The Accidental FarmerLearning how to farm on the fly

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.

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.

Running a farm, even a small one like ours, takes effort. Sometimes there is little to do but plough snow, feed animals and stoke fires. Other times the job list is pages long.

I still have time to ski in the winter but rarely ride my mountain bike or hike anymore. I’m not complaining. I have learned many interesting things in the last 5 years and have never eaten better.

I could never do what my partner and I accomplish together were I alone. It is a team effort and we both have our strengths and preferences. On the regular occasion that we are both stumped, we figure things out together. If one of us is busy, tired or sick, the other takes care of the chores alone.

My partner, Rachel, is a huge part of what goes on here at the farm. Anything I have learned about gardening, excepting what I’ve read on Joel’s blog, I have learned from her. When it is time to wrestle a steer to the ground and doctor him, she is right there. For 8 weeks, we went to the barn together twice a day to doctor a sick ewe that had been mauled by coyotes. When I end up in the hospital for 3 weeks, she holds the fort. When shit needs to happen, she reminds me, politely, most of the time.

We delegate chores without thinking much about it. We don’t think red/blue but take a more practical approach. We do what we know and like first. If size is an issue, it becomes a Jim job. I get in the pen and drop ewes and calves for doctoring because it makes sense. When they are down, Rachel helps keep them calm and still.

My partner Rachel loves gardening and I know little about it. I built the garden, till it and haul the manure but she makes everything else happen. Rachel is the ‘chicken lady’ and there was only one lonely rooster here until she arrived. Rachel hatches most of our chicks in the incubator and takes care of our fowl when they are small. Beyond unloading grain off the supply truck with the bobcat and taking away the manure, I do little with the layers.

If it involves power tools, chainsaws, trucks, bobcats, tractors or ditching machines, it’s a Jim job.

We share slaughtering duties and take care of all fowl together. For larger livestock, I generally get a friend or two to help depending on what and how many animals are going down that day. Rachel doesn’t like seeing the larger animals go down and that’s fine with me. She provides backup by making sure we have what we need and takes care of everything else that needs doing on the farm that day.

Rachel does all the canning and preserving, makes beer, wine and cider and decides how our meat will be cut and used among a long list of other jobs. Eating out is often a letdown as our food and Rachel’s cooking are tough to beat.

I deliver the carcasses to the butcher with Rachel’s instructions and pick up the finished product. I dig holes, do any weeding outside the garden, cut firewood, feed and water the livestock, make all calls to the vet and carry out any injections or barn procedures/surgeries, when it is an option.

Kiss me, you fool.

There is no doubt that treating a new lamb in the wee hours together is a solid bonding experience but there are times when what we do is anything but romantic. Feeling like Little Bo Peep as you are followed across the pasture by a flock of vocal ewes is charming but doesn’t make up for 6 hours in the barn, soaking wet at minus 30.

On top of what we do farm wise, we have jobs, raise two daughters and try to fit in some semblance of a life. It is not for the weak of heart or those without a healthy sense of humour.

We pay a price that cannot be measured in dollars but end up with a benefit that is in shrinking supply and tough to purchase at any price.

We burn wood on the farm for heat, lots of it.

We’d love a buried heat pump system but that will have to wait until our ship comes in, as my partner is fond of saying.

I just finished processing a logging truck load of birch firewood.  It showed up almost by accident. I still have to move it and stack it but we have firewood for 3 or 4 years, after it has dried. We already had two years worth of firewood so we are good for 5 years, at a minimum.

Everyone else on the farm appreciates firewood but for me, this feels like Mardi Gras. I want to swill grog, throw beads and bare my chest. I feel festive. Fortunately, for our tweenage daughters, it is too cold to bare my chest.

The Accidental Farmer and Bob the buster

Most of our firewood comes off the property, but I have had to hunt it down in the bush occasionally. Buying by the logging truck load makes a lot of sense, for many reasons. You don’t have to fall trees, the most dangerous part of getting firewood. You don’t have to spend money driving around in the bush looking for firewood and hauling it home. Your truck lasts longer. You use less fuel. You don’t pull the bumper off your truck skidding logs. We put off insuring and driving our truck off the farm for another 3 months.

I cut 12-14 cords of wood with less than 10 litres of mixed chainsaw gas, 4 litres of chain oil and $30 worth of diesel to run my splitter. I spent about $4 on ibuprofen.

As I approached the end of the job, my neighbour showed up to pass me the last 50 rounds at the splitter. It doesn’t sound like much but when you are at the end of a logging truck load of firewood, it means a lot. He also had some cold beer, which I gladly guzzled. He took a picture of me in front of the finished job after watching me toil for 4 days. You have to love neighbours like that.

There is no time to gloat though. We have a barn that needs filling with hay, lambs and turkeys to slaughter and butcher, grain to source, fences to mend, meat calves and winter piglets to find and a litter of Blue Heeler pups to raise that will be born any day.