Alsace Vineyard

Well we have hit the halfway mark of our job here in Alsace. We have made so many friends from so many areas around the world. We have eaten so many potatoes and traditional hearty dishes from the area that it becomes quite hard to get back into the rhythm of work in the afternoon. Yesterday we had a day off and visited Struthoff, a concentration camp not far from here, but more on that later. Life here is pretty good, the view is always amazing, the wine at night is last years harvest of the grapes we pick in the day and the conversations are a plenty. It's going to be hard to leave at the end of the week, but we have an exciting adventure in Eastern Europe to look forward to. So for now we will continue working hard and eating even harder.
-morgan

bon voyage farm

Our time is up on this amazing farm and we have truly enjoyed it. We may be a little sick of weeding, but our appreciation for where food comes from and the hard work farmers do has changed the way we look at eating. We have learnt so much about the land, organic living and sustainability. We hope to work on a few more farms in the future and are in the process of trying to find a cheese farm.
When in France!
-morgan

animal traction

Our time working on the farm has involved many new experience. Last week we got to try our hand at animal traction using 2 donkeys, Parpaillon and Pinocchio. Animal traction has been around for many years, but has faded out of farm life. There is an orginisation in France set out to make it popular again. There are 13 different tools you can set up behind a donkey for weeding, plowing, airing and more. It's low cost, good for the environment and makes for true organic farming considering we don't use a tractor. It's great working alongside the donkey, not as it's master, but as it's friend. We were told to keep in mind, without the donkey and you working together, you both will not eat tonight. After we formed the mounds, we then planted pumpkin seedlings over the whole field.
-morgan

Les Petit Pois

It has been a really great experience working here on the farm. Over these last few days I have had a great "revolutionary" experience in the way I view produce. On Tuesday we were out in the rain pulling out all the pea and broad bean plants, as they were ready for harvest and a new plant would be placed in the ground. We were out for hours in the mud pulling them all out and collecting them up to bring back to the shelter. Once we were back and in dry clothes we proceeded to pull the beans from the stalks, a process that was long and messy. In total we had 65kg of beans and about the same of broad beans. The next day after they were washed they were sorted into good and bad and ready to be distributed to the customers. The bad beans were to go to the house for us to eat, so morgan and I then spent the afternoon shelling the peas and in the evening we ate them.
This whole process took 4 people over 2 days to complete, and it was a good reminder where my food comes from and the process it takes. I usually buy bags of frozen peas, all ready to cook in 1 kg bags. To get that 1kg of peas takes a long process on an organic farm, which I have never even considered.
As someone who loves good food, it has been so good to get a reality check on where our food really comes from and all the work that goes into it.
-kim

farm life

We have arrived and settled into life working on a farm. For the next three weeks we will be living here as WWOOFers [Willing Workers on Organic Farms]. We work here on the farm and in exchange we get housed and fed.
Well, after 3 days of hard work we are loving this experience. We have done a variety of different things already, weeding, reaping, sorting produce. It was lots of fun weeding yesterday with a little 2 month old kitten trying to play with us while we tried to work. He would climb our legs and sit on our backs.
They also have 2 donkeys here which they use to work the land. I love donkeys and best part of my day is when we take the donkeys to their new feeding spot each day, then returning them to their stable in the afternoon. We have already learnt so much and are growing in our appreciation of "field to fork" culture.
-kim

cherry trees

This past week has been rather frustrating waiting for our pay to be finalised so we can pack up and head to our next destination. One thing that has made the waiting worthwhile is the cherry trees. We have watched these trees blossom, the leaves turn green and the fruit start to grow. The cherries have just started to ripe in the last few days and we have taken much joy climbing the trees, picking the fruit and eating cherries to our hearts content.
Morgan grew up visiting this house in summer and eating these cherries, and it has been nice to do these things together with him.
-kim

Our Garden

I have to confess, I am horrible at looking after our garden. It's not that I don't want to I just seem to always run out of time, and never get around it to. Lucky for us, morgan is a bit better with his time, and has been able to keep our plants thriving for many months since we moved to this house. I am so bad at it, that at my insistence to get some flowers in our garden, all but one have died because of my neglect. Woops.
We did however enjoy many months of beautiful lettuce leaves fresh from the garden, and while many other plants are struggling and going to seed, our herbs are soldiering on and keeping us in supply.
Lets see how summer treats them...
::kim::

the little patch next to our front door has been slowly fading. We had a great 4 months over winter and spring, but as it get hotter, our garden withers. Our rocket, lettuce and spinach has gone to seed and bok choy almost all eaten. We roasted 6 beautiful beetroot fresh from the garden but now, in a position that gets only the afternoon sun, it is getting harder and harder to find things that work. I have decided this summer I would grow flowers, that can bear the heat. I chose, in honour of my grandma in the south of France, lavender. Lavender is probably my favourite aroma next to thyme because they remind me of summer in French province. I also found another beautiful purple flower called Skullcap which hopefully will last the hot summer.
::morgan::


This is the view from our back deck. We have a rainforest behind out house. How cool is that?!

Our Garden

It's funny, when Kim and I were dating I would always see this bucket in her shower, I always thought it was weird and never really understood. Since having our own house or home rather I have taken on duties to create a garden that we can eat from and hopefully share from. Now, I realise that Kim was collecting all the water we waste waiting for the hot water to use in the garden. The garden is a somewhat tricky job seeing as I have a 1x0.5 metre area of leafy, concrete and old roots as my planting ground. I also have alot of pots which I am using through many trails and errors. There are two things stopping growth in my garden, firstly insects (which I am using 5 different natural methods to get rid off) and secondly the fact that we eat the coriander quicker than it grows. I have enjoyed watching the lettuce, snow peas, baby spinach, rocket, 8 herbs, tomatoes and now bok choy grow each day. I think my favourite part is watching the marigolds flowers (which keeps the pests away) grow and most of all eating the fresh salads and herbs, especially rocket and coriander in one of my signature dishes.
morgan.


Having my own garden which not only looks beautiful, but is able to provide food for me has always been a little dream of mine. One which unfortunately only came to be since moving in with Morgan. Our small garden by the front door has become a thing of delight that welcomes me home each day.

It is only small and things are only just beginning to grow (our first snow pea is coming through) but it is such a great venture and one I am very glad we are taking.


This week I planted some flowers which are blooming with delight. I was getting sick of the greenery of it all and wanted to being some bright colours to it too. I guess the marigolds were there, but I wanted more, and some I could cut off and put in a vase inside the house. Well I am very excited by this addition I made, and can't wait to see the way they as we move into spring.
big smiles, kim