Is farming a vocation?  A calling?  An occupation?  A l ifestyle?  Maybe all of these things?  What draws people to farming?  Is it the comforting assurance at the start of a day that you have more work ahead of you than you can manage?  Or is it the delicious anticipation that something will happen today that you had not expected?  Today, we head to Birch Bark Farm in pastoral Pasadena, which is a dandy backdrop to play around with some of these questions, and to chat about transitioning a backyard garden into a career.  Richard Butt shows us around his farm - we’re on a tour of fields, a forest glade, a caterpillar tunnel, a packing station, greenhouses – some completed, some under construction.  And all of this in the brisk air of an autumn afternoon in the Humber Valley.

By the way, it was a farmer who chose the name Pasadena for that community – naming it after a well-known California city.  Maybe it was in hopes that the agriculture would be equally prosperous in those two regions.  The thing is, in the other Pasadena, they get over 4,200 hours of sunshine per year.  In the NL Pasadena, the sun shines about 1,800 hours.  But don’t focus on that difference.  Rather, focus on the amazing things one can grow with just 1800 hours of sunlight!

Fit To Eat S2E26 Richard Butt

Inspired by the gonzo reporting of @owensoundlivearchive, Georgian Bay Roots walks you through one weekend of live music (plus some road tunes along the way) in this corner of the world.  

Friday night kicks off with a Thresher (Owen Sound) live show, a Saturday afternoon at Four Winds Festival's Emerging Artist Showcase means songs from Equal (Oshawa), Isla-Maria (Gravenhurst), Odd Marshall (Port Elgin), Jessie Corrigan and the Neustadt Sound and Taylor Abrahamse (Peterborough). 

 Road tunes back to the Scenic City are supplied by Natlak (Vancouver), fronted by former Summerfolk Youth Discovery winner Sterling Mackenzie, and The Apes Have Landed (Taiwan), an far flung outfit of Owen Sound, think Clock Strikes, expats.  Saturday night is Jazzmyn's with Larry Jensen and Pete Devlin and Sunday afternoon is wiled away with a Katie Gleiser recital of Debussy and Ravel masterworks, spoken for on today's show with a Ravel piece for piano and strings, performed by Sweetwater Festival performers Philip Chiu and Cameron Crozman. 

New tracks from Drew McIvor (Walter's Falls) and Bodies of Water (Meaford) ease you into Sunday evening and, hopefully, a great week.

Chapter 1 (A Road To Somewhere)

Georgian Bay Roots #393 April 28, 2024 (Tom)

If you live in the upper part of the Northern Hemisphere and you have any interest in growing things, this is a busy time of year for you.  And like me, you may be spending a lot of time in the potting shed, working on garden plans, mixing soil and amendments, nursing the tender shoots of your transpants, revising your earlier garden plans, and generally trying to balance the hopes and fears of the northern gardener.  So today on Routes & Branches & Beyond I have the first of a couple of shows of Music for the Potting Shed.  

You'll hear Welsh triple harp & pibgorn, percussive mariners, close New England harmonies, upstate New York history, reggae pioneers meet outlaw country, prairie roots meet Appalachian old-time, Saskatoon blues angels, St. John's rebels, and chamber folk from Daniel's Harbour.  From musicians such as Crasdant, Steve Knightley & Seth Lakeman & Jenna, Fairport Convention, Meridian, Joe Crookston, Ed Miller, Toots and the Maytals & Willie Nelson, Bill Bourne, Len O’Neill, Oh my darling, Patty Griffin, Suzie Vinnick, Suzie LeBlanc, and Ferintosh.  Pick up that trowel and join me.

Routes & Branches & Beyond show # 324 2024 05 02

can I cut your hair with goose breath

If you like music made in and played in Grey and Bruce counties, then, Friends -- you are going to *love* this week's edition of Georgian Bay Roots Radio. Picking up where Tom left off last week talking about local music, this week's show is almost exclusively featuring local musicians, with music from Youth Discoveries Finalists, information about upcoming shows you can get to AND a track to get you amped up for Summerfolk 49! Catch it all here. 

Featuring tracks by Amanda and the Paper Cranes, Jaret Koop, David Hartt, Martin Cooper, Bill Dickson, Deep Blue Honey, Garnet Rogers, Gordon Lightfoot, Dave Hawkins, Richard Ebbs, Bill Monahan, Bella Frances, Kevin Couch and Sandy Harron!

Georgian Bay Roots #394 May 5 2024 (with Kailey)

When I called this episode of Routes & Branches & Beyond "Music for the Potting Shed," I had a very ecumenical view of what your potting shed may look like.  It could be a ramshackle jumble of rotting boards in the far corner of the yard, or a closet in your basement, or an oddly-empty bit of your garage, or a sliver of space on your apartment balcony - it doesn't matter what it looks like, it is still a sacred space where life can be renewed.  And if you are unconvinced at calling a potting shed a sacred space, your soul is shrivelling up like a parched and frost-touched cucumber transplant.

So today I'll offer some thoughtful, and sometimes rather thought-free, music for your own potting shed, whether it be a physical space or an interior expanse.  I'll offer gravel walks, sentinel crows, June days, local barrel daredevils, big sky blues, Locaber dances, raven hair, Scottish passions, night advances, river crossings, lots of trees and even a wang dang doodle or two.  From musicians like Eileen Ivers, Quartette, Kyle Carey, The Sweet Goodbyes, Tamara Obrovac, Otis Spann, Koko Taylor, Finnigan’s Tongue, Steel Rail, Tony McManus, Harry Martin, Jez Lowe, Gordon Belsher, and Mark Fletcher.  Don't bother washing that sacred dirt off your hands, join me.

Routes & Branches & Beyond show # 325 2024 05 09

a con
a racket
a fool's idea
minus any
wisdom

Fit To Eat S2E26 Richard Butt

Ivan Emke

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