A sucessful weekend

Wow what a success, Great weather, great attendance and response for all our friends in the city and country alike. We were very happy with the whole weekend. Thank you everyone comming to our farm. Hope you all come back next year.

The calm before the storm

A picture of our yard at 7:30 this morn. It looks empty right now but soon it will be a busling busy place

Getting ready for this weekends festival

We are busy getting ready for our own asparagus festival. This is a picture from just over a year ago when we checked out the Stockton California Asparagus festival. We were 2 of some 40,000 people. I'm thinking our turnout won't be that big, but it's nice to see what other people do and get some ideas for our own.

I didn't have a picture from today so this one will have to do.

The start of our bale fort.

Getting ready for the asparagus festival. Doug and Randy building a bale fort for the kids at our festival. It seems so many children don't get the opportunity to do simple things like play in a bale in a fort, or pet some new baby chicks, or maybe even play with some baby goats (kids). That is just some of the things the children can see and do this weekend.

Washing asparagus

All our asparagus is washed thoroughly before it is chilled in the cold water. This is a picture of some soaking in the water and some on the drain tray ready to be hosed down.

What to do with asparagus seconds?

Asparagus seconds. What to do with all those seconds due to the cold windy weather? Well we just turn them into relish and soup. Just what we need to be doing when the weather is good for picking is try to find a crew to work in our commercial kitchen. Pictured is one of our dedicated workers Edna (not Elna) washing some of our asparagus before we finely chop it for asparagus relish.

Jackie bundling asparagus

Jackie bundling asparagus. This picture was taken today and Jackie begged me to take this picture. With at least 18 different people busily working around here and she wants to be the star!

Picking Asparagus

We are picking asparagus this week. The picking has been very good the last couple of days. The first of the week we were busy picking the wind damaged asparagus and sorting it out for soup and relish, but now the quality is much better. This is last years picture of Jackie, Lisa, and Joanie riding on one of our 3 harvesters that crawl slowly down the field. As the machine goes down the field the persons riding snap off the asparagus at the appropriate length, then place them in the basket to be transported to the bundling shed.

Chef Wade comes to the farm for asparagus.

Chef Wade Sirois out in the field checking the asparagus in the field. Wade made a special trip to the farm from Calgary last evening to pick up some fresh asparagus for his restaurant named forage. Wade will be back on Sunday for our Asparagus festival doing cooking demos with asparagus.

Our granddaughter is in the foreground.

Doug and Domingo out in the asparagus field.

Checking the asparagus this evening at about 7:30 p.m. They have been picking since first thing this morn. They got over the field today and almost got it all bundled. They didn't get a large amount but we got the field cleaned up from all the wind and snow.

Last week we cleaned out the back of our quonset, and in the back was my old motorcycle that I bought brand new when I was 15 years old. This bike hasn't run for the last 10 years, so I charged the battery, added fuel, gave it a few kicks on the kick-starter and we were up and running. It ran like a top so I made a tour out to the field before parking it again, hopefully not 10 years again. This bike has just over 2700 miles on it which is not a lot for a 1967 model.

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Country Drive open house- Media launch

Country Drive open house-Media launch

Today was Country Drive's media launch at our farm. We had media from most all of the major radio stations, TV, and newspapers from Red Deer to Calgary at our farm today. There was also over 20 Country Drive booths representing most all of the members in attendance also. They were all demonstrating their wares. We had live goats with 10 day old kids, a bale maze, special teas, bluebird, bat, and bumblebee houses, specialty clothing. antiques etc. etc. We even had a team of horses doing wagon rides to the field, so the media and their families could tour the farm.

Pictured above is John Mills chairman of Country Drive addressing the media after supper. Another picture of our local county councilor Dave Hoar addressing the crowd. The picture of the little fellow is a reporters son from Calgary. He is showing off his very first temporary tattoo (an Edgar Farms Logo) This was one happy little fellow.

Picking Asparagus in the snow

Picking aspargus today. This is the 3rd day we have picked this year. The weather has not been good at all. It has been too dry and too cold for the aspargus. We were hoping for moisture but not this kind. We picked yesterday in a dust storm with winds of 70 km. per hour and I don't know if it was any better than today.