The Accidental Smallholder Forum

Community => Introduce yourself => Topic started by: sweep on April 28, 2009, 04:26:41 am

Title: Hello from Quesnel in beautiful British Columbia
Post by: sweep on April 28, 2009, 04:26:41 am

Hi we are Originaly from Devon but are now living in Canada,
we have a small holding where we raise sheep, pigs, turkeys and meat chickens as well as laying hens, all for our own use.
its a little bit different up here than in Devon, we still have snow in the garden (just) it still gets below freezing at night, we are just thinking about starting seeds in trays so we can plant at the end of May,this is when we are 90% certain that we wont have any more frosts!
we butcher all our animals in October November so we dont have to look after them in the winter -40c. We are trying to find a pair of geese to breed from these would live in the other half of the chicken house that is insulated and heated do you think we can find any!!!  they are like hens teeth, so if anyone can help???
thats all for now. sweep
(i was a chimney sweep in the UK)

Title: Re: Hello from Quesnel in beautiful British Columbia
Post by: minidax on April 28, 2009, 04:34:34 am

Hi Sweep and welcome to TAS.  Weather here is not great so you are not missing anything!  You will love this community, very friendly and VERY addictive. 

 ;)

Title: Re: Hello from Quesnel in beautiful British Columbia
Post by: Hilarysmum on April 28, 2009, 06:53:16 am

Hi welcome.  Could you arrange for goose eggs to be posted for you to incubate?

Title: Re: Hello from Quesnel in beautiful British Columbia
Post by: sandy on April 28, 2009, 02:04:42 pm

Welcome, a bit of a long removal for you them! I find it interesting that when we found a sweep in Leicestershire, he said they were few around and he would have loved to train someone up but as my partner did not drive he did not want to take the risk as much as he liked the idea, I should imagine now it is becoming more of a sort skill, am I correct in a bit of information I got years ago, did the sweeps sell the soot to farmers? Anyway, we need a sweep soon, we have 2 fires when we can be bothered to light them ::) Welcome, really must get on, too much to do, not enough time and I smell of disinfectant from cleaning my yard!!!!

Title: Re: Hello from Quesnel in beautiful British Columbia
Post by: Rosemary on April 30, 2009, 08:53:54 pm

Hi and welcome. Two former colleagues of mine have recently moved to BC. They showed me some photos and it looked stunning. They overlook a vineyard, s=which surprised me.

Title: Re: Hello from Quesnel in beautiful British Columbia
Post by: sweep on May 03, 2009, 07:13:59 pm

Hi  Rosemary,
it sounds like your colleagues  are living in the Okanagen area, this has a hot micro climate with lots of fruit orchards and vineyard's that produce some fantastic wines.
this area is close to the US border, we live about 500miles further north heading up towards Alaska and the Northwest territories.
up here it is all pine and fir forests and lakes as far as you can see.

Title: Re: Hello from Quesnel in beautiful British Columbia
Post by: sweep on May 03, 2009, 07:25:22 pm

Hi Sandy,
if you need a sweep make sure you get one that is a NACS member, i never sold my soot I used to trade it  for fruit and veg with local small holders and allotments
we also used to opperate a barter system, we used to look after quite a few pubs some of these had very good restaurants so would sweep in exchange for a meal for two also we looked after a farmer who had free range pork so we would take fresh meat in exchange!

Title: Re: Hello from Quesnel in beautiful British Columbia
Post by: MiriMaran on May 03, 2009, 07:35:00 pm

Hi and welcome to the forum Sweep!  I am imaginging that where you live looks like the best bits of Scotland only on a larger scale!  Sounds very beautiful, but too cold for me!