Woodwynn Farms

This entry will be a bit out of the ordinary from my usual topic choices...

For those of you in the area, recent news articles may have drawn your attention to a local farm in our community: Woodwynn Farms.

This farm has been in operation for that past five years in Central Saanich. Their goal is to get people off the streets and rehabilitate them back into society through programs, work, and community living. They have boasted some great success in this area.

Happy Cow Happy Pond: Half time

Sunday was not a day for work. The normal routine of church was preempted by the stomach bug. All but two of us stayed home for the day. I was still unaffected but I opted to stay with the kids as Laura had been a good sport and let me out for most of the day before to work on the barn, as well as put the kids to bed so I could assist at a conference Saturday night.

Where I left off on Saturday.

I would need to steal time if I was to wrap up what I wanted to get done this weekend. My goal was to get the diverter put together and installed, finish the pipe run and leave a dry-fit pipe pointing to the eventual tank location.

Happy Cow Happy Pond Project: Game Day

I woke up Saturday morning surrounded by sick kids and adults. Josh had just gotten the bug the day before and so did Laura. Most of the kids were sick or recovering. Josh said he would try to get out and help. Marc, unfortunately was out for the day.

So I went about my usual duties, cleaning up after the horses. Then I headed down to the shop to load up on every possible supply I could need. Ladders, hacksaw, hammer, drills, screws, brackets, chain, wire, and so on...

The ever-growing pile of supplies for my project.

Happy Cow Happy Pond Project: Cram Session

This weekend I started on what was to be the most daunting stage of my rain-water harvesting project...

Getting the water to the tank.

Now I do not have my tank yet. The decision was made to save that purchase until later in the season for cash flow reasons. I have the specs and a rough idea of what I am going to do with it.

This is my "rough" design (blue boxes are filters, diverters, and the tank).

I drew up the above diagram last week and sent it off to the folks at Watertiger to get confirmation that this was the intended layout when they came out initially. Now I just needed to get the pieces I would need.

Happy Cow Happy Pond Project: Start your engines.

Finally got a chance to bring everything to the team last night. I reviewed what funding we had received. I explained my decision to drop the chicken barn from the rain-water project. I explained the fencing and rain-water numbers. Approval.

So now I need to figure out how to move forward with this approval. I have been given the go ahead to do gutters and PVC piping in the spring and install the tank and pump in the fall. I also have approval to purchase the fencing and proceed with the fencing I laid out previously.

The inner fence will be the spring project, followed by the outer fence in the fall.

Finding water in a peat bog

Water is not something you would think as being an issue when living on the Wet Coast. It falls in buckets all winter and even the summer is not a stranger to rain clouds. But water is a core issue for some of our farm endeavours.

We are based off of a well. Its not a massive well and it often runs dry in the summer months if we are not careful. It feeds three houses, five horse stalls, and a chicken barn. Thankfully our blueberries do not pull from it as they are nestled nicely in their native environment of a peat bog.

Building a dock ... my DIY Experiment: Part 4

Part 4: Finishing Phase 1 and 2

I managed to get out the next day and finish off phase 1. Phase 2 was going to be a walkway onto the dock. I managed to wrangle some materials to start the skeleton of this.

Here is what the dock looked like after phase 1 was complete:

                                  

Building a dock ... my DIY Experiment: Part 3

Part 3: Finishing the frame and adding planks

Sunday was another nice day. After wrapping up a few necessary farm chores, I rounded up all the older kids and headed down again. I took all the same items as the previous day as I might need them.

Once I was down there, I decided I would put another 2x6 on the inside of all of the posts. I put a chunk of post at the end on the right side to space it out properly. I used my level to keep the two boards level. 

After completing this, I proceeded to go through my remining 2x6s and cut boards. The length needed was approximately 53 inches, so I was able to get two planks per board for the most part. The excess I used to pick off split ends. After using them all up I realized I would need another 5-6 boards to complete the job. The kids were good but it was time to go in. 

Building a Dock ... my DIY experiment: Part 2

Part 2: Building the frame

This weekend was very favourable for me. I enjoyed a wonderful morning of worship workshops with Worship Victoria, then had time to spend out by the pond with the kids building my dock project.

On Saturday afternoon, I had a few hours where Hannah was with her grandparents, Charlotte was napping, and the boys were in my charge. I threw on my swim trunks and grabbed the boy's their boots and headed down to the workshop.

One man's trash - Finding new uses for old freezers

I mentioned in my stories that this farm of ours does not meet my expectation of a farm. I am from the prairies where farms are rolling as far as the eye can see. That being said, our peaceful little valley can seem quite big sometimes when we consider all the things we need to maintain.

We recently had a batch of pigs which went to slaughter in late April. The past month has been booked up with visits, events, and other work projects and so we had not been out to tidy up.

I was out by our cow barn, which serves as a holding pen for livestock before pickup, as well as a storage area for hay and any grain that does not go in the silo (mostly food for the pigs). I stopped by the barn with the truck to load some more hay for our horses. While I was climbing up to open the top doors, I noticed our pig grain had been invaded by rodents.

Building a Dock ... my DIY experiment: Part 1

Part 1: Dreams and Plans

For a while now, I have been eyeing our pond and wondering how hard it would be to build a dock for it. I'm thinking of a small dock, no longer than 8-10 feet out. Something to tie a canoe to. I don't own a canoe. Details...

Innovating and recycling

Maybe it is some sort of brainwashing from my time living here, or maybe it is how I am wired. I seem to be getting more and more excited about reusing things. I built a garbage pad, mostly out of reclaimed 2x4s that someone had discarded in a pile somewhere on the farm. I'm planning to build a rickety dock for our pond using more reclaimed stuff.

I just started mulling over a recent issue that I noticed. Our bags of grain which we use to feed our pigs, get left out in the barn between batches. Normally, with two visits per day, two cats, and a few traps, we have little issue with rodents getting into them. Well, they have been completely unattended for several weeks and now I can see the evidence of little paws and mouths making a mess of them. So the search began...

How do I store bags of grain without using a hopper or silo?

I came across a brilliant solution. Old freezers.