The Accidental FarmerLearning how to farm on the fly

Crude, but effective.

This year we went from growing food for ourselves with a bit left over to growing food largely for others.

After honing our skills for several years we made the jump and upped production of hogs, chickens and turkeys. It was not without its challenges but we pulled it off. Twelve pigs, 17 turkeys, 100 chickens and 10 lambs kept us busy for much of the spring, summer and fall.

Now that it’s almost over, looking back on the year gives us much to be thankful for. In no particular order, here are the highlights from our year of farming.

1. We had 10 lambs born in February, 8 of them premature. I spent days living in the barn but managed to save all the lambs and ewes. It felt harsh then but feels good now.
2. We were given a Maremma guardian dog that proved to be a handful. She ate 2 chickens in her first 2 weeks and wanted to play with the sheep instead of guard them. A firm hand and consistent treatment has brought her around.
3. We learned a lot growing 12 hogs to market weight. The most important thing we learned is that we can do it.
4. Meeting other farmers and exchanging help, information and supplies has helped us feel like we don’t have to learn everything by making mistakes, but still make them. A phone call to the right person can save hours of frustration and anguish.
5. Deciding to make the jump and apply for farm status and a farm slaughter license so we can legally sell our meat and not have to worry about a knock at the door. We’ll be able to openly sell our products instead of doing it on the down low.
6. 

   Blackie with Dave Good inspecting our work, post surgery.

   Random acts of kindness; the gal who showed up with a bag full of sutures, scalpels, freezing and syringes when we really needed them and came to the barn to give advice like a seasoned professional; the guy who picked up our pigs from Alberta and would only accept gas money for his troubles; the vet who answers his phone while on his sail boat and dispenses timely advice; friends and neighbours like Bob Crutch and Dave Good who arrive to help at a moment’s notice when all hell breaks loose.

7. Our ewe, Blackie, who was attacked by two dogs, is a week from being let out of the barn which is truly amazing. We figured she was dead but never gave up on her.
8. My veterinary skills have improved. When Blackie got attacked, I learned how to suture. I may not meet the standards of the Veterinary College but made it work.
9. Our new chicken coop is finally completed and our layers are in. It has been a long haul but our gals are out of their cold, dark, disease infested coop and into the lap of luxury.
10. Coming to the realization that we need help and can’t be all things to all animals, fruits and vegetables. Next year will see the construction of a small residence on the farm for farm help. I missed Taj Mahal this year when I had tickets because we couldn’t find farm help. When everyone left me home to go see the show, I thought long and hard about whether I wanted to be a farmer.

It hasn’t been an easy year but with what we’ve learned, we’re looking forward to an even more productive year in 2012.

I wish a Happy New Year to all the inthekoots members, staffers, bloggers, lurkers and anyone who calls themselves a farmer. May your New Year bring new challenges and help you learn things you never thought you needed to know.

It started in early May.

After laying out the footings, I promptly buried my bobcat to within an inch of its life trying to dig them. Apparently, it was too wet.

It was a source of some aggravation and a sore spot until it was pulled out. Looking at it made me grumpy. Really grumpy.

It took a month before I lined up a large excavator parked down the road to come do the deed and finish the digging properly. Others with smaller machines offered to help but I envisioned something like the old woman who swallowed a fly with a line of successively bigger equipment buried in the mud.

Once the holes were dug, it was still too wet to pour footings so things sat for another month.

In July, the footings got poured and the framing began.

Automatic Chicken Door

In early summer, I wore gum boots and a rain slicker. In late summer and early fall it was jeans, t-shirt and straw hat. In winter, fleece tights, multiple layers, down coat and warm woolly hat.

It was supposed to be done by the end of September and then October and I couldn’t stand to see it run into the New Year. I hit the ground running in late November and blew out my back picking up a coffee cup. Three weeks passed before I could move like a normal human.

On December 19^th , my birthday, Dave Good came and helped me celebrate by priming the inside of the coop. Us farmers know how to party.

Over Christmas, my brother-in-law Duncan became an unwitting accomplice. On Christmas Eve Day, we painted. On Christmas day, we finished the wiring. On Boxing Day, we put down the lino and the following day, the entrance ramp, roosting stand and automatic door. We moved feed, water, laying boxes and finally, chickens.

Rebar roosts

I fear I may have overdone it but my tendency as the builder is to look towards its deficiencies, things I might improve. It still lacks a sound system, high speed internet, motion and light activated sensors, and live video feed.

Next I need to remove the steel roofing from the old coop and burn it down. Beyond being deeply satisfying on a personal level, we can’t have our hens running back to their slummy roots at first chance. Old habits die hard.

I get a 3 month reprieve from coop matters until next spring when I get to finish the other half. Granted, the foundation and floor assembly are in and it will be un-insulated with minimal wiring but still.

The remaining section will be used for meat chicken and turkey production in the summer and fall and needs to be done by late spring. The structure also needs permanent water and power which will go in next summer or fall along with cedar shingles for siding that have been taking up space in the hay loft for far too long.

It needs some tweaking but the birds are in and I can do something else with my spare time.

It’s time for some winter projects. Things like applications for slaughter licenses, farm status, farm identity card and farm plates for our farm vehicles.

At the top of the list of projects is rewarding the farmer and for this farmer, it means loading my sled, tying on my skis and heading for the hills.

A fellow inthekoots member, Don Carmichael, sent me a link that is one of the best I’ve seen in terms of addressing what it takes to buy meat from local farmers. Don is the local Core Strength Guy and a supporter of local meat farmers.

A farmer visited every two hours to make sure this lamb and her mother were healthy and cared for.

When I go to the supermarket and look at meat prices, I damn near shit myself. Good local meat is much cheaper, raised in a natural environment and free of antibiotics, steroids and other drugs. You get to meet the person who raised your animal, crusty as they may be.

As a meat farmer, I still buy meat from others. We haven’t raised cattle for 2 years so I usually buy a whole cow and sell off the half or quarters I don’t need. This year I bought and sold 3 cows from a local farmer. I didn’t make money on it, as it was shared with friends, but my relationship with that farmer is bombproof. He had several people back out after the animals were slaughtered and needed to sell them quickly. Amongst farmers, it’s often not about the money. It’s about sharing and helping out.

If you’re buying local meat, sharing is a great way to buy without purchasing a whole animal. Sharing 3 cows (2400 pounds) between 9 families cost us $2.65 plus a $0.60 cut and wrap fee per pound.

Our animals eat right and you can too.

We had a beautiful 4 pound prime rib roast last Sunday night that cost us $13. We have a bunch of ground meat we paid the same amount for. When you understand how an animal carcass is cut, you learn what you like and don’t like. Anything we don’t like, we have turned into ground or sausage. Sausage costs an extra $1.75 per pound but is worth every cent.

Melissa McEwan produced a great slide show called Meatshare that covers the nitty gritty of buying local meat in a pragmatic and down to earth way. While she is from the USA, her presentation is just as relevant in Canada.

If you are interested in purchasing local meat but have no idea what is involved, I encourage you to view her piece.

http://www.slideshare.net/mgmcewen/meatshare

Thanks, Don.

Four market weight pigs are worth between 3200 and 3600 dollars.

I recently applied for farm status with BC Assessment in Nelson.

Had I known it only took $2500 in gross sales to qualify, I may have applied sooner. Farmer friends tell me there are other benefits beyond the break in taxes you receive. I hadn’t considered the benefits they’ve mentioned but it made me think.

If you farm anything and can up your production to sell $2500 worth of product, it’s something worth considering.

Let’s say you already raise meat birds for yourself. If you raise 100 for sale, you would qualify for farm status. If you only need one pig, raise 5 to market weight and you qualify. Raise 40 turkeys, sell 35 and you qualify.

You get the idea.

The form can seem complicated if you don’t have Government as a second language. My first attempt was a failure as was my second. Who knows what goes where? Do they want my mailing address or my physical address? Which numbers are my role numbers?

I decide to print a clean application and head to BC Assessment in Nelson. They are beside the remains of the Kerr Apartments (RIP) and easy to find.

When I arrive, I show Arwen my second failed attempt and get some guidance. She is very helpful, gives me the goods, and shows me a desk where I can fill out my application. If I need any help, I’m instructed to ask. This beats the hell out of submitting a flawed application. It seems easy and I’m glad I asked for advice.

Other farmers tell me their taxes dropped to a few hundred dollars but I won’t get that number until January of next year if we qualify. It seems too good to be true. I paid 3 grand this year with my home owners grant so I’m skeptical.

Click on the image to open a PDF version of the application.

They do come by and check so bullshit applications are discouraged. You don’t have to wear suspenders, gumboots and a straw hat, you just have to show that you are raising or growing what you sell.

It’s not rocket science. It’s bureaucracy.

If we happen to lose money, we can write it off against our incomes from other sources; a little tip from my friend Brian. He also raises livestock for sale.

I have many questions for a good accountant.

Farming isn’t for everyone but is worth considering for many rural residents. You don’t need 50 acres to farm. Two or three will do.

If you’re looking for property or struggle with one you already own, think of farming as sweat equity and use any savings or profit to pay down your mortgage, add farm buildings or fix up your shack. If you have no skills or affinity, you likely know that. If it tempts you and you don’t mind working hard, you know you can acquire the skills.

The deadline for applications is October 31 of each year to receive status the following year so don’t drag your heals if it’s something that might work for you.

Click here to download your own form.

BC Assessment Fact Sheet, “Classifying Farm Land” 

BC Ministry of Agriculture FAQ

The last week of August, I smelled fall in the air. I didn’t exactly panic but I’ve found myself putting off other activities to wrap up projects that are incomplete.

I always like visitors at the farm but now, I’m likely to hand them a shovel, bucket or knife and show them the finer points of feeding, caring for or humanely killing a mixed herd of animals. If they have carpentry skills, I lock the gate behind them.

The new poultry coop is our biggest priority at the moment.

The tired old coop.

The old one is too cold or hot, lice and mice infested and an eyesore while being impossible to clean. Birds roost overhead and crap on you when you have to feed and water them after dark. Our layers stop laying for a month largely because they’re freezing their asses off and live in a shithole.  It’s built on treated posts that are all going into the clay at different rates. I have fantasies about blowing it up.

As well, we now raise 3 different types of birds in 3 different areas and the idea is to consolidate all poultry to one location with feed and equipment storage included. Each type of bird will have their own coop and run. So far it has consumed about 3 grand, 6 weekends and a bunch of midweek days. It also occupies my mind as I try to sleep. How will I build the ultimate, easy-clean coop? Once you’ve spent 3 grand, you might as well make it nice. I may have to move in one day. The chickens won’t likely appreciate it but Rachel and I will. We hate getting shit on.

As well, we have 7 pigs, 8 lambs and 14 turkeys to slaughter in the next month. The barn still needs cleaning after the 100 meat birds we raised in half of it and slaughtered 3 weeks ago. I need to move 6 cords of firewood into the wood shed and this summer’s compost/manure to the garden and till it in.

I need to do some fall clean up and seeding of new areas to bring them into pasture. Most of the new areas are hillside. It takes time and must be done by hand but we need extra pasture and the area is already fenced in. We spent 2 grand and many hours on those 3 acres 2 years ago.

The new "Mega-Coop"

When the new layer coop is done, I have to burn down the old one and clean up the mess. Then I get to replace and repair fencing in the coop area. The electric fencing in the coop area needs fixing but that will have to wait for spring. It doesn’t work well in winter anyhow.

We also need a nice fire pit to huddle around on beautiful fall evenings and I’ll likely pour the concrete slab for that when I do the slab for the chicken coop stairs. My knees hate the 2 foot climb onto the deck so that will happen soon.

The meat bird and turkey portions of the coop will wait until next year. The footings and floor assembly are in and I may get the framing up this fall, but that’s all.

I have an office space to tape, mud, paint and finish but that will likely wait until after snow is on the ground.

It’s an inside job.

Nice Pig

My recent foray into farming more than 2 pigs has put me on the warpath for food waste, preferably vegetables and fruit.

I stopped by many businesses this week to ask for food waste and what I found was interesting.

The larger the business, the more likely it is to landfill food waste.

Those large businesses come up with an amazing list of reasons why they are not willing to make the effort. Most involve liability but some involve people taking lettuce and feeding it to deer when they said they were feeding it to pigs. The Conservation Office arrives and spanks the produce manager at this facility so he is less keen to help which is understandable given he was trying to do the right thing.

Here is a summary of businesses I have visited and their responses.

Slocan Valley Coop is with the program and willingly saves waste food aside for those who want it. Because they are a small, efficient business, they do not produce much waste.

Safeway, Castlegar, Nelson and Trail, all send their food waste to the landfill. They generally state liability concerns as the reason but the Assistant Manager in Nelson talked about a Corporate Responsibility Program and said that in larger centers, Safeway gives it to a third party who takes care of it. Nothing like this exists in the interior of BC and while these stores contribute to our communities in many ways, they still landfill all food waste at considerable cost to themselves and the environment.

Save On Foods in Nelson was the same as Safeway excepting the assistant manager didn’t stand and talk with me for 20 minutes nor was I offered any way to comment or contact anyone as I was at Safeway.

The Kootenay Market in Castlegar did give me some old produce but told me the story about the Conservation Officer and several folks who started fighting over the compost. The produce manager was not terribly keen and stated the owner had a policy of not giving out food waste, largely as a result of this static and honestly, can you blame him?

Evergreen in Crescent Valley likely has the best program. They put it all out and people come and get it. First come, first served. Rules for taking compost are clearly posted and because they have been at it for so long, there is rarely anything left as regulars know when to pick up.

The Kootenay Coop in Nelson has a great program also, on par with Evergreen, but like most small businesses, they produce little waste given the volume of product they sell.

I should mention that my survey is very random and spotty to date.

Staff working in the trenches at all stores were sympathetic or apologetic if they were not able to give out waste. At large chains, these folks see the full impact of corporate policy at a local level. They would love to do the right thing but are bound by policy. Some are willing to point to the waste and go for coffee but many are 5 years into a 25 year mortgage with kids and debts and can’t risk losing their jobs over a ton of food waste.

Next time you visit one of the large businesses who landfill food waste, why not take 5 minutes and fill out a comment card or speak with the manager? If they don’t know it is an issue, how can they respond?

Exciting news on the farm!

We’re applying for farm status.

At the moment, we are gearing up for 12 pigs, 100 meat chickens, 25 turkeys that are all arriving Wednesday. We already have 10 lambs, 40 active layers, 65 new heritage layers and 18 mixed sex Silkies we hope to raise chicks from. I’m feeling a bit stunned at the moment. We’ve been bleeding cash for about a month and getting through the next two months will involve some creative financing.

As my father is fond of saying, “You’re better to ask for forgiveness than permission, some of the time.”

Doohhh! It never hurts to ask.

The new poultry abattoir that is projected to open this summer in Passmore has helped spur us on.  We will run some of our meat chickens through that abattoir but are likely to do our turkeys at the farm as the new facility has set a size limit of 30 pounds. We rarely have a turkey less than 30 pounds and the $4-5 per animal will raise the cost from $20 to $25/ per bird (for chickens, more for turkeys), on average, if you wish to purchase a government approved bird and see any value in that.

If you are willing to sign an agreement that says you are purchasing it as dog food, we will slaughter the chickens ourselves and sell them to you at a reduced cost.

The pigs are being sold for $120, our initial cost, minus the freezer full of feed we purchased 3 weeks ago. We will charge you to raise your pig and give you a receipt for it when we get your 120 beans.

If you wish to come and slaughter and cut your pig yourself, you are more than welcome to do so or take it to the meat cutter of your choosing. It all costs money and if you want to come and do the dirty work and take care of the carcass, guts, cutting, etc., you save yourself $50 and about $1 a pound, otherwise your pig is worth $3 a pound, hanging weight, cut and wrapped. If you want hams and bacon, you need to work that out with the meat cutter you choose as that costs extra.

Why waste food when you can feed your pig?

If you purchase a pig, you are expected to bring your compost and canvass all your friends and families who may own restaurants and businesses that throw out food. You dump it in a large bin on the side of the road and I feed it to the pigs.

We take all our own meat to Kozianciks in Crescent Valley because the quality of the finished product is the best I have ever tasted. The bacon and hams are unbelievable (not exaggerating here folks) and the sausage and cured meats are amazing. Everyone raves about Legendary Meats but these folks put out the best product I have ever tasted.

This is an experiment. I’ll be quite open about that. How it will all work out in the end will likely be interesting, to say the least. The only goals I have are to not lose money and cover my costs and time.

I should probably charge a little extra as these pigs will be raised with love, baby, and that matters.

I'm open to suggestions

I spoke with my friend Kevin Sutherland this morning at 7:20 after he and I had voted. (If you didn’t vote, leave your name and number and I will spank you personally.) He suggested taking some fallow land and planting a combination of early Russetts and some later white spuds in rows with clover between. If you use portable fencing, you can use this to feed your hogs without purchasing much feed after 6 weeks of age if you have planned ahead which we have not. Another friend suggested sugar beats and artichokes. Even if this batch of pigs does not eat it, winter pigs will.

I struggle each day trying to figure out how we will pull this off. We are planning on a second round of meat chickens and I am pushing for 200 and a possible third round. I’d like to do some winter pigs.

Rachel thinks I’m crazy.

If you have any bright ideas, advice or comments, I would love to hear from you.

We are fortunate to live where we do in the Slocan Valley. We are snow free earlier than all our neighbours and most homes within 5 km. When everyone else’s driveway is a mudpit, ours is dry as a bone and the grass is busting out. Facing due south has its advantages. We still have a mudpit, it just happens earlier.

This means I need to get planning. I’ve been thinking about it all winter but there’s nothing on paper, so it may qualify as daydreaming or wishful thinking.

Click the image to download the PDFs - "Seven Steps to Managing Your Weeds" and "Guide to Weeds in BC"

We know we need to over seed some areas and deal with our weeds. We had a great visit from Crystal Klym and I need to solidify our weed plan. Hawkweed is our biggest issue and I don’t want to use a herbicide, even a short acting one, to solve this problem. I am going to experiment with removing 6” of soil with Bob, tilling and seeding. If this method works, I will have a substantial amount of soil to deal with.

We fenced and partially cleared several acres two years ago and there is still a lot of brushing, hand piling, burning and seeding left to do. I can only operate a machine on a small portion, so it is a hand job.

Because it has been such a difficult year for elk and ungulates in general, I have a bunch of fence to fix. Towards the end of May last year, a young ram broke out of his holding pasture and we had lambs in November as a result. Definitely need to fix that fence.  Then I need to walk the fence lines and see what other work I need to do. Fencing is a farmer’s curse, particularly if you want to keep large animals in, or out.

November's lamb getting his scratch. If he doesn't get it, he punts you in the leg with his head.

Our chicken coop sucks. The previous owners built an albatross for their pigeons that we have milked for our chickens, but we would like to take off the steel cladding and roofing, toss a bomb in it, and start over. We envision a slab foundation that will be able to house our layers, meat chickens and turkeys with space for storing feed as we now pack it from the barn.

Our garden, which is the size of a city lot, needs a storage/potting structure so we don’t have to store things in the barn, miles away. I have extra roofing and two lifts of 2X6 ready. I need to figure out what to build and where to put it.

The ewes are all big as pumpkins and don’t move far from the feed area. The barn pens are ready for them with straw on the floor and they’ll get moved inside in a week or so. Soon we will have a barn full of cute lambs. Whenever I go to the barn, I touch Grandma and ask the sheep gods for two girls. We think this may be her last winter and she has only ever produced boys on our farm.

Hatching our own layers. The holes have been filled with a stash of cool round eggs we found today.

We had some sure signs of approaching spring on the farm this week. The Mountain Goats are back above our place today, the frost is coming out of the driveway and there is an incubator full of eggs humming away in the basement.

As I was about to hit publish on this post, I was informed we are getting 50-100 heritage breed laying hens and some breeding turkeys as well.

No more lazy sleep-ins on the farm.

Winters are a bit slow on the farm, salted with brief flurries of activity.

As I lean in the doorway watching the sheep watch me, I feel like I should have a piece of straw hanging out of my mouth with my hat pulled low as I gently slumber.

Bob the snowplough Photo: Jim Ross

Fresh snow is just an excuse to fire up Bob and plough with my swank new snowblade. Sometimes when I see a friendly neighbour is out, I sneak over and plough their driveway for a giggle. One neighbour still hasn’t figured out who it is, which only makes it more entertaining. There are a couple I would like to plough in, but I resist the urge.

When the days are short, small happenings on the farm take on more significance than they should.

Over Christmas while tending the farm alone, I discover a turquoise egg which I carry, bursting with pride, back to the house. We already have green eggs but these babies look like big Robin eggs without the speckles and I found the first one, which must mean I’m special. I start scheming about producing special breeds of chickens to lay coloured eggs. Easter Egg Chickens, if you will. And they’re organic too! No pesky dies.

Various farm eggs Photo: Jim Ross

I could become a tycoon. They’d call me “The Easter Egg Guy.”

On Christmas morning, I wake early and think Santa has overshot our roof but when I grab a flashlight, it is a herd of elk demolishing any low hanging branches on our apple trees and digging through the snow to eat the lush green grass I didn’t mow in the fall. I dislike mowing lawn. That’s what sheep are for.

When I step onto the bedroom deck, they startle briefly and then ignore me. The dogs don’t bark as they know it is a waste of time and may get them stomped. The herd leaves behind large craters and piles snow against my fence 18 inches deep. They haven’t found the hay, so I let it slide. The fact that I can see a herd of elk within 20 feet of my bedroom deck is pretty cool. I take it as a good omen and crawl back in bed, sugar plums dancing in my head.

The two lambs born in November are growing like weeds and have been healthy which is amazing considering they were born in the dark, in the middle of a chunky rainstorm, in the middle of the pasture. I can barely pick the boy up any more. The girl will make a great addition to our flock. What I anticipated being difficult has been a breeze.

Red Barn and Round Bales - Image Credit: STEPHEN FILARSKY

The 800 pound, round bales we bought in the fall are taking a bit of getting used to but for the price, I will gladly purchase hay that way next year. The first bale was a bit of a clustercuss but the second went smooth as silk. Bob isn’t mighty enough to lift an 800 lb bale into the hay loft so we will have to figure out a better way to store them but for now, they are dry in part of the sheep shed.

The barn roof is leaking but every time it snows, I go skiing, and when it rains, there is no way I am climbing on a steel roof to see what the hell is going on. When it is sunny, it slips my mind.

It is a dilemma.

I fear I may need to apply myself.

I like words. They help me to understand.

When I pay my Vet thousands of dollars, it is important I phrase good questions and understand the answers to get good value. When I find a technical document that may solve my animal’s problems, I have to be able to understand most of it.

As a city kid, I hung out in the library often. Whether the school or city library, I knew the stacks. I could ride my bike to both and my parents paid taxes with others to make that possible.

Now I pay taxes and live in the country with two daughters who are voracious readers. They were read to every night as youngsters and the books in our house could sink a small trawler. Still, it isn’t enough books for them. They can get lost in the stacks of a good library just like their mother and I both did.

Reading allows us to understand a lot of things but every so often, something happens that is beyond comprehension. It makes no sense.

What's next?

Prominent citizens of our community have turned literacy into a political football. The two I have spoken to previously seem sharp enough and I can’t understand why Josh Smienk or Al Dawson would oppose anything that would assist our region and strengthen it as a whole. Josh is a founder of CBT and Al has served the area tirelessly for many years. These are smart guys and I find it hard to believe they are founding members of the Kootenay Coalition for Illiteracy. Perhaps it was these bullying tactics and questionable judgement that cost Mr. Smienk a job on the big island.

At recent public meetings related to regional library funding, The Coalition arrived and stacked meetings in Taghum and Slocan Park. They managed to distract all from any rational discourse and compared libraries with entertainment and questioned why they should have to pay for another’s entertainment. If Josh and Al pay to sit on the couch and watch satellite TV, why should they pay for libraries? If they happen to run businesses that thrive on minimum wage earners and consumers who can’t unravel the complicated web they weave, a marginally literate population is perfect.

As rural residents of the West Kootenays, we don’t pay our fair share of library costs. A paltry user fee comes nowhere near covering the true cost of service.

I am not a big fan of the RDCK or their tactics either and would rather see a regional solution that encompasses the whole area and all public libraries within it. At the same time, I feel strongly that literacy is too important to play politics with and for that reason alone, I support libraries unconditionally.

A recent article in Wired Magazine argues that high stress jobs like those that Josh and Al might complain about are not the kind of stress that kills you unless you have a medical condition or eat a lot of bad food and don’t exercise. What kills most people is the stress of a low paying, dead end job where they have no control and are treated as commodities with little hope of getting ahead.

On October 16th, vote YES for libraries.

Show that you care about reading and the power it gives our region to prosper as a whole.

Rise above political squabbling for an important cause.