Homestead and Folly

When I was four, my mom nicknamed me "Sarah Strawberry". It may have been my strawberry blond hair but more likely it was my love of strawberries that won me this name. We ate the last jar of homemade jam at the end of May and I have been counting the days, jealous of my pals in America and their mouth watering photos of strawberries that come to them much earlier than we have them! We were going to go picking last weekend but figured that they probably wouldn't let us on account of Hurricane Arthur knocking on their door. I held off buying a single grocery store berry, holding out. Finally picking day arrived. We woke up at 7 and hit the road before it got too hot. We drove for a little over an hour, my son getting more and more excited. We have been taking him to U-picks since he could walk and have trained him as a rather skilled picker. We took most of our own baskets and wooden holders having learnt in the past that they can cost quite a bit. We walked to our...

The apples stayed on the tree, even if the tree tipped over After we gathered emergency supplies such as water, food for our family, BBQ fuel, batteries and flashlights, a trip to the library and cleaned up the yard, I set my attention to  protecting the animals and the gardens. After figuring out the prevailing winds would be from the South and the South West, we turned the rabbit tractors into the wind so they wouldn't flip, locked the animals all inside securely and set our sites to the plants. I opened up the hoop house figuring nothing was going to keep that plastic shut anyway. I added a few more tomato cages and tied them together and then to the hoop house frame. My cukes had just sprouted their first tiny cucumbers the day before the hurricane so I tied the vines down low to the ground to a post. I like to use pipe cleaners because we always have them laying around after children have finished craft projects and because their soft padding doesn't dig into...