Category Archives: Update

What have we been up to?

… or what have we NOT?  (That might be a shorter list)

Here’s a short photo-tour of the happenings this spring:

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First bunny harvest.
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We lay in the foundation for a workshop and covered meeting space.
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EPIC work party installs vast amounts of fencing.
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POWER!!!
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We get a transformer box to go with our power, with our very own Lightning Guy.
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Our new building takes shape.
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A cow-watering solution that works for longer than three days without rain! There was great rejoicing.
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Bacon seeds arrive. So cute!
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Fencing runs to the greenhouse, preventing the goats from eating all the rhubarb leaves (argh!), and allowing us to put in a garden. And have a place to eat lunch without being mugged by chickens or goats. Again, Much Rejoicing!
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A duck, with Too Many Legs. (ok, so they’re baby ducks. SO CUTE.)
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Baby ducks got older.
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WE FIXED THE POND!!! I hope to write in depth about this later.  It was pretty simple to do, and involved cow poop.
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Canela had a baby! This is Zeus, born over Easter. He’s a couple of months old in this picture.

 

That’s it, pretty much.  We’re growing bunnies, ducklings, piglets, and a calf, besides our regular posse of children.  Babies all over!

Summer in pictures.

Summer has been very, very busy.  I write something in my head, and before I have a chance to sit and write it out, something else happens that is Even Better, and causes the previous thing to be uninteresting.  Right now, chickens are The Thing, but we’re hoping to get the cows moved in before the end of the month, and maybe ducks next week.  Goats need to be here before the end of the month.  And everything takes longer than we expect, and requires at least twice as much talking as we anticipate, but the things we do are so much better together than they would be if we were making decisions individually.  Here’s a few pictures of what’s happened over the summer:

Roger Hodgkins cutting the hay
Roger Hodgkins cutting the hay – our first crop!
D.A. Smithson and Sons Well Drilling
D.A. Smithson and Sons Well Drilling
Jasmine creates beauty  (and dust) using heavy machinery
Jasmine creates beauty (and dust) using heavy machinery
Outhouse, half done, and plants (thanks, Nanette!)
Outhouse, half done, and shade plants (thanks, Nanette!)
Handwashing station that will wash your feet if you're not careful.
Handwashing station that will wash your feet if you’re not careful.
Jasmine makes amazing roads
Jasmine makes amazing roads
Kids have a play area
Kids have a play area.  Thanks for equipment, Grandma Gail!
Food Digester, before we had CHICKENS.
Food Digester, used a great deal before we had CHICKENS (and before the bear knocked it over).
Our first livestock!
Our first livestock!  Thanks, Ellen and Adrian.  They got out three times, one overnighter, but we’ve still got both.
Cistern.  Now if we could get electricity, we'd have water!
Cistern. Now if we could get electricity, we’d have water!
The Transition House, knocked together to house chickens until we have something better.
The Transition House, knocked together inside the ‘barn’ to house chickens until we have something better.  I used your fancy tool belt, Uncle Rod, but still managed to drop a hammer on Tony’s head.
CHICKENS!!!
CHICKENS!!!  They have already earned their purchase/feeding in eggs, took less than a week.
An Actual Haystack, hay scythed by Sweaty People because it was faster than weedwacking.
An Actual Haystack, hay scythed by Sweaty People because it ended up being faster/quieter/more-fun than weedwacking.

 

And now, I think you’re mostly caught up.  We are having Such A Good Time.

On making the property ours…

I was going to call this “On Construction” but we haven’t really constructed any buildings yet.

But we are getting things done! Really!

With Jasmine’s help we have moved our Big Steel Boxes that I mentioned here back in May when we got the property (Wow! Only 2 months!) onto our boneyard. (Erin already covered this, but still! Berm, yard, gravel pad for the boxes. Plus, our stuff!)

Containers, snuggled into gravel behind the berm.
Containers, snuggled into gravel behind the berm.

 

Now, the first pic in that post was the Sunriver sign at the gate. Well, we couldn’t leave it like that, so with some chalkboard paint and chalk, and a ladder, and Christiana’s artistic flair, now that sign looks like this:

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But wait, that’s not all! We need roads to get places, and we have a creek( really just runoff flowing down a trench) which means we will need a bridge. So, prep for a road and bridge:

Road area cleared down to hardpan for the road base.
Road area cleared down to hardpan for the road base.
Road leading to the creek, down to clay. Room for Roadbase plus room for the bridge!
Road leading to the creek, down to clay. Room for Roadbase plus room for the bridge!

Sounds like lots, and it is, but there is more! Those darn pesky fields keep growing grass! Oh wait, it’s a farm, that’s a good thing. If you can get it into bales. So, a quick call from Tony to Roger Hodgkins, who has been haying these fields for years, and the hay has been cut, dried, turned over and dried some more. Now it is in rows waiting to be baled. Which I hope happens today! To be followed by moving the bales (let’s see if I survive that!).

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Of course, we still have a farm with no hookups to power, gas, water or any of those things. But we do have the ball rolling on that. In fact, We have a well in the process of being drilled right now. The steel casing through the sand and gravel and clay is actually more expensive than drilling through bedrock!

D.A. Smithson and Sons Well Drilling
D.A. Smithson and Sons Well Drilling
20 foot drill extenders on the right, drill extenders inside the steel casing on the left
20 foot drill extenders on the right, drill extenders inside the steel casing on the left
The first steel casing, with a drive shoe, in case the drilling hits a boulder.
The first steel casing, with a drive shoe, in case the drilling hits a boulder.

There is also the barn which is being prepped to hold hay and livestock. (Will we have cows?) Christiana ran into a young couple that have done WOOFing, and they helped out by clearing the rotted boards from the barn floor, removing the bee nests, and leveling the dirt floor. Thanks Tomas and Naomi!

Naomi and Tomas, our (sub) WOOFers (since we aren't quite farming yet) helping Tony clean out the barn
Naomi and Tomas, our (sub) WOOFers (since we aren’t quite farming yet) helping Tony clean out the barn
One set of bees that were in the barn, now moved out under shelter from the rain.
One set of bees that were in the barn, now moved out under shelter from the rain.

The bees actually cleaned up, and you might not notice them now. Which reminds me, I have to flag that, so they don’t get stepped on!

That’s it for now, but more to come, as we get there. You know what I mean 😉

Scott.

The Bees have completely moved, so I don’t need to flag them.

Drilling still going, down to the 80-100 foot range…

(updated tags and Categories)

Heavy Machinery Makes Things Go

We’ve had the marvelous and adept Jasmine at our farm, for the past little while, and she drives Big Machinery.

She made us a road!
She made us a road!

Jasmine has scraped away the two inches of soil on top of the driest and least living part of our farm, so we can use the space for materials storage and parking.  She built an earth berm, filled with brush and old wood, so we have a bit of privacy and delineation (dogwalkers like to know where to go, and we made a nice path) in the short term and a decent place to grow things (hugelkultur!) after a wet winter.  We had our containers delivered, on to cement blocks on top of carefully leveled (by Jasmine) gravel.  Of course, the containers weigh an average of 15,000 lbs apiece, and so they crushed the cement blocks immediately and settled comfortably on the gravel.  Due to Jasmine’s expert leveling job, we didn’t need to do any adjustments to the ad-hoc, not quite-as-planned delivery.

Containers, snuggled into gravel behind the berm.
Containers, from the outside, snuggled into gravel behind the berm.
And from the front!
And from the front!

We’re planning to make a roof between them, for a workshop space and materials storage.  Solar panels on the roof, though that plan is still developing and may change.

Having some heavy machinery on site definitely makes things go faster.  We’ve discovered that the bottom-most field, where there isn’t much growing but trailing blackberries, patchy grass, and alders, was used as a dump site for excess rocks and gravel.  “Lots of road-base!”, declared Jasmine happily.

We’ve got a second berm underway, and a proto-goat-yard.  We’ve planned two minimalist access roads (though no road is minimalist with Jasmine around – she has to make sure it’s level, and won’t get potholey or mucky, and probably has to dig down a meter or so and add some of our newly uncovered road base to make sure it will continue to be a road.  “I’m just returning the land to what it was, before those developers messed around with it!”, says Jasmine, “And don’t you want it to look nice?  How about a nice road, here, and clearing out all that brush?”.  She’s an artist with a backhoe, and it’s awfully nice to have her, even if I have to keep convincing her that some of the plants are fine just where they are.

New Sign!

Great Things Are Afoot!

Sometimes it’s so hard to stop doing fun things in order to document them.. but now, we have a new format!

wherein we attempt circus tricks in order to celebrate
wherein we attempt circus tricks in order to celebrate

We painted over our “For Sale” sign in chalkboard paint.  Of course, for the reason enumerated above (also a distinct lack of ladder), we have not yet written on it.  But we will!

Things are ticking along.

The wonderful thing about having lots of people is that when a project is started, it can move ahead very quickly.  The tricky thing about having lots of people is that there is a lot of talking, considering, and (necessary) faffing about to do before projects are started.  From this vantage point, I know that we’ve been doing a lot of work, but it’s mostly been the talking sort of work that, as of yet, has little to show for it.

Here’s some things that have happened, though:  we have a small RV on site, so that kids have a place to play and so that we have a locking place to store tools.  We have done more of the cleaning necessary to make the two existing structures more useful.  We’ve determined where our shipping containers are going to go.  We’ve built a fire pit and had a number of fires.  An hugelkultur earth berm has been started, both to absorb some rotting lumber and to make a nice privacy border on one side.  We’ve had a lot of meetings with Interested People to help us determine some next steps.  We’ve started a fort for the kids, using living alder trees.  More things, I’m sure, but that’s what comes to mind.

All good stuff, and all leading in the direction we want to go.  Decisions happen slowly, but that way we know that they’re good decisions.  Our whole is more than the sum of its parts, and we do good work together.  We’re all looking forward to doing some camping this summer and really sinking our teeth into all the things that we want to get done.

On the home stretch

We’re almost there!  We’ve finished all the documentation for inco-operation, and sent it off to the Office in Victoria on the 7th.  We were  hoping to get it back soon enough that we can change the dates on our contract, and get started a little early, but it looks like that’s not going to happen.

And now: waiting.

Signing!
Signing!

The Next Big Thing

Over the past year, this merry band has sold our suburban houses, moved to Sooke, and figured out how to live together in a too-small house.

On Friday, our fabulous realtor held our hands while we crafted an offer on a piece of land that we’ve been looking at for a while.  We made our final agreement with the sellers last night, and are signing papers in about five minutes.

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Coltsfoot, aka Son-before-the-father, sends its flower up at the bottom path entrance. New beginnings. Spring.

It’s a lovely almost-riverside space with fields on two levels, woods, an old foundation from the original homestead, and a few seasonal creeks.

When we go, we often access it from the public walking trail along the river.  It adds some ceremony to the approach.
When we go, we often access it from the public walking trail along the river. It adds some ceremony to the approach.

Almost 12 acres, no buildings (except for an old falling-down barn-shed-thing.

Across the Wet Bit, looking towards the barn-shed
Across the Wet Bit, looking towards the barn-shed

We have been working with a co-op developer on the incorporation of our landholding division (Quiet Day Land Co-op, as per Arundati Roy: “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way.  On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing”).  Our developer thinks that we can be done in a month, so that’s when we remove subjects on the land, and focus our efforts on the working co-op (Cast Iron Farm Co-op).

But that doesn’t mean that we can’t go visit in the meantime.. and perhaps start the difficult work of naming places more imaginatively than we have to date.

Bottom field

ie: Bottom Field

 

 

Moving forward, and Co-ops

Small piece of news:  we have engaged the services of a highly-recommended co-op developer, who thinks that we can have things sorted enough to actually move forward Very Soon.  Meetings are going well, and everything that we learn about co-operatives suggests that this mode of business would require very little contorting to shape into the kind of thing that would work for us.  We were initially going to go with a corporate model, but after speaking with some folks that are familiar with co-ops it looked like we’d be contorting a corporate entity into something very like a co-op.  It made sense to start out with an organizational model that was closer to our desired end point.  A corporate model is very flexible, but we don’t think we’ll need all those options.

We have a name:  Cast Iron Farm Co-operative.

And now, to finish up work on those last few hard bits, for which we appear to have needed a deadline.

Onward!

 

Brief History, and Progress to Date

We are two families and one bachelor, who decided that we were done with the rat race and curious about exploring the feasibility of living in a way that was more in line with our values.  We are concerned about food security, climate change, and the negative impact our lifestyles are having on the world.  Some of the parents wanted to spend more time with their children, and some of the parents wanted to spend more time in the company of other adults: thus the Mad Plan was born.

The Mad Plan:  to incorporate a company, buy land, and use that land to grow as much of our own food as possible, allowing us to work in traditional jobs as little as possible.  If we found that an aspect of this project was particularly fun and lucrative, we would grow food for sale so that those that wanted to could quit their city jobs.  If we found that it was not fun, we would use our multiplicity of talents to figure out how to be our own employer in another field (Employment counselling?  Permaculture planning?  Teaching?  Building?  The future is full of possibilities in creating a patchwork existence.)

Off we went, in our newly rebuilt trailer
Off we went, in our newly rebuilt trailer

We toured parts of BC, met some wonderful people that showed us the best of where they live, and did their utmost to convince us to be their neighbours; we wanted to live next to all of them!  In the spring of 2013, however, we went to Sooke, and fell in love.  We loved the people we met, we loved the proximity to family, and we loved the way that, if a person even seemed to hint at wanting to cross the road, cars stopped.  A long growing season, plenty of moisture (for the west-coast-born moss-dwelling rain-lovers in our crew), and a vibrant local food movement sealed it; Sooke was the place for us.

Home sweet home at Sooke Potholes
Home sweet home at Sooke Potholes

In the summer of 2013, each family sold their house in Coquitlam, shed many of their worldly possessions and packed the rest into a shipping container, and moved to the Sooke Potholes campsite.  After a few weeks, we met a lovely person that was agreeable to us camping on her lawn and sharing her kitchen and bathroom.  Living outside got colder, darker, and wetter, and though the moon was lovely and the company congenial we decided that we’d rent a house in Sooke for the winter.

It was very exciting to have access to a washing machine, after camping for weeks.
It was very exciting to have access to a washing machine, after camping for weeks.

In our minds, we would move to Sooke, find property to buy, and then.. have a wonderful life.  The inbetweenness of this current time, once we’d sold our houses but not yet bought anything, was not a big part of our planning.  Living in close quarters is working well, and provides lots of opportunities to talk about plans and dreams, work on our social contracts, and learn to live together.  This house, however, is not where we plan to stay, and is definitely a little cramped for 10 people.  We all want to start building and digging, growing and learning; living in this liminal space is an exercise in patience.

We have a few properties in Sooke that we’re looking at, but we’re all wanting to get a few details ironed out before we make any offers.  We are all getting along well, given the close quarters, but we all want to know what will happen if someone decides that they want to leave.  We also want to have a legal structure to buy the land, and to figure out how (should they want it) we can easily pass ownership on to our kids.

We initially thought (due to the advice of our marvelous and thorough family lawyer) that we would go with a generic corporate structure, but after talking to the BC Co-op Association and a lawyer that was more knowledgeable about co-ops, we are thinking that a co-op structure would suit our needs better.  We’re talking to an accountant to see how to best meet our need to avoid unnecessary paperwork, and a Co-op Developer to help with figuring out the legal structure.  And soon, we hope, we will be done with all this boring stuff and on to actually Getting Started.

And that’s where we are, right now.  Are you thinking about doing something like this?  Do you know of anyone we should talk to?  Want to correct my use of The Semicolon?  Comment on, folks, comment on.