Hello everyone!
Hope you’re all wintering well. Seems like a hard one, so far. Lots of below normal temperatures and not much sun, eh?
Things are good here. The chickens are coming back on laying after the usual solstice low, and there hasn’t been a lot of mortality so far (there’s always winter mortality in chickens.)
We lost our young yak bull Enos, but we were expecting this: he was born deficient, in the lungs we believe. He is feeding the magpies, and hopefully the ravens and coyotes will get some of him, too.
The dairy cows are doing well – Mary is milking still, and Prickle is due to give birth next month. Andrea has been making cheese: cottage, cheddar, mozzarella type, other types, cream. We’ve all had our hand at making butter and I make lots of yogurt. It’s all turning out very well, delicious.
The horses are very tough, of course, and take the winter well – they look glorious in their fuzzy winter coats coming through the snow.
The big news is we’re moving the farm! We’re headed for a place equidistant to this one from Calgary, but to the west, outside Bergen. Here we will have better facilities, amenities, and more space to do what we do. We’re headed out there end of February so we can get into gear for the summer 2011 CSA season. We’re excited about this move and the changes it represents and looking forward to continuing to provide for folks in Calgary.
We had a great year last year and would like to thank you all again.
Hope to see you this year!
– Jon and Andrea
Thompson Small Farm 