Merry Christmas 2018
Merry Christmas from Windsor Farm, I hope this letter finds you happy and healthy. We have had an amazingly busy but successful year.
We began the year with a calf on the 2nd – this year’s calf theme is trees so we named the first one Willow out of Donkey Daisy quickly followed on the 6th by Holly out of Mabel. Bertha the pig had 12 piglets on the 7th. With all the barns full of babies we had to quickly build some lean to’s for the jersey cows and the sheep to get out of the weather. I also started making soap out of the goat milk and adding essential oil’s instead of just infusing the olive oil so we have more pronounced fragrance in our soaps now.
We started lambing on the 6th of February and finished on the 19th with 13 lambs all named after constellations. Grateful to Natascha and Cole for teaching us how to tube feed little lambs, it didn’t save that particular lamb but it did help with 2 others and two goat kids. On the 14th we celebrated our 25 together anniversary and 19 years married with a quick trip to Golden Island restaurant in between wrestling ewes and pulling lambs.
March began with Darryl’s much appreciated ablation therapy (heart surgery). Basically they cauterize the nerves between the heart and the lungs to stop the atrial fibrillation and it worked. With only 2 minor incidents afterwards he is completely off all his heart medication and feeling much more energetic and happy. It was a very stressful 5 years of diagnosis and medication. We made it home from Victoria just in time for Thelma to give birth to Aspen on the 3rd. With Darryl on enforced relaxation he started planting seedlings, a nice quiet sit down job. Britty turned 22 and Micheal turned 29. Kayla was hired at BC Ferries as a Customer Service Attendant and Darryl started smoking hams and bacons from our pigs. He also experimented with fermenting a Hungarian salami that turned out really tasty. At the end of the month we made a quick trip to Saanich and picked up Zeus our new large black x Berkshire boar. He’s 800 lbs, 8 feet long and 4 feet high, he also came with instructions to give him a belly run twice a week!! Thankfully he is extremely well mannered and excellent with the piglets when they come out of the farrowing barn.
Molly had 15 piglets on the 9th of April and we started kidding (baby goats) on the 27th for a total of 8 kids plus the two bottle goats we picked up from Ganders Hatch Farm. Kayla, Matt and Munchie moved back to the farm and we had the lower roof on the Rainbow Road house replaced by Uncle Rene and crew. With the mild weather we had the sheep sheared, it’s always a gas to watch the mom and kids trying to figure out who’s who after the mom’s have been sheared, nobody recognizes each other.
May was extremely busy as we started planting the garden and renovating the Rainbow Road house to prepare it for sale, after it had been a rental unit for 9 years it was a little worse for wear. We completely gutted the whole house and started from there, new kitchen and new bathrooms, new paint and new flooring. It has been a very slow go with all the farming interrupting but now in December we (Darryl mostly) are almost done and the house looks amazing, even the realtor was impressed.
June, July were extremely busy with Tuesday market, gardening, renos, and the never ending hay season. Thankfully this year mom (Helmi) came over from Vancouver to help with chores, cleaning the constant dishes and feeding us before midnight. Lily had Arbutus on the 7th of July and the milking chores began again after a two month break. We also learned how to make Zucchini gummies this year as someone was left unattended with the seed packs this spring and planted ALL the zucchini seeds = 147 plants which works out to between 200 – 600 lbs of zucchini per week!!! We tried almost every zucchini recipe we could find to make them go away and the cows and sheep gratefully appreciated the treats every morning after grain. We attended the Fibre Fair put on by Elderberry Yarns at the Farmers Institute this year and had an amazing time, the sheep to shawl competition was inspiring and now I want to learn how to use our loom (yes, on top of everything else). It was a completely different group of people at the fibre fair than we were used to at the Tuesday market and I was able to reconnect with friends I hadn’t seen in a very long time. It was also nice to get 3 days off from driving the tractor in middle of summer.
August we had a visit from Saskatchewan from Gene and Trudy Hauta and their friends Greg and Brenda, as promised they got to try Saltspring beef but had to cook it themselves as Darryl was at work and the barbeque and I have issues. It was an amazing dinner and everyone was stuffed full. While on the farm tour we checked on Bertha (the momma pig) who finally decided to have her piglets all 15 of them. This was our first litter from Zeus and I am shocked at the size difference between our last boar hairy George a purebred Tamworth and Zeus, the piglets are twice the size and grow exponentially faster. Munchie (Melissa) turned 4 and we started to milk the goats and make a lot of goat chevre as well as jams, jellies, pickles, butter, fermenting and the beginning of the sheep skins.
September 1st Daisy had Magnolia and we finally finished haying. We managed to pull the tarps over the bales just in time for the rain to start. With over 13 properties on the island we made 169 round bales and 2930 square bales. Molly had 16 piglets on the 29th and Kayla and Matt (in November) turned 24.
October we turned the ram loose with the ewes and the bottle goats Cygnet and Cirius started breeding the momma goats. Darryl turned 51 and with the end of the Tuesday market we put the garden to bed for the winter.
November is supposed to be the beginning of the slow season but apparently we missed the memo because life hasn’t slowed down at all, although some of the bigger projects are getting caught up. The garlic has been planted, the cheeses are getting made instead of just feeding the milk to the pigs, the grains are getting threshed and winnowed and the house is getting cleaned. Then just to keep us on our toes we started calving again as the bulls were right on the cows after the last batch of calves. Donkey Daisy had Alder on the 12th, Violet had a stillborn on the 20th that had to be pulled and Mabel had a little heifer, Juniper on the 22nd. Ezzy the pig that was dropped off for a conjugal visit with Zeus and was never picked up, disappeared for 3 days in the pig pen after refusing to get into the stock trailer and had her piglets in the bush during a nasty storm (of course) she’s ok but the piglets didn’t make it. We also started attending the Saturday winter market as it doesn’t start until 10am and we just barely get chores done it time to get there on time.
December so far is just as busy as the rest of the year, just the weather is nasty, we’ve had our first freeze and the rain has filled all the ponds and ditches to overflowing. I turned 45 (today) and Britty is picking the last few beets and carrots out of the garden to pickle. Hazel, one of our ferocious barn kittens has decided that it’s really nice to sleep in the house at night and tease the dogs.
I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and wish you all the best in the New Year. Sincerely Darryl and Sheila, kids and zoo
Merry Christmas from Windsor Farm, I hope this letter finds you happy and healthy. We have had an amazingly busy but successful year.
We began the year with a calf on the 2nd – this year’s calf theme is trees so we named the first one Willow out of Donkey Daisy quickly followed on the 6th by Holly out of Mabel. Bertha the pig had 12 piglets on the 7th. With all the barns full of babies we had to quickly build some lean to’s for the jersey cows and the sheep to get out of the weather. I also started making soap out of the goat milk and adding essential oil’s instead of just infusing the olive oil so we have more pronounced fragrance in our soaps now.
We started lambing on the 6th of February and finished on the 19th with 13 lambs all named after constellations. Grateful to Natascha and Cole for teaching us how to tube feed little lambs, it didn’t save that particular lamb but it did help with 2 others and two goat kids. On the 14th we celebrated our 25 together anniversary and 19 years married with a quick trip to Golden Island restaurant in between wrestling ewes and pulling lambs.
March began with Darryl’s much appreciated ablation therapy (heart surgery). Basically they cauterize the nerves between the heart and the lungs to stop the atrial fibrillation and it worked. With only 2 minor incidents afterwards he is completely off all his heart medication and feeling much more energetic and happy. It was a very stressful 5 years of diagnosis and medication. We made it home from Victoria just in time for Thelma to give birth to Aspen on the 3rd. With Darryl on enforced relaxation he started planting seedlings, a nice quiet sit down job. Britty turned 22 and Micheal turned 29. Kayla was hired at BC Ferries as a Customer Service Attendant and Darryl started smoking hams and bacons from our pigs. He also experimented with fermenting a Hungarian salami that turned out really tasty. At the end of the month we made a quick trip to Saanich and picked up Zeus our new large black x Berkshire boar. He’s 800 lbs, 8 feet long and 4 feet high, he also came with instructions to give him a belly run twice a week!! Thankfully he is extremely well mannered and excellent with the piglets when they come out of the farrowing barn.
Molly had 15 piglets on the 9th of April and we started kidding (baby goats) on the 27th for a total of 8 kids plus the two bottle goats we picked up from Ganders Hatch Farm. Kayla, Matt and Munchie moved back to the farm and we had the lower roof on the Rainbow Road house replaced by Uncle Rene and crew. With the mild weather we had the sheep sheared, it’s always a gas to watch the mom and kids trying to figure out who’s who after the mom’s have been sheared, nobody recognizes each other.
May was extremely busy as we started planting the garden and renovating the Rainbow Road house to prepare it for sale, after it had been a rental unit for 9 years it was a little worse for wear. We completely gutted the whole house and started from there, new kitchen and new bathrooms, new paint and new flooring. It has been a very slow go with all the farming interrupting but now in December we (Darryl mostly) are almost done and the house looks amazing, even the realtor was impressed.
June, July were extremely busy with Tuesday market, gardening, renos, and the never ending hay season. Thankfully this year mom (Helmi) came over from Vancouver to help with chores, cleaning the constant dishes and feeding us before midnight. Lily had Arbutus on the 7th of July and the milking chores began again after a two month break. We also learned how to make Zucchini gummies this year as someone was left unattended with the seed packs this spring and planted ALL the zucchini seeds = 147 plants which works out to between 200 – 600 lbs of zucchini per week!!! We tried almost every zucchini recipe we could find to make them go away and the cows and sheep gratefully appreciated the treats every morning after grain. We attended the Fibre Fair put on by Elderberry Yarns at the Farmers Institute this year and had an amazing time, the sheep to shawl competition was inspiring and now I want to learn how to use our loom (yes, on top of everything else). It was a completely different group of people at the fibre fair than we were used to at the Tuesday market and I was able to reconnect with friends I hadn’t seen in a very long time. It was also nice to get 3 days off from driving the tractor in middle of summer.
August we had a visit from Saskatchewan from Gene and Trudy Hauta and their friends Greg and Brenda, as promised they got to try Saltspring beef but had to cook it themselves as Darryl was at work and the barbeque and I have issues. It was an amazing dinner and everyone was stuffed full. While on the farm tour we checked on Bertha (the momma pig) who finally decided to have her piglets all 15 of them. This was our first litter from Zeus and I am shocked at the size difference between our last boar hairy George a purebred Tamworth and Zeus, the piglets are twice the size and grow exponentially faster. Munchie (Melissa) turned 4 and we started to milk the goats and make a lot of goat chevre as well as jams, jellies, pickles, butter, fermenting and the beginning of the sheep skins.
September 1st Daisy had Magnolia and we finally finished haying. We managed to pull the tarps over the bales just in time for the rain to start. With over 13 properties on the island we made 169 round bales and 2930 square bales. Molly had 16 piglets on the 29th and Kayla and Matt (in November) turned 24.
October we turned the ram loose with the ewes and the bottle goats Cygnet and Cirius started breeding the momma goats. Darryl turned 51 and with the end of the Tuesday market we put the garden to bed for the winter.
November is supposed to be the beginning of the slow season but apparently we missed the memo because life hasn’t slowed down at all, although some of the bigger projects are getting caught up. The garlic has been planted, the cheeses are getting made instead of just feeding the milk to the pigs, the grains are getting threshed and winnowed and the house is getting cleaned. Then just to keep us on our toes we started calving again as the bulls were right on the cows after the last batch of calves. Donkey Daisy had Alder on the 12th, Violet had a stillborn on the 20th that had to be pulled and Mabel had a little heifer, Juniper on the 22nd. Ezzy the pig that was dropped off for a conjugal visit with Zeus and was never picked up, disappeared for 3 days in the pig pen after refusing to get into the stock trailer and had her piglets in the bush during a nasty storm (of course) she’s ok but the piglets didn’t make it. We also started attending the Saturday winter market as it doesn’t start until 10am and we just barely get chores done it time to get there on time.
December so far is just as busy as the rest of the year, just the weather is nasty, we’ve had our first freeze and the rain has filled all the ponds and ditches to overflowing. I turned 45 (today) and Britty is picking the last few beets and carrots out of the garden to pickle. Hazel, one of our ferocious barn kittens has decided that it’s really nice to sleep in the house at night and tease the dogs.
I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and wish you all the best in the New Year. Sincerely Darryl and Sheila, kids and zoo