Merry Christmas 2017 from Windsor Farms,
It has been an extremely busy year and as always the learning curve was pretty steep. We had baby goats for xmas in 2016 so we had babies to start off the year. Little Daisy the dexter cow gave us a little bull calf, Socrates, in January followed quickly by Mabel having another bull, Plato. We decided on a greek philosopher theme for cow names this year. Britty had dental surgery and we made a lot of cheese.
Not to be out done the sheep started lambing February 4th for a total of 28 lambs with the addition bottle babies to keep us on our toes, a flower theme was chosen for the lamb names.
In March, Britty turned 21 and Micheal turned 28. We sold the baby goat and Darryl built a milk stanchion, so we learned how to milk a goat and make goat chevre. Darryl also got the sawmill running, so now we have cedar boards all over the farm. We grew our first batch of meat birds and a batch of Pekin ducks.
April brought another bull calf, Aristotle out of Louise and another bull calf out of Thelma, Evander. We found mastitis in Daisy May the jersey cow and had the sheep sheared. Mom and my brother Robert came over for a visit and we started building the store!! It’s only 100 sq feet but it’s built out of walk in cooler panels so it stays a perfect temperature for all the jams, jellies, pickles, salsas, soaps, salves and the 2 little freezers full of meat. Pat Donnelly from Elderberry Yarns is painting an amazing fairy mural on the front which is keeping the neighbors kids on their toes, looking for that one more thing on the mural. April was also an expensive month, we bought new to us hay equipment in a round baler and a sickle bar mower/conditioner. The baler is amazing, the mower is fairly frustrating but eventually gets the job done. We also bought Lily the jersey cow, the last remaining cow from Moonstruck Cheese and a lot of farming and cheese equipment at the same time.
May brought us a beautiful two week teaser of good weather, so we planted the garden. As soon as everything was planted and row covered, etc. The temperature dropped back down to 10’c and we watched the garden struggle for the next month. We replaced the laying hen flock with barred rocks and Daisy gave us another bull calf, Horus. I learned how to make mustard, hop sleep pillows, and sourdough bread after being gifted some starter. Kayla started working for the local abattoir 2 days a week so gramma gets her Munchie fix. We bought the cows a “hurricane feeder” for the round bales and have been amazed at how little hay is wasted now compared to the post and board feeders that we built, at $80/round bale I’m pretty sure the feeder paid for itself in the first few months.
June was the starting month, we started haying, we started the market, we started butchering cows, started the thanksgiving turkeys and I started passing kidney stones. The market season started off with a bang and it was great to visit with all our wonderful customers every Tuesday afternoon. The rest of the starts weren’t so much fun.
In July we replaced the laying duck flock with golden 500 hybrid laying ducks and we had our marathon 2 weeks of babies. Lily gave us a little heifer, Violet, a replacement milking cow as she is ¾’s jersey and ¼ black angus. She is a bottle baby, so she follows us around the farm like a little dog, a pushy one but super friendly. Molly and Bertha had 10 piglets each and the goats started kidding. The first kid was “Lucky”. I was in the house making cheese with Munchie and Darryl was baling our top field. When he finished he was driving the baler out of the yard to go to the next field and he found the placenta but no goats and no babies. He came up to the house and watched Munchie while I went hunting with a towel. Lucky was a little pile of soggy fluff in a dip on the side of the driveway. I almost didn’t see her as she was 20 feet away and on the other side of the ditch from the placenta. Lucky had to be bottle fed every few hours so she got to be a real hit at the Tuesday Market. Britty taught her how to walk on a harness and the Fix Taco cart would warm up her milk bottle for us.
August we started our second batch of meat birds and xmas turkeys. Bee gave us our final calf, Atticus, a little heifer. We were adopted by a bee colony, while in middle of a farm tour there was a huge angry swarm in middle of the garden, the next week we found them in a tree above the garden. Liv Wade and Christi Salyn of Heartfelt farm eventually came and moved them before winter set in so that they could survive. They placed the whole hive in a box with some combs and the bees moved onto the combs within a week. Dave Astill dropped off Mitt the purebred Romney ram and little Nut (the shop cat) had two tiny kittens – Tigger and Hazel, future mousers of Windsor Farm. Little Munchie, aka Melissa, turned 3, not sure how that happened but she sure is talking a lot, my favourite phrase is “that’s is soooo delicious”.
In September, we turned Mitt loose with the flock for February lambs and started making salsa. We finally finished haying with 260 round bales and 1000 square bales. I know the prairie farmers will laugh that it took us 3 months to make that but the biggest field was 20 acres and there are a lot of fields all over the island. While we were haying we didn’t notice that the poor garden was getting fairly neglected. The new hoses that we bought had plugged up but not all of them. They would work for 20 feet be plugged for 10, work for 10, be plugged for 20 and with all the new fields and watching Munchie the weeding got put on the back burner until it had to be done. Resulting in a not so great year for the garden. Mind you 2 weeks of spring and 2 weeks of fall didn’t help either. Micheal bought a 5th wheel trainer and he and Emily moved to the farm. Kayla and Matt turned 23 and will be moving into the trailer park in the backyard in the spring.
October, Darryl turned 50!!! His mom threw him a big party to celebrate this milestone. As the garden slowly finished off, we started jamming. All the goats went into heat for April kids and we finished the market for the year.
November and December have been busy getting ready for winter and putting the garden to sleep. We had a lot of farm tours this year and the results of the new Saltspring Meat website we joined are very evident in the speed in which all the meat and veggies have disappeared in the last few months. We are using 2 new butchers for the cows this year. Hidden Valley Processing did an amazing job on the first two cows and the local abattoir finally got their beef license, so we have 2 hanging there as well. The sheep skins have been turning out extremely well this year and I’ve started tanning the cow hides.
So to all our loyal customers and all our new customers, I thank you very much for all your support. It makes running the farm all the more enjoyable when it’s greatly appreciated. I want to wish everyone a wonderful Christmas and all the best in the New Year. All the best Darryl, Sheila, Britty and all the critters from Windsor Farm (Zoo).
It has been an extremely busy year and as always the learning curve was pretty steep. We had baby goats for xmas in 2016 so we had babies to start off the year. Little Daisy the dexter cow gave us a little bull calf, Socrates, in January followed quickly by Mabel having another bull, Plato. We decided on a greek philosopher theme for cow names this year. Britty had dental surgery and we made a lot of cheese.
Not to be out done the sheep started lambing February 4th for a total of 28 lambs with the addition bottle babies to keep us on our toes, a flower theme was chosen for the lamb names.
In March, Britty turned 21 and Micheal turned 28. We sold the baby goat and Darryl built a milk stanchion, so we learned how to milk a goat and make goat chevre. Darryl also got the sawmill running, so now we have cedar boards all over the farm. We grew our first batch of meat birds and a batch of Pekin ducks.
April brought another bull calf, Aristotle out of Louise and another bull calf out of Thelma, Evander. We found mastitis in Daisy May the jersey cow and had the sheep sheared. Mom and my brother Robert came over for a visit and we started building the store!! It’s only 100 sq feet but it’s built out of walk in cooler panels so it stays a perfect temperature for all the jams, jellies, pickles, salsas, soaps, salves and the 2 little freezers full of meat. Pat Donnelly from Elderberry Yarns is painting an amazing fairy mural on the front which is keeping the neighbors kids on their toes, looking for that one more thing on the mural. April was also an expensive month, we bought new to us hay equipment in a round baler and a sickle bar mower/conditioner. The baler is amazing, the mower is fairly frustrating but eventually gets the job done. We also bought Lily the jersey cow, the last remaining cow from Moonstruck Cheese and a lot of farming and cheese equipment at the same time.
May brought us a beautiful two week teaser of good weather, so we planted the garden. As soon as everything was planted and row covered, etc. The temperature dropped back down to 10’c and we watched the garden struggle for the next month. We replaced the laying hen flock with barred rocks and Daisy gave us another bull calf, Horus. I learned how to make mustard, hop sleep pillows, and sourdough bread after being gifted some starter. Kayla started working for the local abattoir 2 days a week so gramma gets her Munchie fix. We bought the cows a “hurricane feeder” for the round bales and have been amazed at how little hay is wasted now compared to the post and board feeders that we built, at $80/round bale I’m pretty sure the feeder paid for itself in the first few months.
June was the starting month, we started haying, we started the market, we started butchering cows, started the thanksgiving turkeys and I started passing kidney stones. The market season started off with a bang and it was great to visit with all our wonderful customers every Tuesday afternoon. The rest of the starts weren’t so much fun.
In July we replaced the laying duck flock with golden 500 hybrid laying ducks and we had our marathon 2 weeks of babies. Lily gave us a little heifer, Violet, a replacement milking cow as she is ¾’s jersey and ¼ black angus. She is a bottle baby, so she follows us around the farm like a little dog, a pushy one but super friendly. Molly and Bertha had 10 piglets each and the goats started kidding. The first kid was “Lucky”. I was in the house making cheese with Munchie and Darryl was baling our top field. When he finished he was driving the baler out of the yard to go to the next field and he found the placenta but no goats and no babies. He came up to the house and watched Munchie while I went hunting with a towel. Lucky was a little pile of soggy fluff in a dip on the side of the driveway. I almost didn’t see her as she was 20 feet away and on the other side of the ditch from the placenta. Lucky had to be bottle fed every few hours so she got to be a real hit at the Tuesday Market. Britty taught her how to walk on a harness and the Fix Taco cart would warm up her milk bottle for us.
August we started our second batch of meat birds and xmas turkeys. Bee gave us our final calf, Atticus, a little heifer. We were adopted by a bee colony, while in middle of a farm tour there was a huge angry swarm in middle of the garden, the next week we found them in a tree above the garden. Liv Wade and Christi Salyn of Heartfelt farm eventually came and moved them before winter set in so that they could survive. They placed the whole hive in a box with some combs and the bees moved onto the combs within a week. Dave Astill dropped off Mitt the purebred Romney ram and little Nut (the shop cat) had two tiny kittens – Tigger and Hazel, future mousers of Windsor Farm. Little Munchie, aka Melissa, turned 3, not sure how that happened but she sure is talking a lot, my favourite phrase is “that’s is soooo delicious”.
In September, we turned Mitt loose with the flock for February lambs and started making salsa. We finally finished haying with 260 round bales and 1000 square bales. I know the prairie farmers will laugh that it took us 3 months to make that but the biggest field was 20 acres and there are a lot of fields all over the island. While we were haying we didn’t notice that the poor garden was getting fairly neglected. The new hoses that we bought had plugged up but not all of them. They would work for 20 feet be plugged for 10, work for 10, be plugged for 20 and with all the new fields and watching Munchie the weeding got put on the back burner until it had to be done. Resulting in a not so great year for the garden. Mind you 2 weeks of spring and 2 weeks of fall didn’t help either. Micheal bought a 5th wheel trainer and he and Emily moved to the farm. Kayla and Matt turned 23 and will be moving into the trailer park in the backyard in the spring.
October, Darryl turned 50!!! His mom threw him a big party to celebrate this milestone. As the garden slowly finished off, we started jamming. All the goats went into heat for April kids and we finished the market for the year.
November and December have been busy getting ready for winter and putting the garden to sleep. We had a lot of farm tours this year and the results of the new Saltspring Meat website we joined are very evident in the speed in which all the meat and veggies have disappeared in the last few months. We are using 2 new butchers for the cows this year. Hidden Valley Processing did an amazing job on the first two cows and the local abattoir finally got their beef license, so we have 2 hanging there as well. The sheep skins have been turning out extremely well this year and I’ve started tanning the cow hides.
So to all our loyal customers and all our new customers, I thank you very much for all your support. It makes running the farm all the more enjoyable when it’s greatly appreciated. I want to wish everyone a wonderful Christmas and all the best in the New Year. All the best Darryl, Sheila, Britty and all the critters from Windsor Farm (Zoo).