Thanks From the Farm Studio in PEI

Thanks to those not away on summer holiday for some wonderful work in the past few days...

Thank You Barnett Cox and Associates for letting us finish the first series of your wonderful creative campaign for Community West Bank.

Thanks also to EC Productions for allowing me to voice track your HD documentary on the Save Our Seas Foundation and it's work with sharks and manta rays. I can't wait to see the final production!

Also, thanks to EHY for calling on us for your ongoing work with the Chumash Casino.

While Steve Gordon is calmly manning the helm in Santa Barbara, I am frantically managing summer production of a different kind here on Prince Edward Island, Canada.
And though part of each day is devoted to studio recording and business issues on the West Coast, we're finding time to plant and harvest a good crop of family fun and fresh vegetables this summer.

For those whose geography is as poor as mine, you'll find that PEI is Canada's smallest province, located just a few miles off of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick on the east coast of North America.

My wife and I are here with our two boys for the summer, managing our organic farm.
We're growing a variety of herbs and produce which we sell to the fresh market.
The crops are pretty much in the ground already for the short summer season. Long daylight hours help things grow (it isn't dark until almost 10:00 PM). We've had a late start of summer with lots of clouds and rain. But the last few days have been sunny and hot, which has really launched our plantation into full swing!

The Goleta Valley Mesclun Salad mix we grow is very popular and the French Breakfast Radishes have been a good accompaniment. We're also rich in Spinach right now and the Swiss Chard and Beet Greens too are selling well.

We're about to be awash in sweet shelling Peas and it won't be long before we're digging up baskets full of new Yukon Gold Potatoes. Summer Squash is flowering now and Zuchini and Yellow Crook Neck varieties will be coming soon. The Cucumbers are flowering and these are in much demand locally for fresh eating and fall pickling. Yellow wax beans will be coming in August and Pumpkins will be big and orange by the time I return to Santa Barbara in September. Corn and tomatoes have been slow to start, so we'll see what nature does with those crops. There's too much more to mention!

In addition to our cash crops, there is other work that goes on. We're planting a fourth of our crop rows in green manure crop to keep out weeds and feed the soil for next year. To do this we planted field peas and oats which will die off this winter and leave rich compost for the spring plowing. To that purpose, we're encouraged by warm rain forecast for tomorrow. Hopefully this will start the California poppy seeds I've planted along the lane.

Nature on her own also blesses us with wild harvests of strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and blackberries in their seasons. On the shore we dig clams and harvest mussels for steaming pots of savory seafood.

Summer truly is a time of bounty. Here's hoping you are enjoying the gifts of summer wherever you may be!

Planting Summer in the Snow

Okay, what happened? last week was sunny and warm in the Canadian Maritimes. The door to Spring was thrown wide open as temperatures climbed into "balmy" territory. Locals were giddy after the long winter. Then it was as if Ma Nature flipped us back into winter, yelling,"Psych"!

On Wednesday the air temperature was hovering near freezing. As a steady wind blew down from the north I bent over the prepared soil in a field I have been fallowing for 3 years. I carefully placed each seed for our potatos, peas, spinach, beets and chard into the moist earth. My hands were numb. I kept working. My back hurt. I kept working. My legs ached. I kept working. Snow and rain in the forcast that night meant finishing all of the field work 3 days sooner than I had expected. After snow and rain soaked the dirt it would simply be mud. Too wet to plant. So I kept working.

Why?

All winter I had been making plans. Placing seed orders, organizing tasks so I could optimize the 2 weeks in May when the farm wakes up. My vision of summer bounty required that certain work be done - no matter what.

My plans were largely destroyed by first contact with reality on the ground. I spent time revising expecations and re-organizing tasks. I juggled my time around weather forcasts and visiting neighbors, production work in the studio and just plain daydreaming. But the real test of my creative vision was on that cold afternoon when my body wanted to quit and accept the consequences. I kept working.

And here's what I learned:

Make plans. Then scrap them.

Reality just is.

It's amazing how powerful an intention can be.

I beleive in what I'm doing enough to be uncomfortable in the process of doing it.

It's about love!


Tomorrow, I will leave for Santa Barbara. My seeds are planted. The weather will soon be warm and summer will come. The fields and flowers will be beautiful. I will pick beans with my wife, I will smell fresh mowed grass, I will watch my children steal sweet peas in the late afternoon, I will meet charming couples from Montreal, freckled kids and their parents from Ontario and smiling locals. I will laugh with friends who come home to the island each summer for wine and potluck suppers at the shore and a pack of kids and dogs will scream and shout into the deep twilight.

Summer.

Sometimes you have to plant it in the snow.