Still on Newfoundland time

Posted on July 11, 2010 by admin

By that I mean I’m still trying to maintain that easy going differently-paced attitude. I don’t want to imply Newfoundlanders are a laid back bunch — in fact they’re quite the opposite. I don’t know if there’s a more hardy, hard-working bunch actually. Perhaps it’s all the hardships they have faced, but you won’t meet nicer people in the world.

St. John's, Newfoundland

We were in for a bit of a shock when we landed; we left 30+ degree heat and arrived to 10 degrees and overcast, with rain on the way. We did bring clothes expecting all kinds of weather, but I still don’t think we were quite prepared for it to drop to 5 degrees.

Leaside Manor B&B, St. John's

YellowBelly Brew Pub, St. John's

We stayed at the Leaside Manor, a gorgeous B&B within walking distance of downtown. Of course as soon as we got settled we had to go have a beer. Our meal was pretty terrific too — fish cakes and roasted halibut.

Our hosts told us that Tom Cochrane was playing in town on George Street as part of Canada Day celebrations, so we decided to check it out. We were quite disappointed to see that every single bar on the street had been obligated to sell only Labatt products as part of the sponsorship deal (the party was sponsored by Bud Lime). Which meant we were stuck with drinking crap beer all night. Even the places carrying YellowBelly weren’t allowed to sell it. Boo Labatt.

Tom Cochrane in St. John's

The Bud Lime girls were giving out all sorts of swag, including t-shirts, ball caps, mardi-gras beads, sunglasses, etc. They were dressed in baby-T’s and must have been freezing cold. All I wanted was a hoodie and a toque. Did I mention it dropped to 5 degrees?

Tom Cochrane in St. John's

The rain came down for about 10 minutes while we happened to be warming up in an Irish pub, but thankfully held off until about the last 20 minutes of the show when it started misting. We’re both really glad we held out through the big chill because it really was a great show.

St. John's

Lupins of Newfoundland

Cape Spear, Newfoundland

The next day we headed to Cape Spear, the easternmost point in all of North America. The spot was also a military base during WWII, and the remnants of the vanishing guns are still there (these guns could be raised and lowered, hiding them from view).

Inside the bunker

Rusting gun barrel, in Cape Spear

Our next night was at Fisher’s Loft Inn in Ship’s Cove, Trinity Bay (near Port Rexton). This fabulous estate is made up of several buildings with suites, as well as a dinning area, pub and lounge. There are beautiful potager gardens where they grow much of their own produce, although in early July many things were not yet planted and it was like May is here — lilacs in bloom, tulips still going; I’ll never complain about our short growing season again.

Fisher's Loft Inn guest house

Isn’t that greenhouse to die for? Oh and their soil is pretty rough — lots of rock mixed in. I guess it’s called The Rock for a reason.

Fisher's Loft Inn greenhouse and gardens

Fisher's Loft Inn grounds

Cemetary near Fisher's Loft

Fisher's Loft Inn grounds

Sunseet over Trinity Bay

Then we checked out Elliston, the ‘Root Cellar Capital of the World’. And that it may be, but just as fascinating is it’s population of Atlantic puffins.

Elliston

Chris nearly getting stuck in a root cellar

We actually saw root cellars in a few of the small towns we visited, but in Elliston there are 135 of them, both publicly and privately owned, some of which are over two hundred years old. I’ve been reading up on root cellars lately so these were very cool to see.

Puffins -- parrots of the sea

You can walk out on a small peninsula of towards Bird Island, which used to be the name of the town. Across from the end of the peninsula are nesting Atlantic puffins, which build burrows to raise their chicks. These birds are fantastic. We saw them about 8 miles away flying over the ocean while we were whale watching, and our guide told us they had come down that far mostly by flying under water.

Trinity, Trinity Bay

Our next night was spent not far away in Trinity, on Trinity Bay (there are like three towns called Trinity in Newfoundland so you have to be specific) at the lovely Maidment House B&B. This town is built with a strict adherence to maintaining heritage techniques, so it’s pretty hard to tell what is original and what is new. From the folks we talked to, most folks don’t spend their winters here (the windows are old-school single-pane glass…brrr!). It’s a gorgeous spot though, in a very well protected, deep bay. Apparently the whales will often come right into the bay when the capelin are rolling (spawning on the beaches).

View from our B&B, the Maidment House

Old ship in Trinity

View of Trinity Bay, from Water Street

Trinity lighthouse

Water Street in Trinity

At the wharf in Trinity

We did go whale watching from Trinity with Kris of Sea of Whales. We opted not to take our camera, since while it is weather resistant Canon specifically warns against sea water, and the boat we were going out on was fairly low to the water. In the end we had almost mirror calm seas and we would have been perfectly fine, but instead we simply enjoyed the experience. Kris was fabulous — has been fishing with his uncle since he was a kid, and has studied and toured people to see whales for more than 17 years.

We saw two or three different minke whales (pronounced ‘mink-ee’), the fastest and second smallest of the baleen whales, spotting them quite frequently even before we got far from Trinity Bay. After about 45 minutes we found a pair of humpback whales, just lounging about. While we never really got to see them breach, we did often get fairly (respectfully) close — close enough to even catch a whiff of their breath — and they are enormous, beautiful creatures. They were a male and female, and after a while they moved in towards Spaniard’s Bay and Pigeon Cove, where the capelin (a small fish, like smelt) were waiting for the opportunity to spawn. They fed for a little while and it was really fun to watch them on the move. Pigeon Cove was a flurry of seagulls, bald eagles and other opportunists. We hung out with this pair for hours, while Kris served up some hot chocolate and cake, and as we were heading back a third humpback was making its way into the bay. I highly recommend Sea of Whales if you’re in the area and want to meet some of the ocean’s residents — Kris was a fountain of local and whale knowledge — he is clearly passionate about what he does.

Random Passage film set

Still high from our wildlife encounter we sadly set on the road back to St. John’s for our last night. Along the way we checked out the Random Passage site, where the mini-series was filmed and now the site can be toured to see what life would have been like in a Newfoundland fishing village in the early 1800′s. Let’s just say I’m glad I didn’t live back then.

Once we got back to the city, we located our B&B, the Duckworth. Now, I’ll warn you — from the street it doesn’t look like much. It’s a somewhat dilapidated area, one very large and obviously condemned building is just a block down the street. I was worried it was a dud when we pulled up. But inside it was very clean and tidy, and the room was very nice. The place could use a little more decor in the halls and walkways to charm it up, and obviously needs some work creating curb appeal, but the very charming owners have just been in the biz a couple years, so they’ve probably got lots of work they plan to do. They’ve definitely got a winner as far as being well-located (minus their derelict neighbours); the B&B is literally a block from George Street and other downtown attractions.

After we got settled we decided to go for a walk; I was suffering some wicked heartburn, and we had yet to see Signal Hill. Chris’s GPS said it was a 30 minute walk. IT LIED.

View of the St. John's lighthouse, from Signal Hill

That was probably if it were FLAT. Which it is not. Nothing in St. John’s can be described as flat, and I don’t think the walk up leveled out once. I was dying for a drink about halfway there, while cars and motorcycles (they love their bikes out in Newfoundland) whizzed past us up to the top.

Signal Hill, St. John's

Regardless of my nearly dying, it was well worth the effort, and let’s face it, I could use the exercise. And we timed it perfectly, ending our last full day with a gorgeous view as the sun set.

View of St. John's from Signal Hill

And I can’t wait to go back again.

A full slide show of our photos is available on Flickr.

East Coast Tour, Part II

Posted on September 21, 2009 by admin

After our time in Fundy National Park and exploring around Chignecto Bay and Moncton, we headed on a marathon jaunt into Nova Scotia with Louisbourg, in Cape Breton, as our destination.

Welcome to Nova Scotia!

We stopped in at the Visitor Centre in Amherst, as we entered Nova Scotia, where we were “piped in” by a bagpipe player.

It took us most of the day to get there, and it was intensely hot and humid. I think it was the first real summery weather we’d experienced all year, but it was the kind of weather we get in Ontario, not what you’d expect on the east coast. We soon realized that the locals were not used to it either. We stopped at a McDonald’s in Cape Breton and a guy was crawling around under his van while his family watched, to see where a large trail of water was running from. We asked him if he’d been running his air conditioner a lot and he said yeah, and we told him it was probably just the water off the condenser — he’d never experienced it before!

We arrived in Louisbourg and got ourselves situated at the Louisbourg Harbour Inn B&B (a place we highly recommend, it was a lovely place to stay). Then immediately went searching for a good meal. Our hosts recommended The Lobster Kettle, just down the street and on the water front. And as you can see, we had lobster. And it was delish. The seafood chowder, also stellar.

The Lobster Kettle, Louisbourg

The next day we headed off to explore the Fortress of Louisbourg, a national historic site. I recommend if you’re going to go, do it first thing; be one of the first groups to arrive there, and do it on a weekday. It wasn’t too busy while we were there and it was gorgeous to see it all foggy and slowly emerge as we got closer.

We only heard about it once we were out east, but in the summer they have lantern-guided tours in the evening. We would have loved to go during that time, but the tours were booked solid for a month. Regardless, it was terrific to explore it during the day.

The Fortress of Louisbourg

Fortress of Louisbourg

An 18th century French potager garden

I don’t know what you know of the fortress, but I knew virtually nothing about it before I got there. In a nutshell, it is a reconstructed 18th century French fort, recreated based on the period just before its first siege. In the 1960s the government embarked on the project to rebuild the fort as part of an effort to revitalize the local economy. A major archaeological excavation took place, and a huge army of out of work fishermen and minors were retrained to build the site using the authentic, traditional period techniques, for everything from stone masonry to blacksmithery.

Fortress of Louisbourg, Governor's kitchen

The kitchen in the Governor's house

Borage in the garden

I didn’t even realize the place was a reconstruction until I started reading some of the interpretive information. Incredibly, they were able to rebuild the site with incredible attention to detail, because, as a French city, everything was meticulously tracked in the royal records of France. Nearly everything was imported to the town, so not only were there extensive ship manifests to refer to, but all the building plans were approved by the royals, so they are on record as well.

Sheep!

Prepping the cannon for firing

I adored how there were pigs, chickens, sheep, turkeys and veggie gardens all in the works. You could buy bread at the bakery in three different grades (soldier’s bread is the heaviest and roughest in quality). We even ate at a restaurant that served period food.

Louisbourg chickens

Louisbourg window detail

Fortress of Louisbourg boat

Musket firing demonstration

Louisbourg military band

After lunch we were ready to move on. We drove along the coast and stopped at the magnificent Louisbourg lighthouse, which like the fortress, was draped in fog.

Louisbourg lighthouse

Our next destination was North Sydney where we boarded the Newfoundland ferry, the Marine Atlantic Vision. We had booked the night ferry and a cabin, which would mean we could spend the night sleeping, since the trip takes about 7 hours or so.

One of the Newfoundland ferries

The ferry pictured above is actually the Smallwood, a much smaller and relatively older ferry, than the one we took over. The Vision was only a month old, and the cabins were beautiful, clean, new and came with a TV, private bathroom and shower. I felt sorry for the poor saps who had to crash out in the lounges!

Our cabin on the Marine Atlantic Vision ferry, Nfld. bound

It was as we watched the evening news in our cabin that we started hearing more details about Hurricane Bill, and when I started to get a little more nervous. We were scheduled to spend three nights camping in Gros Morne, which would take us until Sunday, when the storm was expected to hit that area. NOT cool. But we were too excited to worry about it much yet.

It was a gorgeous day when we landed in Port aux Basques, and headed up the west coast of Newfoundland towards Trout River in Gros Morne.

On the cusp of tomato bounty

Posted on August 6, 2009 by admin

It won’t be long now before I have tomatoes coming out of my ears. I totally welcome this, except I kinda didn’t think through the fact that I’m going to be away for the last two weeks of August, which is about when most of them will be ripening. Thankfully I have a whole crew of people who are going to be on deck to take care of the jungle (and the neurotic cat), and their reward will be to pick all the ripe tomatoes they want.

Green tomatoes

This still puts a dent into my plans to can lots of salsa and to try canning whole tomatoes (stewed tomatoes we called them, when I was a kid). I’m hoping I’ll still have plenty of tomatoes ripening throughout most of September, but by the look of the number of green, full-sized fruits on the vines now, I can’t imagine they’ll wait that long to ripen.

On the plus side, last year I noticed that my grocery store sells cases of locally grown roma tomatoes, so I’m hoping if I miss out on the majority of my own tomatoes, that I’ll still be able to get those to make up the difference. The trick will be that those cases are only available for a very limited time and I can’t quite remember when exactly they came in last year.

Green roma tomatoes

Just before I went away last week I made a point of giving my tomato plants a bit of grooming, removing a lot of the lower leaves, especially where there are fruits on the plants. I’m still battling with my tendency to crowd my garden and so I find it really necessary to give the tomatoes a haircut to keep them manageable. I suppose it’s one of the downsides of growing heirloom tomatoes in small spaces. They’re typically indeterminate vines, which means they just keep growing and growing and growing. They’re not at all compact plants. And so far as I’ve been able to tell no one makes bamboo stakes that are longer than 6 feet. Perhaps next year I’ll rig up the trellis system I had in mind but didn’t do this year.

Red Currant heirloom cherry tomatoes

Red Currant teeny tiny heirloom cherry tomato

This morning I picked the first of the Red Currant heirloom cherries. They are so teeny tiny! I haven’t eaten it yet, I just keep admiring it, but I’m quite sure it has that perfect salty sweet tart combination that makes cherry tomatoes so fantastic and in a flavour class of their own.

Weeds for sale!

Dill

Following on the heels of the very early Stupice tomatoes, I’ve now picked three big Purple Russians. They’re slated for dinner tomorrow night.

Purple Russian heirloom tomato

I’m not quite sure what to make of my rather wonky crop of cucumbers. I think this is a variety that is meant to be picked small, and while I’ve tried to keep an eye on them, I suspect their wonky shapes are due to the wonky not-so-summery weather we’ve had this year. Despite their poor numbers and odd shapes, I turned them into dill pickles tonight, along with a few pounds of normal looking ones I got at the market this week.

My wonky cucumbers

And finally, just another shot of the oh-so-gorgeous Chantenay carrots. Aren’t they just so perfectly stubby, shiny and cute? There are tons more where they came from still in the ground in the garden. Mmmm!

More Chantenay carrots

I has carrots!

Posted on July 6, 2009 by admin

Chantenay carrots

And beets, and tomatoes, and kohlrabi, and…and…and… The garden is really coming into it’s own. The tomatoes have been staked and I’ve already picked two! That’s right, two tomatoes and it’s only July 6th. They’re Stupice, a Czech heirloom variety that I grew last year and are known to be spectacularly early. They’re a smaller variety, but who can beat vine ripened tomatoes in early July?! If we’d had a normal, hot summer thus far, I bet they would have been even earlier. Close on the heels of Stupice are the Purple Russians, an egg shaped variety that is noted to be good for salsas and preserving.

Stupice heirloom tomato

First tomatoes of the year - Purple Russians

Purple Russian heirloom tomato

My peas are going like gangbusters. Last night I picked all the full ones I could find and sat down and podded my first bowl of peas in probably well over 15 years. They were a staple of the veggie garden of my childhood, but this is the first year I’ve grown them myself. In fact, I had a sudden realization this evening as I plucked the first of my carrots that this is really the first time (in my adult life) that I’ve grown many of the veggies I have going this year. I’ve often done salad greens, tomatoes in pots, and a few onions, beets, etc. But to have carrots, squash, cucumbers, garlic and so much more… what a treat. It makes me want more veggie gardens!

Capuchijners Blue Pea

Capuchijners Blue Pea in salad

Tonight I cooked my first batch of Capuchijner peas, and I think I might know now why they’re a called a soup pea. They didn’t really go that lovely “pea green” colour when I cooked them, but remained as pale as they were when raw. And while they’re quite tasty, they don’t seem to have that explosion of tender sweetness that I think of from regular fresh peas.

Kohlrabi

The kohlrabi are coming along nicely as well, although I’ve been battling slugs regularly to keep them. I’ve never cooked these babies before so I’m looking forward to trying them out.

I was also pleasantly surprised to discover that my Chioggia heirloom beets are harvest size already, although I think they need a bit more time to develop their signature pink and white rings, as mine are still very white inside.

Chioggia heirloom beets

And now I have raised beds!

Posted on April 19, 2009 by admin

…and a replanted front and back lawn, trimmed oak and locust trees, and loads more dirt and composted horse manure!

Newly planted raised beds

We did some seriously back breaking hard labour this weekend. It started on Friday when I had a ginormous load of triple mix delivered onto our front lawn, from the folks at Jenkins Soil, and Chris and I started digging the holes for the first bed’s posts. We put gravel in the holes with the posts to assist with drainage and hopefully prevent early rot. That was all we got done before my awesome parents arrived. We got up bright and early Saturday and got started–Chris and Dad in the backyard dealing with trees and Mom and I filling up the first raised beds with soil and composted horse manure (my parents brought a giant truckload with them).

Revised planting plan, East bed

Revised planting plan, West bed

So, a word about my Dad and his plan to trim a couple giant limbs off the giant oak in our backyard. First of all, my Dad, well, he’s a bit of a dare devil. Some might say crazy. I prefer to call him a risk taker. So… this weekend he nearly gave us all heart attacks. You see, the tree limb in question, the one that covered the majority of our back yard, well, it was rather high up. I’m terrible at estimating height but Chris is guessing about 30 feet up. We didn’t have a ladder that long, so my Dad, well, he had a solution for that. “We’ll just lash them together,” he said last weekend, when we first discussed the plan. I thought he was joking.

Suffice it to say there were some tense moments, like when the trimmed branch tried to take out the stepladder that made the base of his contraption. And another when the branch the ladder was resting on split down the centre instead of cutting clean away and nearly took him with it. I think my mother, Chris and I all have a few extra gray hairs, but thankfully, he didn’t suffer a scratch. Did I mention he had his right hip replaced only a year ago?

Planted beds, with pansies!

My new beds

New bed

So… getting back to the beds. Did you know that 7 cubic yards is A LOT of soil? It sure is. I have the aching back and sore pipes to prove it. Actually, we suspect they were a bit generous with the soil. We moved a gazillion wheelbarrows of it around the property, in what felt like a never ending conveyor belt of dirt. We had more than enough to very thickly top dress both the front and back lawns (we bought some Eco-lawn from Anything Grows in Stratford last weekend to replant our lawns with). We even had enough to top up the side strip of lawn that runs between the houses, and I still have a giant pile of it in the back for god knows what. That and more composted horse manure.

We debated about dealing with the lawn under the beds and in the end decided to just lay down some landscaping fabric in the bottoms to help kill it off. I’ve read you can use cardboard too, which would have broken down eventually. I think I’ll do that next time. Oh yeah, next time… next time I might try this out. I’ve already decided that if this summer proves we’ve opened up the backyard canopy enough to allow good sun for at least 6 hours, I’m going to add another bed or two back there! Yes, I may have a little of that crazy passed along from my father.

Top dressed back yard lawn

So after my parents headed back home Chris got to seeding the lawn and I dug into the beds and planted up the garlic, onion sets and various seeds that can go out now, like my peas, carrots, beets, radishes, spinach, lettuce and potatoes. I also put up the expandable willow twig trellises I got at Anything Grows (if you’re ever in Stratford, you absolutely MUST go there).

After doing some further reading and researching last week I decided to redo my layout plan more in the vein of French style potager gardens. They’re just a bit more “arranged” and will include some flowers like nasturtiums and maybe marigolds, if I can squeeze ‘em in, for colour and interest. The trellises function as vertical interest points and I have yet to do something in the centre. I was thinking urns, or birdbaths, but with space at a premium, I’m thinking maybe instead some kind of decorative garden item, on a post, or one of those freestanding posts that I can hang something on. Not sure yet.

Not recommended.

Also not recommended.

Cutting limbs (hopefully just tree limbs)

Shouldn't he be wearing a harness?

Diggin' the Dirt

A little gardening, quilting, knitting, cookin' and more.

Tag Archives: potager

Still on Newfoundland time

East Coast Tour, Part II

On the cusp of tomato bounty

I has carrots!

And now I have raised beds!

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