Merry Christmas 2019 from the Windsor Zoo
This October marked 10 years that we have lived on the farm, a lot has changed in those years and the learning curve is still fairly steep sometimes. Last winter we had the worst windstorm with hurricane force winds, 30 foot fir trees were rolling across the local golf course. It closed the island for a day and people were without power for 3 days up to 2 weeks and then longer for internet and telephone in the worst hit parts of the island. Once we had recovered from that we had an amazing rainstorm. Over night we had the worst rainstorm since 1937, causing a rockslide 2 properties above us and washing our backyard down to the neighbors there were also three other roads washed out on the island. Then just to top it off we had an epic snow fall which resulted in 26 inches in two days. I know prairie people just laugh at us we(s)tcoasters and our sissy snow tolerance however we have a wet snow that is sooooo gross. I managed to get our poor little tractor high centered twice while attempting to make it to the back forty to feed the pigs. In middle of which one of our momma pigs “Bertha” gave birth to 10 piglets in the insulated chicken coop with a heat lamp. Her and the babies faired extremely well while the rest of us made sure they were warm and toasty. The porch railings and the gutters on both the house and the shop were peeled off in the now and both our barn cats that had been run off by Kayla’s cat Presley finally made it home, Wing had been missing for two weeks and was so traumatized she wouldn’t leave Darryls side of the bed for two months. Momma Nut, we are pretty sure had gotten herself locked into a shed as she had been missing for over a month and was extremely dehydrated even after the huge rainstorm. She refused to leave the backroom for 3 months but they are both happy and terrorizing the whole household now.
February Darryl and I celebrated our 26 years together and 20 year wedding anniversary. Darryl finished the renovations on our house on Rainbow Road and it was listed for sale. We inherited a goat “Goatee” from a friend suffering from Lyme’s disease that could no longer milk her herself and the bottle lambs started rolling through the door. This was also the month I started learning how to weave. Aunt Miriam gave us her loom many years ago (as a bundle of sticks) and last year a friend came to the house and put it together, this year I joined the spinner and weavers guild and had Donna come to the house once the snow had cleared and taught me how to use the loom. I apologize to everyone on facebook that I have filled their newsfeed with pictures of my projects. I am enjoying the learning and the creating immensely. Plus all the likes and praise for the pictures is a pretty good boost for the ego.
March was the beginning of lambing and kidding with 31 lambs (14 on the bottle plus one goat) and 12 baby goats in total. Britty turned 23 and Micheal turned 30!!! We started the seedlings for the garden and met Mira while teaching her how to tan her bear hide. You know it’s going to be an interesting day when you see a white van with a bear hide stretched on a rack driving up the road to your house.
April Molly our second momma pig gave birth to 12 piglets and our Jersey/Hereford cow Atticus had Licorice. This year’s theme for the cow names is candy and the lambs and goats were marvel action characters. The loom and the warping mill were stripped down, rebuilt and varathaned, both are working much better with some tlc and the more they are used, the better they are working. We made it into the local paper with a full page article, this time the theme was baby animals and the reporter had a great time, bottle feeding lambs, petting baby goats and scratching bottle calves. The piglets were extremely photogenic as well.
May momma cow Thelma had Jellybean and the sheep were sheared. Darryl started getting the hay equipment ready for a busy season and we bought a new to us f350 2012 4 door long box pickup to replace my 3/4ton. Of course it had a dropped valve so we also bought a new to us 6.2l engine to go with it.
June we started hay season, and I must say it’s was the wettest hay season we have experienced so far. It started out beautifully and we were both out cutting, raking and baling and then mother nature decided things were going too smoothly and the rains began. Therein began the entertainment, we would hay as fast as moisture allowed and then the forecast would change again and we would bale and drag all the hay home and tarp it to beat the rains. It was starting to look like an inuit village with all the cubes of hay with white tarps all over the bottom field. All the hay customers were extremely patient with us this year, thankfully. So although we were hoping to get all the hay done in 2 months this year, we were still haying in September again. June was also the start of the market and the first batch of baby turkeys and baby meat birds.
July was basically chores, market and hay. Lily one of our jersey cows had Bubblegum a jersey/Hereford heifer and all our wool was delivered to Carstairs Alberta to be spun.
August Bertha had her second litter of piglets for the year and Daisy our second jersey had Lollipop a little bull. Munchie (Melissa the grandmonster) turned 5 and started kindergarten this September. Mom (gramma Helmi/double gg) came to visit to make sure were still eating during hay season and magically made my kitchen counters reappear no matter how big a mess I made of the kitchen, processing the garden for the market. The second batch of meat birds and the xmas turkeys arrived to fill any remaining space in the chicken coops.
September was super busy, Munchie started school so there was a major schedule readjustment, we filled half the ag barn at the fall fair with lambs, goats and the two bottle jersey x calves, that all won blue ribbons, as well as our garlic- didn’t place and 3 handwoven blankets a 1st, a 2nd and a 3rd place (3 different categories) Kayla and Matt got married in the backyard with a roasted pig on the spit. There was rain and thunder all day and then there was a magnificent double rainbow following the ceremony. Mabel one of the beef cows had Skittles, another little bull calf and Kayla turned 25.
October we learned (the hard way) that if pigs eat the wrong type of mushroom they abort their piglets. 2 weeks before Molly was due to have her second litter of the year she aborted the whole litter, fingers crossed there are no lingering side effects and birthing in February is uneventful. The ram (sheep) and the buck (goat) were turned loose with the girls to begin the season all over again in the spring. Darryl turned 52 and we the last batch of meat birds arrived, unfortunately so did a massive cold snap and the heater in the coop died on one of the colder nights.
November has been extremely busy, lambs have gone to the butcher, the garlic has been planted, the new smoker is making lots of bacon, the house has new gutters after the snow storm last year tore them off, I started spin classes (learning how to spin wool – not the stationary bike) and the cookbook I collaborated with Nina Raginsky on, was finally printed. The excitement for the month was dropping off one of our smaller bulls for stud service at a neighboring farm. Unfortunately the horse in the field took exception to Arbutus’s presence and ran him off in under 2 minutes of his arrival. Then began our exciting adventure of ‘where’s that cow’. Arbutus was a free range cow for 2 ½ days while we learned just how small and mountainous Saltspring really is. He was located in a backyard and the people that found him, tied a rope to him, walked him 4 properties over and tied him to a tree (yes it was an arbutus tree) until we could go collect him. He was very happy to be home, as were we, Darryl and I both had major sinus colds at the time to make everything that little bit more exciting.
December is looking about the same, more rain, more ducks and I picked up the replacement laying hens today!! We have inherited “Jane” the blue faced Leicester ewe with an amazing spinning fleece. Lots of birthdays including mine and tons of pot lucks and celebrations to follow. We wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and best wished for the new year. All the best Darryl, Sheila and Britty – Windsor Farm
This October marked 10 years that we have lived on the farm, a lot has changed in those years and the learning curve is still fairly steep sometimes. Last winter we had the worst windstorm with hurricane force winds, 30 foot fir trees were rolling across the local golf course. It closed the island for a day and people were without power for 3 days up to 2 weeks and then longer for internet and telephone in the worst hit parts of the island. Once we had recovered from that we had an amazing rainstorm. Over night we had the worst rainstorm since 1937, causing a rockslide 2 properties above us and washing our backyard down to the neighbors there were also three other roads washed out on the island. Then just to top it off we had an epic snow fall which resulted in 26 inches in two days. I know prairie people just laugh at us we(s)tcoasters and our sissy snow tolerance however we have a wet snow that is sooooo gross. I managed to get our poor little tractor high centered twice while attempting to make it to the back forty to feed the pigs. In middle of which one of our momma pigs “Bertha” gave birth to 10 piglets in the insulated chicken coop with a heat lamp. Her and the babies faired extremely well while the rest of us made sure they were warm and toasty. The porch railings and the gutters on both the house and the shop were peeled off in the now and both our barn cats that had been run off by Kayla’s cat Presley finally made it home, Wing had been missing for two weeks and was so traumatized she wouldn’t leave Darryls side of the bed for two months. Momma Nut, we are pretty sure had gotten herself locked into a shed as she had been missing for over a month and was extremely dehydrated even after the huge rainstorm. She refused to leave the backroom for 3 months but they are both happy and terrorizing the whole household now.
February Darryl and I celebrated our 26 years together and 20 year wedding anniversary. Darryl finished the renovations on our house on Rainbow Road and it was listed for sale. We inherited a goat “Goatee” from a friend suffering from Lyme’s disease that could no longer milk her herself and the bottle lambs started rolling through the door. This was also the month I started learning how to weave. Aunt Miriam gave us her loom many years ago (as a bundle of sticks) and last year a friend came to the house and put it together, this year I joined the spinner and weavers guild and had Donna come to the house once the snow had cleared and taught me how to use the loom. I apologize to everyone on facebook that I have filled their newsfeed with pictures of my projects. I am enjoying the learning and the creating immensely. Plus all the likes and praise for the pictures is a pretty good boost for the ego.
March was the beginning of lambing and kidding with 31 lambs (14 on the bottle plus one goat) and 12 baby goats in total. Britty turned 23 and Micheal turned 30!!! We started the seedlings for the garden and met Mira while teaching her how to tan her bear hide. You know it’s going to be an interesting day when you see a white van with a bear hide stretched on a rack driving up the road to your house.
April Molly our second momma pig gave birth to 12 piglets and our Jersey/Hereford cow Atticus had Licorice. This year’s theme for the cow names is candy and the lambs and goats were marvel action characters. The loom and the warping mill were stripped down, rebuilt and varathaned, both are working much better with some tlc and the more they are used, the better they are working. We made it into the local paper with a full page article, this time the theme was baby animals and the reporter had a great time, bottle feeding lambs, petting baby goats and scratching bottle calves. The piglets were extremely photogenic as well.
May momma cow Thelma had Jellybean and the sheep were sheared. Darryl started getting the hay equipment ready for a busy season and we bought a new to us f350 2012 4 door long box pickup to replace my 3/4ton. Of course it had a dropped valve so we also bought a new to us 6.2l engine to go with it.
June we started hay season, and I must say it’s was the wettest hay season we have experienced so far. It started out beautifully and we were both out cutting, raking and baling and then mother nature decided things were going too smoothly and the rains began. Therein began the entertainment, we would hay as fast as moisture allowed and then the forecast would change again and we would bale and drag all the hay home and tarp it to beat the rains. It was starting to look like an inuit village with all the cubes of hay with white tarps all over the bottom field. All the hay customers were extremely patient with us this year, thankfully. So although we were hoping to get all the hay done in 2 months this year, we were still haying in September again. June was also the start of the market and the first batch of baby turkeys and baby meat birds.
July was basically chores, market and hay. Lily one of our jersey cows had Bubblegum a jersey/Hereford heifer and all our wool was delivered to Carstairs Alberta to be spun.
August Bertha had her second litter of piglets for the year and Daisy our second jersey had Lollipop a little bull. Munchie (Melissa the grandmonster) turned 5 and started kindergarten this September. Mom (gramma Helmi/double gg) came to visit to make sure were still eating during hay season and magically made my kitchen counters reappear no matter how big a mess I made of the kitchen, processing the garden for the market. The second batch of meat birds and the xmas turkeys arrived to fill any remaining space in the chicken coops.
September was super busy, Munchie started school so there was a major schedule readjustment, we filled half the ag barn at the fall fair with lambs, goats and the two bottle jersey x calves, that all won blue ribbons, as well as our garlic- didn’t place and 3 handwoven blankets a 1st, a 2nd and a 3rd place (3 different categories) Kayla and Matt got married in the backyard with a roasted pig on the spit. There was rain and thunder all day and then there was a magnificent double rainbow following the ceremony. Mabel one of the beef cows had Skittles, another little bull calf and Kayla turned 25.
October we learned (the hard way) that if pigs eat the wrong type of mushroom they abort their piglets. 2 weeks before Molly was due to have her second litter of the year she aborted the whole litter, fingers crossed there are no lingering side effects and birthing in February is uneventful. The ram (sheep) and the buck (goat) were turned loose with the girls to begin the season all over again in the spring. Darryl turned 52 and we the last batch of meat birds arrived, unfortunately so did a massive cold snap and the heater in the coop died on one of the colder nights.
November has been extremely busy, lambs have gone to the butcher, the garlic has been planted, the new smoker is making lots of bacon, the house has new gutters after the snow storm last year tore them off, I started spin classes (learning how to spin wool – not the stationary bike) and the cookbook I collaborated with Nina Raginsky on, was finally printed. The excitement for the month was dropping off one of our smaller bulls for stud service at a neighboring farm. Unfortunately the horse in the field took exception to Arbutus’s presence and ran him off in under 2 minutes of his arrival. Then began our exciting adventure of ‘where’s that cow’. Arbutus was a free range cow for 2 ½ days while we learned just how small and mountainous Saltspring really is. He was located in a backyard and the people that found him, tied a rope to him, walked him 4 properties over and tied him to a tree (yes it was an arbutus tree) until we could go collect him. He was very happy to be home, as were we, Darryl and I both had major sinus colds at the time to make everything that little bit more exciting.
December is looking about the same, more rain, more ducks and I picked up the replacement laying hens today!! We have inherited “Jane” the blue faced Leicester ewe with an amazing spinning fleece. Lots of birthdays including mine and tons of pot lucks and celebrations to follow. We wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and best wished for the new year. All the best Darryl, Sheila and Britty – Windsor Farm