Spreading The Love

I'm done with feeling mopey. Turns out that when I wrote my last depressing post, I had a notifiable stomach bacteria which, I'm going to suggest, was impacting my mood. Not that it wasn't a true reflection of how we are feeling, but maybe those feelings were heightened. Anyway, a course of punishing antibiotics has helped kick my brain into gear for the forthcoming season. Business as usual. No, actually, business better than ever.

The last two years have been about hard work, resilience, sacrifice and grit. But this year is about creativity. 2016 is about more options for customers, more learning opportunities, and a greater reach without working ourselves into the ground. I made a rough calculation of the hours we worked on the farm & at our 'real' jobs during 2015. Ian and I collectively worked the equivalent of 5.5 full time positions. That is not sustainable, yet growth of the business remains an essential component. The commitment to hard work will continue but we will nurture new relationships to make it manageable. Take, for example, the sheep we have here now. These are not our sheep, this is someone else's project (headache/labour of love), it is being run in it's own entity but under the umbrella of Laurica Farm. We are looking for more entrepreneurs who want to run their own business that compliments the farms values here and for the benefit for the land and our customers.

We're working collaboratively with other farmers. Our beef was raised by a neighbouring farmer who has the same ideals about how livestock should be treated. We were able to pay that farmer a fair price for his product, cover our own costs for marketing and storing, etc. and offer our customers a reasonable price on top quality grass-fed beef. We are also linking with Glorious Organics Farm to offer Farm Camps and a couple of events. This helps us pool our resources and avoid duplication of effort.

Our tree house has been offered to two Yoga teachers to use as a studio, with a view of running joint ventures in the future. We've also traded pork to Todd who is coming to teach workshops in there. We'll continue to utilize the tree house as a resource for the farm. Another little project is creating a whimsical fairy garden in the tree grove, apparently people will volunteer to do things like that!

We don't have to do everything ourselves anymore, we are established enough to forge new links and mutually beneficial relationships. Now it's time to let others have the opportunity to flourish so our family can working on our existing relationships with each other.

Animal Antics!

One of my main motivations for writing this blog is the hope that one day our children will look back on it, remember & understand.  So for this post I want to focus on the livestock, which brings some comic moments.  It’s not that we don’t have anything else going on; we’re expanding our delivery service and opening our farm gates to the public next week.  It’s all very exciting, but it’s having the animals here, doing their thing, that makes it feel like a real farming venture. 

Let’s start with our new arrivals.  Last Friday night, Ian and I toiled in the dark to finish a homemade ‘cap’ for the truck.  We were quite pleased with our $160 lid as they cost thousands to buy new.  Of course, being homemade, it made us look like hillbillies!  Anyway, early Saturday morning we set off to go and collect the first four of our pedigree piglets.  We worked really hard to source heritage hogs rather go down the commercial route.  If you’re interested in the differences, here’s a small article that outline some of the reasons for this decision: http://www.mnn.com/food/healthy-eating/blogs/6-reasons-to-buy-heritage-pork-from-small-farms

We got them home and off the truck without incident and settled them in.  They were very nervous but appeared to like their new pasture.  They tested the electric fencing causing quite the cacophony, but no harm done, they learn fast.  We named them John, Paul, George and Ringo.

That night, Ian went out at about 10.00pm to check on them.  He came running back into the house exclaiming that the pigs had gone!  Now I tend to be far less reactive than Ian when it comes to the animals but perhaps my “gone where?” question was a little daft, even by my standards.  So off we went with flashlights to traipse around an acre of chest high grass in the dark.  Nothing.  It was starting to look like our four heritage pigs that we had paid for that day had indeed gone. 

Ian and I met back at the pig house in despair.  It was at that moment we heard a faint snuffling noise.  Relief flooded over us.  We heard them, but where were they?  Further investigation revealed that they had tunneled underneath their piggy mansion and decided to make their bedroom underneath the structure intended for them. Pests! 

Underneath the house is where they choose to stay.  I call them 'the troglodytes'.  Seriously, why rent the basement suite when the mansion above is vacant?

The baby chicks have moved into the big girls’ hen house.  They’ve settled in now but were rather upset by this move at first.  Being free-range, the chickens go where they please during the day.  The babies were adamant that they were going to move back to their cozy nursery.  As the nursery is all closed up now, they persistently got lost.  Off we would go again, trawling the field in the dark looking for the chicks.  We usually found them snuggled into the sheep, apparently not quite ready to give up the comforts of a Mothers love.  This made for some late nights and I hate walking through that snake infested field at night, but at least the animals are giving me plenty of opportunity to become adept at it!

Let’s talk about the sheep.  Sheep must be one of the easiest livestock to look after.  All I do is change their water once a week.  Other than that I barely see them in all that long grass.  However, the oldest lamb is a ram and is getting a bit above his station.  He’s been testing us recently by threatening to butt us every time we go to check on them.

Last Friday, a delivery driver left the farm gate open unbeknown to me and I hadn’t properly shut their field gate.  Chaos ensued.  I wrote a brief Facebook status about this incident but it didn’t fully capture the comedy of the situation. Let me fill in the gaps.

I had come into the house to do some baking.  As I put 9 layers of cake batter into the oven I caught a glimpse of four fluffy sheep bottoms disappearing out of the farm gate.  Off I went, panicking.  There was no real need to fly into a blind panic; our farm is at the end of a single track road so very little risk of them causing a multi-car pile-up.  As I got down to the end of the drive, they were happily munching on the roadside foliage.  But, because the road is so narrow, I couldn’t get passed them to usher them back towards the farm and they were ignoring my food offerings and bribes to follow me back to the farm.  Every time I tried to get past them, I just frightened them further away from the farm and towards 256^th Street.  256^th Street is not a major carriageway, this is rural Langley, but the cars do come along there quite fast and there are a lot of trucks delivering feed to the many farms around here, so as they trotted out onto this road, I was quite worried.  Luckily for me a kind man stopped to help me.  He introduced himself as Farmer Rob.  I’m not sure if he was Christened Farmer Rob but that’s exactly what I called him.

I feel it’s relevant to tell you what Farmer Rob looked like at this point.  Contrary to what I told Ian, Farmer Rob can only be described as a bronzed Adonis.  He was beautiful in a masculine, country kind of way.  Approximately 30 years old.  In any other circumstance, I would have found this meeting very pleasing.  While I drawled over Farmer Rob, the sheep continued to refuse to comply and it was almost 30 minutes later that we got them back into their field.

As I turned around to shut the gate, Farmer Rob bid me farewell (sigh).  I raised my hand to wave and shouted “bye Farmer Ro….”.  I didn’t get to finish the word “Rob” because the ram butted me.  Right on my bum!  He put so much effort into butting me that he sent me flying onto my face…in the mud….and the sheep poop.  I lifted my head from my disgraced position to see Beautiful Farmer Rob, still with his hand in the air, mid-wave, staring at me with his mouth open in disbelief.  For some reason, I decided to remain aloof about my predicament and uttered “Thanks again Farmer Rob, bye”.  With that, he shook his head and left.  It was all very Bridget Jones and highly embarrassing.  I shall never forgive that sheep for my humiliation and will feel avenged every time I put part of him into my oven.

During this episode, my nine cakes had burned to a crisp!

As I said earlier, it’s the animals that make this feel like a farm.  It’s also the animals that keep us humble and remind us of our naivety.  Time for us to work on our animal smarts before we can really call ourselves Farmers.

It'll be alright on the night.

I just don’t know how to tell you how fantastic I’m feeling today.  But before I go into that, my lovely husband is insisting I blog about my recent tantrum.  It’s kind of a confession.

Last week I blogged about being desensitized to all the bugs and animals that share this plot of land with us.  I really made it sound like I was doing ok.  Sadly, I was writing that post just before my hangover kicked in.  About an hour later, the nausea and headache started to mount while we were out on the farm building.  Things weren’t going well, every time I started a job something happened to stop me.  Ian tried to get me to finish painting the entrance and put me on a scaffold tower to do it.  Fear and alcohol excess reduced me to a quivering, sweating wreck clinging to the top of the scaffold as if I’d been tasked with crossing Niagara Falls on a wire.  Pathetic!  I was walking back up the drive to confess my failings to Ian when I stood on a snake.  In its bid to escape it slithered over my foot.  I had flip flops on.  We had physical, skin to skin contact.  That was it, the straw that broke the donkeys back.  I burst into tears and stormed off to the house and went to bed.  I barricaded the door to stop anyone coming in, but actually no one even noticed I was missing which made things worse.  So there I stayed for 3 hours, first sulking and then sleeping it off.  I sincerely hope this was a hangover induced episode and not the first cracks beginning to show.  Anyway, the entrance is finished now and looks pretty good.

It’s Monday morning as I write this post and Saturday was the big Housewarming party.  Ian took the week off work to finish jobs and prepare for the party.  But this is Ian so nothing is ever simple.  As well as finishing jobs, he decided to knock down the old but perfectly sufficient extension on the barn…on Thursday!!!  I nearly lost my mind and had to engage in some high drama protests of “don’t you know there are 100 people coming here in 2 days”, complete with over exaggerated hand gestures, foot stomping, eye rolling and hands on hips stance.  But amazingly he not only knocked it down but rebuilt another one.  I’m used to his skills as a carpenter and his ability to work at lightning speed, but even I was impressed with what he achieved.  Obviously not so impressed that I’m motivated to apologise for my eye rolling and other condescending behaviours.

Friday came and we shopped and worked until late, finally falling asleep about midnight.  I dreamt that someone had cancelled the party while we were sleeping and at 4am sat up in bed and shouted “Ian, get the band to come back”.  That was enough to wake us up completely and so we set to work again.  Good job we did because we only just got things ready on time.  Needless to say, things go wrong when you’re under pressure, not least the compost heap spontaneously combusting about an hour before the party.  I can now add ‘firefighting skills’ to my résumé.

Guests started to arrive at 4pm.  I was so happy with how the place looked; the hard work had really paid off.  Not only that, but the food looked awesome.  My friends Jenessa and Kirstin had supported me by bringing platters, salads and homemade marshmallows and our neighbours, Glorious Organics, had provided a wonderful salad with edible flowers.  Ian had doubled the size of our Texas BBQ which created quite the impression.  But most the most exciting thing was the live band setting up in the barn!

Glorious Organics Celebration Salad

The atmosphere was that of an English village fete.  The band was amazing.  They are local guys called The NewAtlas.  I’d left the set list up to them and they managed to please everyone here.  Check them out if you get the chance.  They are playing the local circuit and have a gig coming up in Vancouver soon as well as an album in the works.

The New Atlas

Later on as night approached we lit the place up.  We’d put fairy lights up and made lanterns from Mason jars.  My friend Monique had supplied tea lights from Party Lite and so to add to the effect, we had wonderful scents coming from the candles.  It truly felt magical.  And of course people naturally gravitated towards the Tiki hut and sat around the fire pit.  The Tiki hut was an absolute hit and worked superbly.  The smoke went out through the octagonal chimney that Ian built and the warmth of the fire was kept in.  Just take a moment to imagine it….it’s dark, we’re sitting around a fire, there’s candles twinkling in the trees and white fairy lights overhead and creamy marshmallows being passed around.  The music was playing, the drink was flowing and ‘Sweet Caroline’ was being massacred thanks to an impromptu sing along.  Neil Diamond may have been mortified if he’d been there, but I was as happy as I’ve ever been.

Plans are in progress for a music festival next summer!

Cast aside all your preconceptions of homesteaders and farming ye who enter here.  This is what country living is about.

BBQ made from 2 oil drums - total cost $80

Desserts...mmmmmmm

Setting up

Last minute barn extension 

Hell yeah!

Some revelers enjoying the band

Lining up at the BBQ

Inside the Tiki bar!

The (current) plan

Bigger, better and far more fun.

This is week has been incredibly busy but very rewarding.  Firstly, Chickingham Palace is finished and looking very retro.  After we got the structure and chicken run up and painted we had to go begging for some cladding for their double insulated house.  I sent my friend Kirstin, whose husband Bruce works for a roofing company, a begging text.  Now this is the one thing I find difficult, making ‘the ask’.  Asking people for anything makes me squirm, and so after typing the specifics of what we needed in the text, I ended it with “SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL FARMER”.  It worked!  We have corrugated cladding on our chicken coop at no cost.  This will now be my default line whenever I need anything.  Surely this technique of playing on people’s emotions is classed as psychological warfare?

The next big project is well underway.  Obviously we have prioritized, sort of.  There are many things we need to do.  We need to build an animal shelter, the barn needs remedial work, there are shelves to be built and land to be tilled.  However, all these tasks have come second to Ian building what is essentially a grown-up swing set.  I showed Ian this picture from the Internet:

Now we have one, almost.  But this is Ian Finley; ours has to be bigger and better.  Ours is hexagonal and will have hammocks as well as swinging benches.  The fire pit will not be a commercial, purchased one but rather hand made from reclaimed rock.  It is filled with reclaimed gravel, built with reclaimed timbers and crafted with love and alcohol.  We will have more seating than friends.

Talking of friends, this week has been a time for valuing existing friends (again) and making new ones.  I went to meet the neighbours behind us.  We knew they had some sort of growing operation and spotted a sign saying that they were open to the public on Sundays, so in I went.  How absolutely wonderful their enterprise, Glorious Organics, is!  Not only was I welcomed enthusiastically by “oh, you’re the people with THE chicken coop” but I was introduced to their cooperative and given unusual fruits, veggies and flowers to sample.  I left with an Ikea bag full of organic yumminess for $20 and an inflated ego knowing that our chicken coop was a thing of legend.

This weekend was a holiday weekend and we received offers of help from our friends.  I found it amazing that people wanted to give up free time to come and help us.  On Sunday afternoon, three couples plus kids arrived at Farmagddon to paint and construct.  It felt sooooooo gooooooooooooood.  Not only was this saving us time and effort but people were willingly investing their time in this little project of ours.  My heart swelled to see our friends sweating in the hot sun and covered in paint, cuts, bruises and mosquito bites.  Thank you to Martin, Erica, Shenade, Kyle, Travis and Kyla.  In exchange for services rendered we lit Ian’s homemade Texas BBQ (an oil drum cut in half, put on a stand and filled with charcoal) and served up homemade Alpaca burgers (the Alpaca farm is just a couple of blocks away) with bread baked in the Otter Co-op and organic salad and edible flowers from the field right behind us.

I also want to talk about growing, the thing we came here to do believe it or not.  Occasionally, but not very often, I get to talk to Ian, you know, when I’m holding something he’s nailing together or we’re washing paint brushes together.  The topic of conversation recently has been what and where to grow.  We know we want an orchard at the back right section of the land.  This will be netted at the top to protect from birds and other fruit stealing critters.  The bee hives will be here too for effective pollination.  I’m going to plant wild flower seeds in the orchard to make it beautiful.  The Royal Hens, Elizabeth, Victoria, Anne, Eugene, Beatrice and Georgia, of Chickingham Palace will be able to roam in the orchard during the day to forage and provide natural fertilizers.  The location is also near to the barn which will someday double as a brew house and kitchen….think craft cider and jams.

The veggies are presenting more of a challenge to our marital harmony, where to put them and what to plant changes daily.  Our continued discussions are largely irrelevant really.  We need to do some tests on the soil here to assess for nutrients and PH levels.  As far as we know the land has never been used for growing but it is quite sandy in places and very stony everywhere.  There is also noticeable differences in the soil in various places.  We can argue about the virtues of the back left section vs. the front paddock all we like but it is these tests that will determine the outcome.  In the meantime, I’m putting a few broad beans in a pot outside the back door as a gesture towards self-sufficiency.  Maybe when we have a swing set to swing on and our creativity is warmed by a hand crafted fire pit we’ll be able to make better decisions????!!!