the sweet treat of pumpkin pie oatmeal, let this serve as a warning: your recipient will surreptitiously be hitting the snooze button more often. LAMB SAUSAGE ON A CHIVE CORNMEAL BISCUIT Makes 8 breakfast sandwiches Canada produces some of the best lamb in the world. It has always been a restaurant staple but is becoming a popular choice for home cooks as well. Spice up your morning breakfast sandwich with flavourful spring…

The average North American meal travels 2,414 km (1,500 miles) to reach the supper table. Double or triple that for the Canadian North. I am sitting down with my new comfort drink: a mug of frothed steamed milk. The milk has come straight from the cow. Before I heated the milk, I skimmed off 8 cm (three inches) of cream. One jar of cream has thickened overnight and is being shaken by my 15-year-old daughter while she reads a novel. In an hour it will transform into butter and buttermilk. More cream is in the ice cream maker, churning into ice cream with birch syrup for a sweetener. Some of the milk is being heated and stirred by my 11-year-old daughter in preparation for adding homemade kefir to turn it…

It was 1986. A year of superb vintage—an Inukshuk in my palace of memory. In the days when we all wore big shoulder pads and sported Lady Di wings, 1986 was a year that really had legs, both for me personally and for Canada, too. Over the Christmas break, I’d joined my family on Vancouver Island in the log house they were building. I had become obsessed with all things Japan, from art and culture to sushi and language, and decided I had to live there. I was four months into a gruelling Japanese language post-grad university program in Edmonton (where tires do freeze), but this was now the second-coldest winter in living memory (aren’t they all?) and my cup of stoic determination was just about at the dregs. I…

The ultimate white party If you’re in southwestern Ontario and want to attend a party so loud it will make you feel like you are at the Superbowl, check out Lambton County’s annual Return of the Swans Festival in March. The Lambton Shores area is a “natural ‘staging’ place for the tundra swans” behind the Lambton Heritage Museum property. Before it was drained for farming, Thedford Bog provided a valuable wetland stopover for migrating birds. Spring flooding in the fields and the previous year’s corn and bean stubble provide food for the travelling waterfowl. Check the museum website (lambtonmuseums.ca) for dates and sightings, as the swans can arrive as early as mid-February or as late as mid-March. Fall foliage and feathers In October and November, you will see the swans…

Who knew that sleepy Summerside, Prince Edward Island, was the birthplace of the prestigious worldwide fox-farming industry? In the early 1900s, over 8,000 fox ranches dotted the Island, keeping the rich and royal fashionably warm. Of course, Samuel de Champlain and Sir Alexander Mackenzie would claim earlier fame as fur traders, but the demand for luxury furs necessitated the establishment of fox farms. After experimentation in 1895 on a farm near Tignish resulted in a litter with silver veins in the fur, the “silver rush” began. Summerside’s International Fox Museum and Hall of Fame is a curious mix of relics, pelts, heritage and an actual tattoo kit that was used to mark the ears of the foxes in captivity. If you like odd museums and quirky lore, put it on…

In 1975, the price of a weanling pig was $50, while a bushel of corn traded for $4 and everybody complained there was no money in it. Those prices have remain unchanged for half a century now, despite long periods of steady inflation that have doubled and tripled the cost of everything else you need to raise pigs and corn. Down in the diner in the village, they are still complaining there is no money in it. The landscape around us has changed dramatically over that time, as all the farms are consolidated into vast acreages for agribusiness. It’s hard to believe, but there are actually fewer farmers in this township now than there were in the very first year of settlement in 1833. But we’re still here. We have…