For all the talking I do about the farm, I don't think I actually take that many pictures of the property – I mostly take photos of the dog. But of course, the dog is the best looking anything in the area, wherever she is, so it's hard for me to find the motivation to take pictures of other things.

I'm trying to take more photos in different ways to train that eye and develop a style, though, so we'll see how it goes. I mostly realized this when I was scrolling through the last few blog posts, but I've been taking more varied shots recently, so we're getting there. And of course, now I want to buy a new camera body and lens, even though I'm not even close to running up against the limitations of my current gear.

But that's all more of a side thought for now, since spring is starting up at the farm!

A lot of my fall-planted (or perennials) plants are coming up! This is all my garlic, which seem to be doing quite well. I actually should give them some fertilizer since they're a little paler than I'd like.

My peonies are also starting to come up, as well as the forager favourite, ramps. We're pretty fortunate to have a massive population of ramps, since that means I can sustainably harvest even the bulbs. The ramps aren't quite big enough to dig up yet, but I probably will start in a couple weeks! These ones are actually right on a trail, so if they aren't being harvested for eating, I'll move them off the trail at least, so they don't get run down by the tractor (or humans, I guess, haha).

In the continuing green-ness, here's some moss that's actually right in front of the barn door from the main image.

Also managed to snap a couple surprisingly nice shots of the local squirrels, who were enjoying the bird feeder.

And, it's not a blog post by Iman without a picture of Koharu, so here she is, ready to harass another dog.

A few more pics are available in the gallery if you're interested in such a thing!

#photos #farm

Once again, we went up to the farm for Family Day weekend! We were able to drive up to the house, but there was snow on the ground. It was also cold enough that we did not turn on the water. While we were there, we got more snow! Our neighbour actually came over and pre-emptively plowed a path for us to get back out, which was really nice of him.

Actually it's really interesting looking at my post from last year and all the photos – especially the river. While the river's not frozen solid, or even close to it, for many years, we definitely had more ice this year than last!

But I think it overall was a really nice weekend. We went on two long walks through the bush, where snowshoes were definitely required. It was also cold enough that my silly dog, who usually prefers staying out all day, would ask to come back in. Usually she only does that when we're eating dinner haha.

Speaking of dinner, on Sunday night, I cooked up some A5 Miyazaki wagyu – the Japanese butcher near me had a Family Day special so I thought it'd be a nice time to splurge!

We picked up 4 200g tenderloins. I did a reverse sear in the toaster oven and cast iron pan. Originally I was thinking I could grill them up, but it was too dark and cold for me to want to go back outside to prepare dinner lol.

I got them beautifully rare on the inside! I think I might actually prefer wagyu to be closer to medium but they were still really good. We had one spare tenderloin that we took home. I thinly sliced it up and put it onto a bowl of rice, and it was amazing. If I were to do it again, I'd probably make a black pepper sauce for it, but we just wanted a quick dinner.

Anyway, as usual, more photos are available in the gallery! I am trying to do some more artsy shots... or at least non-dog and non-food photos. Not sure if I'm any good at it, but I'm having fun, so that's all that matters!

#photos #farm #food

Well, my birthday was actually months ago back in June, but I'm only getting to writing the blog post now.

I didn't do anything exciting but I did go to the farm where I made myself sous-vide wagyu steak – the real stuff imported from Japan, in fact.

I also made some roast potatoes to go with it, along with garlic bok choy which was grown in my garden!

The other thing of note that we did was go hiking at MacGregor Point!

It was a nice provincial park which had a rocky beach that Koharu liked to clamber over.

I also snapped this photo of wood lilies there! They're actually a native flower but I'd never seen them until this hike! I actually shared this photo on Mastodon the other day but for something I just took in the moment, I just really like how it turned out.

So, we have another year done in this cycle. It was a nice, low-key birthday, which is how I like them, haha.

#food #photos #farm

As usual, I procrastinated editing photos, but at least they are being put up in the same month in which I took them!

We had an unseasonably warm weekend where it was over 25C! That was unexpected… not unpleasant, but I’m not sure I liked it. We had a lot of garden work planned and doing that in summer-like heat was not fun.

Anyway, under the cut are some photos I’d like to highlight, but the full gallery is also available at this link!

Managed to snap this turkey sitting in a tree while walking through the bush.

Turkeys always look silly to me, and doubly so when they’re in a tree haha.

During the unseasonably warm weekend, the ramps/wild leeks were starting to pop up! I was so excited since they're delicious and ephemeral. We have a lot at the farm, so I can harvest as much as I want – the bulbs too. In other places, they have become locally endangered from over-harvesting, so I'm glad I have my own personal supply.

Of course, this meant that I made that night's dinner with a bunch of ramps that I pulled up that day. Smashed cucumber salad with ramps, mashed potatoes with ramps, a grilled ramp on the side... it was delicious and made me feel like spring was actually happening.

Also, fun side note, the pork chop I bought was called “Nagano pork” – which is confusing because it was from Quebec! The internet told me that Quebec is a major pork exporter to Japan and this breed of pig was developed for the Japanese market. Well, it was delicious at any rate, and I would totally buy it again.

#food #photos #farm

Finally got around to editing and uploading my photos from a couple weekends ago! It's all dog photos, unsurprisingly. This was such a weird weekend – we managed to drive up to the farm house! Normally in February, there's way too much snow. And then it was so warm that we could even turn the water on, and it got even warmer and a bunch of the remaining snow melted.

Of course, I'm typing this now when we've been hit by two snow storms in as many weeks, so y'know. Canadian weather.

Anyway, link to the photo gallery is here! Also, I can’t wait until I can make blog posts straight from Snap.as galleries. I should potentially explore making a blog-friendly photo display thing in Markdown too… but that’d be for the code blog, haha.

#photos #farm