Haliburton Work Party and Feast of Fields

Saturday’s work party at Haliburton went surprisingly well: although rain had been forecast, it happily and courteously fell overnight, leaving a fresh-washed farm shining in the sun for a team of workers that included a group of school kids. Our main task of the day was harvesting the chickpeas, which farmer Rod then threshed with his handy Italian tractor

and then “all” we had to do was sort the beans.

When you’re counting chickpeas, a day’s work doesn’t look like much. But that’s why organic costs more… We all had time to agree at some length we would never look at a tin of chickpeas the same way.

After all that sorting

you are ready to sit down and have some lunch.

Naomi had made some excellent soup for us; I contributed a bit of fattoush,

and following this we had many, many cakes: chocolate, chocolate zucchini, plum and grape. Then, after Laura showed us what the Salt Spring zucchini are wearing this season

it was back to work.

A tour of the fields showed the kidney beans and black soya ready to harvest

pumpkin ripening in the fields

and lemon cucumber and purple tomatillo ready for harvest.

Sunday was another beautiful day, perfect for the Feast of Fields, held this year at Providence Farm, a most gorgeous and appropriate setting. Before things got rolling, I had time to do a short inspection of the llama (or is it an alpaca?) enjoying a leisurely tree break and other farm animals.

A few of the sights:

Saanich Organics, with plenty of excellent local fruit and veg to taste

Oak Bay Marina‘s seafood shooters, topped with a clam:

Locals, a treat from Courtenay, with a pulled pork stuffed pasta, very nice:

Seasonality: highlighting local cream in a beautiful pumpkin soup:

LifeCycles offered fruit, including grapes hand picked by moi only days earlier:

Cheryl’s Gourmet Pantry had one of the winners, good ol’ beans on toast, featuring local pork and exquisite beans:

Amuse had a highly delectable seafood cucumber topped with jellied tomato water: