In an effort to recreate the life of the early French inhabitants (Creole) of Wisconsin, and paralleling my family's gardening interests, I have focused some time and attention to the agricultural practices and crops of the French-Canadians and Indians of the Western Great Lakes.
Note: For updates on the gardens and our animals, check out the updates that I will be putting on my blog
Above: A collage of images from the gardens in their midsummer glory...2009
Below: A collage of images from late summer and fall 2009
Some of the above include Mohawk popcorn, Seneca flint corn, watermelons, Hard-neck garlic, red onions, Musselburough Leeks, d'Anvers Carrots, Connecticut Field pumpkins, Lakota squash, summer squash, red potatoes, Ailsa Craig (yellow) onions, and cayenne peppers.
Top photo: R.-L. Ojibwe multi-colored flint kernels, the same corn made into hominy and dried, the same hominy cooked.
Bottom photo: Same as the top only made from a Seneca white flint corn
Oh yes... and we have chickens now too. Our chicken endevors started in mid-July, 2008. I butchered most that Fall but kept eight for laying (7 hens and a rooster). By December we were getting 6 eggs a day.
Due to an accident with a lab dog, we were reduced down to 5 hens and are getting 5 eggs a day during the Spring of 2009. In early June we received a shipment of 25 meat bird chicks and 13 layer chicks.
Meat birds are butchered, and laying chicks were raised and moved in with the other layers and the rooster. We are working on establishing a laying flock that is somewhat indicative of a small flock that you would have seen in Wisconsin ca. 1800.
And... we can't forget the family's favorite mutt, Jolie. She is a husky cross that we rescued as a pup. Speaking of phenotype, she looks much like the Indian and French-Canadian dogs in the paintings of Krieghoff (details of which are shown right and left). She has been trained to pull toboggan and cart.
