January 16, 2020
Whew!
It has been a tumultuous week on the farm with windstorms and snowstorms, resulting in power outages. It makes for a lot of extra work here. For example, when the temperatures are freezing, the water lines outside don’t run and we have to carry water from the house to the horses, sheep, and chickens by hand. And when the power goes out as well, we either have to scoop it from the pond or use our hand pump well if it hasn’t frozen. It has never seemed worthwhile to dig in water lines below the freezing level since it rarely goes below freezing here— maybe 1-2 weeks a year, at worst.
Mailing List
If you have signed up for our mailing list and haven’t received anything, please sign up again. I hadn’t set it up properly so nothing was going through. I’m still figuring out how to do all this. I promise not to share it or spam you with garbage. You will receive this weekly post on what is happening around our farm, our stand, and maybe a bit of what’s going on in our little part of the world.
Roadside stand
The roadside stand is closed right now. The kale is buried in snow and the chickens aren’t laying so much. In fact, our road has not even been plowed and most cars would have trouble even getting up here. I’m not laying blame on the road guys— one of them is my neighbour. But there are a lot of roads and only a couple of plows to serve them so it can take a few days to clear them all of snow.
Seedy Saturdays
We had our first Seedy Saturday of the year last weekend in Saanich and it was great! Almost every weekend until April is going to be busy with these events, so we are busy packing seeds. Our next event is the Denman Island Seedy Saturday on January 25th. If you have never been to a “Seedy” event, check them out. They are a good way to connect with local seed growers (like myself) and get your garden seeds for the year. An added bonus is that we can give you some growing tips and tricks, or advice on how to grow something that is totally new to you.
Kind of a crummy pic, but you get the idea.