Beautiful Music on the farm

Sunday may not have been a sunny day but the mood here on the farm was.  We have a number of very talented staff here on the farm.  They gathered on Sunday to sing Christmas carols.  Possibly a new tradition beginning.

Winter Wonderland

Welcome to our winter wonderland.  We got snow on Thursday and its starting to look a lot like Christmas.
We spent Friday uncovering the Christmas trees from their blankets of snow.  Saturday we've salted.  The snow is now wet and great for building snow forts.
Come and enjoy!

Our Creative Country Christmas Begins!

There is nothing like trying something new to keep life exciting.  Saturday December 6th will be our first ever Enchanted Forest Adventure.  Just one part of our Creative Country Christmas.

We are excited.  The Christmas trees smell awesome, the gingerbread cookies are waiting for you to decorate them, our craft room is ready, the farm animals are looking forward to visitors and the tractor has been filled and is ready to roll.  The wagon is ready for you.

Christmas is a time to spend together with family.  We'd like to offer you this opportunity to come and have some fun together.

Christmas Trees are here!

Today, Christmas trees have now replaced the pumpkins.  We've just created our own little forest of fresh cut fraser fir, balsam, spruce and pine.  Oh, the smell of evergreens, I love them all.  The cool, wet summer everyone lamented has given us gorgeous, lush Christmas trees.  They thrived this past season.

We do try to keep the fall here on the farm till the American Thanksgiving is over, it can be such a short season with the excitement of Christmas pushing itself into our lives.  Last weeks snow storm showed us the merits of not delaying for too long.  We were still feeding the left over pumpkins to our animals, a treat for them, when last weeks freeze descended upon us.

Monday's warm temperature was a welcome relief, the snow melted and the last of the pumpkins were scooped up and deposited out on the fields.  We got the rest of our beets harvested and James got his garlic planted. Jim has been out plowing the fields before he needs to plow anymore snow.  Amazing how fast you can move when you see how quickly winter weather can come.  Can't complain, we're not in Buffalo.

With our winter urn workshop successfully behind us we look forward to getting ready for the Coming of Christmas.  Along with decorating winter urns and wreathes, we're baking our Christmas cookies, the market is lighting up with colour, and Fairy Tale Lane and our forest trail are becoming enchanted.  The farm is buzzing with the anticipation of a very Creative Country Christmas.

Come join us in our celebrations.  Check out our events page for full details of all that is happening on the farm this December.

We're opening daily beginning Saturday November 29th.
Looking forward to seeing you.

Winter Urn Workshop Sunday November 23rd

Add cheer to your outdoor décor making your home just as welcoming outside as it is inside.  Create your own winter urn.

Cathy Bartolic of Ontario Farm Fresh Marketing Association will guide you through the art of making a personal and professional looking winter urn that you can enjoy all season. 

Participants will use a variety of fresh evergreen boughs, natural elements, and a selection of accessories to create a beautiful arrangement in a 12” pot that can stand alone or be used as an urn insert.

All materials are included.  You leave with the urn you create.  Bring along a sharp pair of pruning shears and gardening gloves if you have them. 

Hot apple cider and snacks are provided.

Come and have fun.  Be creative.  Take home a beautiful urn and leave the mess with us.

Sunday November 23^rd

1:30 till 3:00

$65.00 (HST included)

Bring a friend and save $5.00 each.

Space is limited.  Advance registration is advised. 

Call 905-985-6749 or e mail forsythefamilyfarms@gmail.com   

Halloween is right around the corner!!!

The excitement builds as Halloween is less than a week away.  Kids have been having a great time in the corn maze and pick your own pumpkin patch, barnyard adventure area.....

Finally the weather is co-operating.

This is our last weekend for our Harvest Festival and each day has a special event.  Saturday meet Sandra from Mom's Cookie Jar.  You've been enjoying their gingerbread cookies for years.  She is here Saturday to lead you through cookie decorating.  For a small charge you can choose and decorate your own cookie to take home... mmmmm  sweet memories

Sunday-  Join us as the Geissberger brothers press our apples into cider from 10 till 2.  Their process is bag in the box packaging where the cider keeps for a year, unrefrigerated and 3 months once you open it.  Their trailer has won the Ontario Innovation award and was also featured on Dragons Den.

Sample and you couldn't resist taking home the fruits of their labour.

Come on out and enjoy the farm.  We've got some delicious specials in our market,   The air is fresh and the view is beautiful.  A great way to relax.

Pumpkins, Apples, Food and Fun equals Fall

Fall is not only beautiful with the leaves changing colour, it is fun and delicious.  The colours are at their peek and driving down our lane takes you back to the beauty of the country.  Traffic and worries can be left behind.

The apple and pumpkin crops have been good this year.  The Mutsu and Fugi apples are now available, fresh picked, in our market making for over 7 varieties to choose from.  These two varieties are my favorites and well worth the wait.  The Mutsu also make a fantastic apple pie.

Time to stock up on Honeycrisp apples, we have them on special for $1.95/lb.  They are one of our most popular varieties - juicy and sweet.

Our Harvest Festival continues.  We've had great reviews about our home farm.  "It feels like a farm and is beautiful".  Enjoy time with family and friends.  Take a breath of fresh air and relax.

Come for some fun and good food!

Giving Thanks for the Harvest

Each season has it's own special crops that we look forward to with eager anticipation.  Nothing quite compares to the fall.  

The cooler weather stimulates our appetite and we look forward to cooking all our comfort foods once again.  The gleam is evident in children's eyes when they see the pumpkins in the patch and around the barns.  Decorating is so easy with all the colours found in the gourds, Indian corn, garden mums and squash.   

Who wouldn't like the fall. 

Our Thanksgiving holiday gives us the opportunity to reflect back on the year, to celebrate the successes and put the failures behind us.  It's an opportunity to gather with family and friends enjoying the many traditions developed over the years.  

Here on the farm, our traditions are helping us stay focused in our transition from Markham to Greenbank.  You'll find some changes but there is still a lot that is the same including most of our staff. We're working hard to keep the well loved activities and fit them in to new surroundings so familiar traditions will continue.  We've been told we're off to a good start.

The farm and countryside up here is really beautiful and relaxing.  We've got space and fresh air.   

Come for a visit.  We are open daily in October including Thanksgiving Monday.  

Check our Harvest Festival page for detailed information on our hours open and activities available.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Farm to Fork - This little piggy went to market...

Our pigs in the barn are for the kids to watch them grow and grow they did -  big enough to go to market. We've now got them back and in our market as bacon, sausage, hams, chops and roasts.  They were grain fed with no animal byproducts added as well as no added hormones or antibiotics.  Our sausage is also gluten free.  Just had some pork chops for dinner - yum.

We have fresh chickens raised by us as well out on pasture.  We start them as chicks as many of you have seen when you've come for a visit.  If you don't have a chance to come to the farm this weekend and pick them up fresh, dressed and ready to cook, you can find them in our freezers.

You would be impressed with their flavour.

Summer - Where has it gone?

This summer may have been not have been the warmest but for us it has been the fastest.  I don't wish time away, each year it just seems to be speeding up.  Now we are at Labour Day weekend and planning for the fall season.  Our Harvest Festival will be happening each weekend in October.  Our pumpkin crop is looking great.

Our farm is open Saturday, Sunday and Labour Day Monday.

Our corn maze opens this weekend, a tradition that goes back over 20 years.  Come and get lost.  The corn is at least 10 feet tall.  Wagon rides to our Fairy Tale Lane and Forest Trail will be available Labour Day Monday from 11 till 4

The cool and occasionally(like almost every Tuesday) wet summer days have been comfortable to work in and have had good and not so good effects on our crops.  It benefited our strawberry crop, extending it into late July but has destroyed our tomato crop - blight has turned our tomato plants black.  This happens on the first year we were planning our first annual Celebrate Tomatoes weekend, September 6th and 7th.  We won't have pick your own this year but we will still have some tomatoes, thanks to the southwestern Ontario weather being more co-operative.  Look for some of our favorite recipes using them.

Come on out for a visit.  There is always lot's of fun on the farm.  We are open weekends in September - Saturdays 9-5, Sundays 10-6, and this Labour Day Monday 9-5.

Admission Saturday and Sunday $3.50/person 2 years plus, Labour Day Monday $5.50 + HST includes the wagon ride and trails.

Celebrate Honey, Monday August 4th

Come enjoy our 3rd annual Celebrate Honey day on the farm.  Learn more about bees and the honey they make, and the beekeepers who manage it all.  Sample a selection of our honey, you can taste the difference.

We will have wagon rides available on Monday to our Fairy Tale Lane and Discovery Forest walk.  Visit the animals, play in the Barnyard Adventure area.  Relax, enjoy the view and the breeze.  It's cooler in the country.

Pick your own beans are available as well as fresh picked in our market.

Our farm is open this weekend Saturday, Sunday and Monday from 9-5.
Admission for activities
Saturday and Sunday $3.00/person 2 years plus
Monday $5.50 + HST/person 2 years plus (includes wagon ride and trail walk)

Summer Marches On

What a comfortable summer we have had.  The weather has helped immensely in extending our strawberry season.  Alas, all good things must end and we have now closed our pick your own strawberry fields.  The boys may have some at their farmers' market booths but they are starting to focus on other fruits.
We've been making jam with our frozen berries... a good way to continue to enjoy the berries. You can find it in our market.

Our farm will now be open weekends only except for booked groups and scheduled birthday parties.  We will reopen weekdays mid September.

Check out our website for more details on our Joy of Summer events page.

Strawberries, Peas and Chickens....

are still headliners at the farm.  Our crop of berries is still amazing and plentiful for picking and fresh picked as well.  Our late season berries are just starting to turn red so we may have another two weeks in the strawberry season.

Our second planting of peas is now ready for picking.  They are young and sweet.  I like them as a snack and they would be great in lunches.

You'll find a good supply of peas and strawberries in our market as well as at our booths at the farmers markets the boys attend.

Our first lot of free range, grain fed chickens are returning to the farm Friday dressed and ready for dinner.  They are whole roasting chickens and their flavour is fantastic, making for a great family meal.  I have a limited number available.

Strawberries and peas are fantastic

Our strawberry and pea crop is now abundant, picking is easy and the flavour is great.  We will be open daily with fresh picked and pick your own strawberries and peas.  We will have berries for the Tuesday, July 1st Canada Day holiday and will be open 9 - 5

Our activities are expanding, the tricycle track will be up and running this weekend.  Come on out for a nice relaxing time in the country.  

We've started to bake our pies and cookies.  This year we are making a cookie ice cream sandwich, mmmm...

Father's Day - Celebrate Family

Enjoy the best farms have to offer – good food, fresh air and time spent with family and friends.  Father’s Day is a great time to celebrate not only Dads but families.  Come walk our forest trail and be enchanted with our Fairy Tale Lane.  Our farm animals love visitors and are happy to show off their babies.

Our market will be open.  Fresh picked Ontario strawberries will be available along with home preserves, apple cider, honey, our own fresh eggs and more.  Our pies will be ready soon but sorry not this weekend,.  We're still working on our kitchen.

Family Day Admission $3.95 ages 2 years plus.  All parents have free admission when accompanied by their children.   Farm is open Sunday June 15th 9:30 till 5

Our pick your strawberry season will be starting soon.  Keep in touch for details.  Call 905-887-1087

Open House Victoria Day Monday and Auction Sale

The day is upon us and ready or not we will be open Victoria Day Monday 9 till 5.  Our auction sale begins at 10 am and has a mix of almost every category you can think of.  Combining 2 farms makes for a lot of extra stuff.

Time to Celebrate Spring and it looks like the weather is co-operating.  We'll have our farm animals to visit, wagon rides, crafts, cuddle corner and our market is open.  Sorry, no pies just yet as we have our kitchen still to work on.  We do have tarts and cookies. We haven't finished setting up all our fun stuff but it's coming.  Hot dogs and sausages will be available for lunch.

Interested in booking a school tour?  Myrna will be available to talk with you about our programs.

Check out the progress we've made and the beauty of the farm.  Our next big event will be Celebrating Family on Fathers Day.

Hope to see you Monday.

Our new spring lineup is complete!

They've all arrived; our farm babies are here.  School tours have started and the children are having a great time visiting the farm and animals.

The pigs arrived Wednesday and one has already acquired it's name, Scooter.  The last to get off the trailer, he just couldn't wait and he was off and running out the barn and around the fields.  Somewhat stressfull but funny to as we followed this wee little pig running around the fields. His foray into freedom ended succesfully for us anyway as we caught him.  He was glad to be reunited with his siblings.

So much for the pigs; in contrast, all the other animals seem sedate.  We have 2- week old Brown Swiss calves and bottle feeding will soon progress to bucket feeding as they learn to drink without the nipple.  The difference in size between them and the 3 calves, now steers as they are now a year old, is awesome.

Come on out for a visit to our open house and auction sale on Monday the 19th.  Check out what we've done and find out what is in the works.

Happy Easter

Easter is special to us, a time of faith, and hope.  We cherish our time with family in this season of renewal. May your Easter be blessed with family as well.

In the windows of opportunity that the weather is giving us we are slowly but surely getting everything moved up from Markham.  Our school tour instructors are in helping us to get ready for a new season.  School tours begin the first week in May.  Our forest trail is coming along nicely and will be a beautiful walk, a nice break from the hectic pace of everyday life.

We are also getting organized for our auction sale Monday May 19th, Victoria Day here at our home farm in Greenbank.  Blending the two farms has left us with excess equipment and supplies. This will be a good opportunity to see a farm auction as we are also having an open house.  Check out our progress.

We'll be working steady getting ready and will be officially open for the season with strawberries - pick your own and fresh picked.  You can find the boys at the farmers markets beginning in May.

We'll soon have our special events for the season posted on our website.  Sign up for our e newsletter so you can be notified of the details. In this year of transitioning our events will be the main times we are open although you are welcome to book school and camp tours and birthday parties.

Stay in touch.  We're just a little drive away for a whole lot of country!

 

Warmth and sunshine are the ingredients for a smile

It sure is easier to be happy when you have an amazing day like today.  The snowbanks are finally losing their battle and are succumbing to the inevitable spring melt.  We knew it would happen one day.
With the thaw we are able to bring up more of our outside buildings and equipment as they are released from the grip of winter.  The train, playhouse and puppet theatre have arrived home to Greenbank.  There is still more to do but these were definitely milestones and farmer Jim is starting to relax just a little bit.

Couscous, one of our goats you love is now a mom.  She had a bouncing baby boy Wednesday April 2nd and he is growing like a weed.  Oh the energy of youth.

We will have an auction sale here in Greenbank Victoria Day Monday May 19th.  Come and join us as we will also have an unofficial open house so you can see what we've been up to.  
          Our official opening for the season will be for strawberries approx mid June.

School tours begin the first week of May.  There are spaces still available.  This year we are beginning tours for the high school level.

We're organizing a calender of events for the season.  Stay tuned for complete details.  

                                        A little drive for a whole lot of country.

Spring - A time for optimism

The first full day of spring is living up to our expectations of warm, sunny weather with a fresh breeze blowing.  It is what keeps us optimistic that winter will eventually end.  It has been quite a roller coaster ride of temperatures this past winter and it doesn't look like that will stop with the predictions of snow for tonight.

Farmers are eternally optimistic.  They have to be as weather plays such a major role in their success. Signs of such optimism here on our farm include:

• On a cold day in February we ordered our seeds for the new season and we are adding some flowers to our mix of crops this year.  It's nice to have a small indulgence to pick up the spirits. 
• Dan has been organizing his CSA and is now open for member sign ups.  That to can be an exercise in optimism as you look out the window at the snow and ice.  What better way of saying yes to all this cold ending than to sign on for a summer full of fresh fruits and vegetables.
• The boys are registering for their farmers markets - they will start up in May
• We're booking tours for our school tour program which begins the first week of May.  We are consolidating our activities from the Markham farm into our Greenbank farm, enhancing what we have to offer here.  We've added a couple of nice warm rooms that will help us be more weather proof should the spring continue on the cold side.

Take a moment to listen for the birds singing, get out of the wind and feel the strengthening warmth of the sun on your face, look past all the dirty snow banks to see the grass beneath peeking through and enjoy the lengthening of the days.

Warm, sunny days will come again and winter will be left behind.  It happens every year.  After the winter we've had, spring and summer season will be that much more appreciated.

Cold Enough?

As with many of you we have felt the frost quakes, had difficulty starting cars and tractors and generally griped about the cold.  We've been working diligently in the market trying to keep the apples and the water pipes from freezing.
Our moving has been hampered with the cold weather as most things are frozen into the ground.  Let's hope for an extensive January thaw.

One benefit of this cold is the possible reduction in some of our non-native invasive insects.  Maybe this may be the temperature that will kill many overwintering in the soils and trees.

Thank you to everyone for your support, fond memories shared of time spent on the farm and your willingness to visit us in Greenbank.  I will soon be sending out our first e newsletter for all who have signed up.

You are welcome to drop into the market while we are packing up.  We will keep some apples including our honey crisp apples, on hand and our boxed cider along with our preserves and honey.  Please call ahead with any special orders for pies as we will only bake them upon request.  Variety is becoming limited as I am not renewing my inventory until after our move.  We will be answering the phone and checking messages, please call the market number at 905-887-1087.

We will also continue our school tour program in Greenbank.  To book a tour call 905-887-1086

Stay safe and warm.