Farm Life

As I wrote about the other day, the boys and I dropped out to Saffire Farms on Friday to learn how to tap maple trees. Of course, since there is never any rest on a farm and always another job that needs to be done, we got more than we'd bargained for and learned quite a bit about the care and feeding of the cattle. When we arrived we knocked at the farmhouse door to be greeted by Janet, who told us that Gord and their son Brad were over at the barn dealing with the cattle. Being familiar with the lay of the land on the farm, I headed off that way with the boys, to find Gord rounding up some calves into the pen, to tag their ears. This is how each animal is identified and tracked. You'll notice my comments in the video that the jittery calves must mean that the tagging hurts them, but Gord explains it is more a matter that this was the first time these calves were getting this close to humans, and this was a far bigger issue for them.

In the video you get a glimpse at the vast pastures on Saffire Farms, which is impressive given there are only a dozen or so animals which get to share them. The video is shot mostly in the pens where the tagging takes place. We get to see how pens are used to segregate animals for various reasons. In one case there is a pen for calves that are being weaned. In another case, there is a pen for the 2 grain fed cattle - Gord rounds them up into the pen long enough to feed them their daily dose of beet pulp, soy, and barley. This is the first year they are doing grain fed beef at Saffire - something Gord agreed to try at the request of some of his customers. The majority of the cattle are still 100% grass fed, but by making use of the pens he is able to do some grain fed beef as well, yet still allow all the animals relatively free roam of the land.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I'm going to start doing a series of videos and stories on farm life around the Ottawa Valley, and in particular my farmers Gord and Janet, who own and operate Saffire Farms, a beef farm and CSA. I got to know Gord about 9 years ago now when he showed up at our homebrew club's 1st Big Strange Brew event to learn how to make beer from grain. We've been good friends since then, and over that time I switched most of my farm business over to him. When I mentioned my video project a month or so ago, he was keen to have me do it. I told him to just keep me posted when there were any new "farm activities" going on, and I'd come out to film them.

Yesterday he emailed me and told me that the sap was running, and it was time to tap some trees this weekend. Normally I'd be keen to go out on a Saturday but we've got a huge weekend with a birthday party for one of our boys, and a visitor coming in from Alberta. So I called him back on the phone and asked if I could pop out at about 4pm. I leave work early on Fridays to pick the boys up at school, and so we could just jump in the van and head out to see him. He assured me that would be no problem at all, so that is what we did!