The Accidental FarmerLearning how to farm on the fly

Last Saturday, we had another dog attack on our farm.

Not all dog attacks or dog owners are created equal and it is important that people understand the difference.

The first attacks happened shortly after I bought my farm. My neighbours, Bob and Ramona Carpenter, had an airedale that had killed 3 geese and both my peacocks. It also attacked a ewe and lamb, leaving me with bills for medication, etc. and two weeks of work in the barn. Upon hearing that her dog had killed my geese and peacocks, Ramona responded, “That is what happens to birds, they die.” As she shooed me out of her house amidst profanities, I told her I’d heard the same thing about airedales.

The Carpenter’s never did take any responsibility for their dog’s actions. Two years later when it attacked Bob, he shot it and went and bought another airedale that runs around the neighbourhood just like the one he shot. Enough said.

Deep gashes through to muscle tissue. An ear almost torn off.

On Saturday as I worked on our new chicken coop, Louise came running up the road screaming. She and her kids had just been making candles with our family and I couldn’t figure out what was going on. As I ran to the road she told me her dogs had attacked Blackie. We ran into the swamp but couldn’t find her. Louise went back to the road to console her two hysterical children. I searched the swamp and found Blackie stuck in the mud with the back of her head ripped up bad. When she got stuck, a log was fortuitously under her neck or she would have been dead with her throat torn out.

I hollered to my neighbour, Bob Crutch, and he came down to help get Blackie out of the mud and swamp, no small feat. Thank god he was home. Once on dry land, she walked back to the barn on her own.

Fifteen plus stitches and two hours later. A hope, a wing and a prayer.

When I contacted Louise later, she expressed sincere sorrow and anguish and offered to pay for a vet or any costs. I told her that a sheep is worth $250 and a Saturday night Vet visit likely $1000-2000. We would deal with it ourselves. She insisted on paying for any costs. Louise told me that when the dogs attacked, she grabbed Blackie to try and get her away but the dogs kept attacking Blackie’s legs and she bolted. When Louise caught up to Blackie, stuck in the mud, she could do little but sit on Blackie and fight off her two full grown huskies with her bare hands. She’s not a big woman. She came to the barn this morning to help me inject Blackie as I was alone. We discussed her dogs and I told her my concerns regarding livestock, wildlife and people, children in particular.

I have 4 dogs. Two are cupcakes but two can be ferocious and have caused issues. One is a livestock guardian dog and the other a blue heeler. Both consider the livestock and farm their personal property and while the maremma looks ferocious, it’s the heeler that will defend our farm until she’s dead. The heeler once defended our girls from an attack by Carpenter’s airedale, thrice her size. As I ran towards the girls, a blue streak came from the right and tore into that dog something fierce and chased it all the way to its front door. I work hard to maintain control of my dogs. They’re here for a reason and it’s not to attack people, livestock or wildlife. If left with no other choice, I will shoot my own dog or any of my neighbour’s. To date, I’ve never shot a neighbour’s dog, though I have been tempted.

The Champ. Her right ear will likely never rise due to muscle and ligament damage, if she survives.

I do not support the Dog Bylaw in Area H and likely won’t.

It is light on dealing with big issues and heavy on barking dogs. Penalties for attacks and barking are similar. It is poorly crafted, and I use that term lightly, but did meet my expectations of the RDCK.

You can’t introduce a bylaw that will create personal responsibility amongst bad dog owners and I’d far rather deal with my neighbour than any bylaw enforcement officer, police officer or legal process.

What kind of dog owner are you? Are you a Carpenter, or are you a Louise? The RCMP say I can shoot your dog on my property. Will you leave me to make that decision and carry that responsibility?

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.

Q and I had a great discussion about meat and climate change following my last blog post. I wish he would reveal himself but for now, QQQ@qqq.com and his IP address are all I know about him. I tried to email him, just for fun, but it bounced. Even it I don’t agree with Q, I appreciate his/her perspective.

I won’t reveal his/her IP address unless tortured with something like tequila or a really nice prime rib steak. Combine the two and I’ll tell you anything you want to know.

I think part of what I wanted to point out in my original post is that we do the best we can with what we have. We encourage both local and global thinking in terms of how we can have the most positive impact on our planet and the people who live on it. We’re open to new ideas and perspectives and seek them. We try and put things in perspective.

The TED talk below is one of the best I’ve ever seen. The clarity the presenter brings to our biggest problems is both pragmatic and brilliant. It might offend or surprise you. Either way, you should watch it.

Draw your own conclusions but I think a debate about whether meat is causing global warming really misses the target.

A recent blog post at change.inthekoots.com by Rod Taylor suggests that eating less meat will save the planet.

He refers to Al Gore, David Suzuki and the Environmental Working Group to support his beliefs. He alludes to some of the points I raise below but gives them short shrift and his message is clear. Eat less meat, period. His numbers and stats seem skewed to support his post.

When I read posts like Rod’s, I think the problem is really us humans. We each produce roughly 1 kg of C02 a day which combined is more than all fossil fuels. Perhaps Rod is targeting the wrong species. I’m waiting to hear that exercise causes global warming due to increased expulsion of CO2 by inconsiderate miscreants. Being lazy produces less CO2.

Of course, the causes and solutions to global warming are not so simple. It’s easy to take a narrow view of the issue which does not take into account the larger picture.

Reducing this issue to whether vegetables are preferable to meat in terms of global warming completely misses the point. The issue is industrial farming techniques that have been supported by oil, fertilizer and chemical lobbies to further their interests and increase the value of their stock with no regard for the good of consumers or the planet.

Most food we eat as a populace is produced on factory farms, including vegetable farms. These farms burn fuel, use fertilizer and chemicals and are certainly responsible, in part, for global warming. Because growing, harvesting, processing, packaging and transportation are all heavily mechanized, what they produce becomes irrelevant.

The grass fed lambs in my pasture are carbon neutral. They are recycling CO2 in a short term carbon cycle as animals and humans have done for eons. It’s the release of new carbon into the atmosphere from oil, gas and coal in long term carbon stores that is warming our planet, not flatulence.

Excess flatulence in ruminants is the result of an unnatural diet. The grains, corn and soybeans used as feed on industrial farms are not a natural diet and not what I feed my ruminants. Mine thrive on grass as ruminants have since 70 million buffalo and swarms of other large wildlife roamed our continent. Soil is a short cycle carbon store these animals and humans depend on.

These sorts of diversions, in terms of the conversation on global warming, help obscure the fact we aren’t doing enough about the real causes of global warming.

The issue of factory farms will not go away until there is pressure from the buying public. As long as we put the cost and ease of our food above all else, we support distant factory farms. When we support more responsible farms, we send a strong message and demonstrate that we value responsible food and farmers.

As a consumer, what message do you send?

Do you shop at Safeway and buy your meat shrink wrapped on a foam tray or do you develop a relationship with a farmer and fill your freezer once a year? Do you care how your food is grown or are price and convenience the deciding factors? Do you buy baby bunny carrots because they’re all the same shape and size and don’t need cleaning? Rod failed to ask any of these questions.

If we turn the prairies back into pasture and eliminate growing corn, grains and soybeans to feed cattle in feedlots, we could put cows back on pasture and not deforest Brazil to serve our needs. Addressing these issues will do far more to solve global warming.

Beyond alienating meat farmers, eating one less burger a week won’t save the planet and won’t solve the issue of factory farming or global warming.

Eating a local, grass-feed steak a week might and I challenge Rod on his assertion that it will cost you more.

Buy a full, half or quarter cow and it’s $3.25 a pound this fall with a $0.60\pound cut and wrap fee included. Buy a lamb and it’s $6\pound. Chicken is $4.75, turkey $3 and pork $3.75. Hardly expensive considering the quality.

It will take more effort though,  just as writing a fair, balanced and engaging piece on global warming will.

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 Master

The plans are set, the tickets purchased and the farm sitter organized. We’re set to go to Roots and Blues in Salmon Arm. It is to be my first trip away with my family in years. I usually get left at home to tend the farm so I’m pretty excited. Tah Mahal is playing and he’s always been a favourite of mine.

My longest and only extended stint away from the farm is to go to Royal Jubilee in Victoria for 3 weeks to have my heart rewired. My roommates and I make the best of it. First they close our door, then they add an RCMP officer who is as fun as a bowl full of thumbtacks (he has a bad heart) and then they split us up. We were having too much fun which is disruptive on a cardiac ward, apparently. They even send an undercover psych nurse to assess us but she stands out like a fawn in a pen full of pigs and we play her like a deck of cards. We’re trying hard but she’s not laughing. We never see her again.

But you can’t keep a good man down, for long anyhow.

The message comes via Facebook. Our farm sitter and friend, Nick, has fallen ill with coxsackie virus and feeling ridden hard and put up wet, but still optimistic he can come. I google this nasty virus and find that it has a similar effect to getting measles or chicken pox as an adult. It kicks your ass, even if you’re bullet proof like handsome Nick. I’m not feeling so optimistic.

I put the word out and get offers from many folks to come and feed animals twice a day.

I hold out for a farm sitter as I’m not comfortable leaving the whole scene to two visits a day. With 4 dogs, 2 puppies, 7 pigs, 20 or so sheep, 17 turkeys, 100 layers and various other critters, anything can happen and does. Sheep get caught in fences or lambs end up miles away. Pigs escape and if you know what you’re doing, getting them back is easy. If you don’t, it’s a big job and something I can’t describe over a cell phone from a music festival after a few drinks.

It’s not like we’re growing vegetables or hay. Our crops have legs and know how to use them. Some have wings. We’re also selling animals at the moment and most of our calls and sales come on weekends.

I digress. I doubt I’ll see any of my sheep in a hot-rod but do have some gorgeous ewes.

When Nick sends me a message saying he is looking for cheap plane tickets into Castlegar because he is too wasted to make the drive from the coast, I put the brakes on him. Originally he was coming for a 2 week visit anyhow but this is out of control. He is planning to go back to university in the fall and as much as we’ll miss seeing him, I tell him not to come. I give him orders to chill out and get better but know he feels bad. He’s the best farm help we’ve ever had and one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet.

Dohhh!

I spend two hours on the phone with a friend I haven’t talked to in decades. Time flies as we talk about our lives and afterwards, I feel blessed.

While I feel like selling the farm Saturday, I know I need to find a way to make it work. What we have is too good to abandon but I know I can’t hold this pace forever, let alone the next 12 months.

My family comes home tonight.

Nothing notable happens on the farm.

A couple of calls about animals don’t turn into anything.  They expect WALMART pricing. Nobody abandons trash or unwanted animals at our front gate. (It happens.)

With hindsight…

Funniest Comedian I've ever seen.

We saw Derek Edwards at the Capital Thursday night. Our friends pitched in and picked up our children from school and delivered them to soccer and music, made them dinner and brought them home.

We love our friends.

It was perfect and Rachel and I both needed a laugh and a night out. I got up at 4:30 and Rachel got up at 5 so it was a bit of a pull but with the help of our friends, Aaron and Sue, we made it. We both struggled to think of the last time we had done such a thing.

Of course, we were in a hurry to feed animals and apparently, when I closed the inside gate to the pig stall, it didn’t quite hasp properly.

When I looked into the pasture early Friday morning, I just assumed I saw sheep as it was still pretty dark and my eyes fuzzy so I went back to bed and slumbered until I heard squealing, lots of squealing.

Big White Dog

Our new Maremma, Coco has made friends with one of the pigs who likes to race along the fence and play with her. She assumes all pigs are keen pals and was trying to encourage them to play when the squealing erupted.

An hour later I had all the pigs in their pen, or so I thought. I went to the house, helped our sheep shearer shear our dog, Mabel the Table, and then quickly changed into my clean clothes and went to my other job, the one that pays the bills.

When I arrived home, Rachel told me that one of the pigs had decided to hang with the sheep and was out in the pasture with them pretending to be a short, fat, hairless sheep. Apparently she was quite happy and it took Rachel another half hour to convince her she was a pig and should join her brethren.

Sheep or Pig? Tough to tell at 5 am.

They made a mess of the inside of the barn before escaping into the pasture that took an hour to clean up.

They’re such pigs.

Fortunately when they escaped, they stayed within the confines of our property and didn’t wonder off to root up the neighbours’ gardens as our steers and sheep have done in the past. It presents an awkward situation and one we are glad to have avoided this time around.

The piggies are all happily in their pen tonight and I hope they stay there. It’s not like they are short of room or mud pits and pasture to root up already.

We’re the 12 little piggies and we are going to huff and puff and blow your house down or at least, drive you crazy.

Oink.

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?

Twelve new pigs just arrived on the farm.

Six are sold to neighbours, two we will keep and two are spares but we are reserving 2 pigs for a special cause.

We would like to raise these 2 pigs for local food banks in the Slocan Valley and Castlegar and are looking for a group of people to sponsor these animals with donations of cash and food waste.

We are willing to contribute our time but need others to cover the costs of purchase, feed, slaughter, curing, cut and wrap.

If we deliver a 200 pound pig at $3 a pound, cut and wrapped, it is worth $600.  I anticipate the cost of sponsoring each animal to be about $400 or $2 a pound but won’t know the final cost until all the bills are in and I’ve gone through another pair of gumboots.

Pigs are omnivores and will eat anything. We feed a blended hog ration (all grains and good stuff, no pellets here) but using food waste can cut feed costs in half, grow bigger pigs that taste better, and save a lot of food from being wasted.

How we should deal with waste food.

Surprisingly, some large stores, like Tom’s No Frills in Castlegar, have a strict company policy that forbids giving food waste away for fear it will get into the human food chain and expose them to some liability. They offer great prices but a low level of creativity and a very poor solution that keeps their lawyers happy but accomplishes nothing else.

Thanks to the Slocan Valley Co-op for our piggies first taste of lettuce, celery, pears, mushrooms and other goodies. They went wild for it.

A special thanks to Michael Mills for picking up our 12 pigs when he got 18 of his own. These pigs look great and Michael did a fantastic job of keeping them healthy during a stressful move from the Lethbridge area. I saw him at 7:25 am Monday and he arrived home in the wee hours Tuesday. He wouldn’t take any cash for his time and only accepted gas money.

I have no idea how this is going to work. There are a lot of questions at this point.  How will we get food waste in the quantities we require? Will the grain truck show up in time with the second load of feed? Will we lose any animals. (We are saving two aside, just in case.) Will they bust out and turn into a pack of marauding garden raiders?

Twelve happy pigs.

Shit happens.

If you are interested in sponsoring one of these handsome devils, please let me know.

This needs to happen quickly so please spread the word.

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.