Fast Horses - Slow Food. Farmer with a passion for breeding fast thoroughbred horses, jersey cows, rare breed pigs and heritage chickens. Trying to take care of the environment and soils to ensure my children and grandkids have a habitable planet.
We will be closed on Saturday Nov 9th with Monday 11th being remembrance day, then no more closures until Christmas!
This year we have siblings getting together whose lives were directly affected by the 2nd world war as they lost their dad along with many uncles. We are so thankful to live in a country where we have the freedom to live in peace.
We are looking to sell our pregnant Jersey cow, Buttercup due in January, as well as her heifer calf, Edna, from this February. For anyone wanting to be more food independent Jersey girls are the best, we just have too many for our small farm.
The freezers are full at this time with our lamb and beef for sale. Our animals are fed and housed in comfort, with compassion and respect throughout their lives from birth on.
Ollie has taken to coming in the shop to buy his own food! whilst the dogs have been known to help themselves to dog cookies on occasion.
CLOSED SATURDAY OCTOBER 12 which for us means getting on with the farm job list. The priority now being harvesting the bounty, including the fruit, vegetables and flowers. Some of which is available in the shop:
‘Nootka Rose’ softneck garlic braids $20/each
Flowers by Constance (@theramblingbloom) $15/bouquet
Orchard fruit (spray free!) apples, pears, quince, etc
We are also preparing the freezers to receive the last of our beef and lamb for 2024, which we have for sale cut and wrapped, and are still taking pre-orders for lamb by the side or whole.
That’s all for now. Have a great weekend, take care of each other.
After 2 years of procrastination, it is finally happening, Nicky and Norman are tidying up the barn and farm.
The encouragement to make it happen, coming from our fabulous staff and family, that get tired of moving our “treasures” around the farm!
As you might imagine, theres lots of old horse treasures, including driving harness, saddles of all types, blankets, halters, bandages etc etc etc
We have tons of new and used chicken supplies, including portable roosts and lay boxes, feeders of all sizes etc etc
Then there are the used tubs, planters, buckets electric fence stuff etc etc.
Even a few bits of furniture!
There is lots & lots of lovely antique furniture, some in need of repair, but with good bones as they say, An addiction to old and good stuff would be a kind way of describing it
The garage and barn sale will continue during our open hours, more stuff surfacing all the time!
This year, we have changed so much, 21 lambs born on the farm, a first for us, also 3 calves increasing our herd to an all time high of 9. We market some of these well loved and cared for animals as meat through our farm store (lamb pre-orders being taken now).
The gardens are flourishing under the attention of the next generation of the family, doing an amazing job, on both vegetables and flowers, marketed in the shop as well as out in the world as the Rambling Bloom, seen at some of the Sidney street markets.
We are still involved with breeding Thoroughbred foals, but at arms length so to speak, at farms in Alberta and Ontario. Having been hands on raising & selling race horses for 30 plus years we are very appreciative of the hard working & talented folk managing our animals for us now. Our horses continue to thrill us, as they race & win across Canada, with 2 winners on July 5th both raised on the farm by Maggie (pictured below) now at 26. ALL the babies she raised are winners.
This summer sees us introduce a new line of feeds that provides some new options like Fibre Plus, a low-sugar high-fibre mix of soyhulls and beet pulp that is popular horse product.
The company is a BC company which is important to us.
Their Harmony horse feeds are corn and alfalfa free for horses with allergies.
We have also brought in the Chatterbox line of non-GMO poultry feed, to give our customers another option alongside the non-GMO Natural Harvest line that we currently carry.
The selling of quality Washington (non-dusty) compressed hay has been a good thing for us and our customers, as we can offer such a wide range of hay types for so many different livestock and horses of all breeds and needs. See our hay inventory and tests HERE
We have an amazing staff here in Michael, Chanel and Benson that is supporting us this summer and I am making the most of it to sneak away with Norman from time to time and explore our amazing island, knowing that the farm is in very capable hands.
Buy 10 Step Right feed bags and get another for FREE
We’ve had a great time this week learning and sharing the Enhanced Step Right Horse feed line that has finally arrived. These products take a long time in the planning — from getting each change approved by the CFIA and testing palatability, to a new state of the art production system, new bags and a line that reflects the needs of today’s horses.
As the old extruder mill is retired, after 30 years of leading equine feed production, it’s been replaced with a vacuum infusion process, allowing the Step feeds to continue evolving as the best in the industry and remain the only Canadian feed using non hydrogenated vegetable fats for their balanced Omega 3 and Omega 6 fatty acids that keeps our athletes healthy. They’ve also added a double conditioning pelleting process which keeps the feeds highly digestible and palatable in a way we all are used to whilst optimizing the very important forage portion in our horse’s diets.
An extruded kibble is still a feature of the Step 6 Senior and Step 2 Peak performance. All the changes have been made to reflect the current science when it comes to feeding horses, from a highly available marine based calcium to help protect the stomach, to top of the line minerals and Vitamins in the most available forms for the horse.Find out all the details in the new Step right guide below.
We will be closed on Saturday March 30th for the Easter Weekend, though open on Good Friday 29th for those of you with fence projects in the garden or to keep all the livestock in and predators out.
We have put up a new hay page that I hope is clearer for those needing hay and all the tests associated with those hays
Spring lambs [20 from 9 ewes so far] with one more ewe keeping us waiting for a final tally, are out enjoying the newly fenced pasture.
The smiles are big around here with springs warmth, new life and blossoms.
Though our grass is good, as are the different hays we all feed, never forget your breed specific minerals, so things like poor birthings and white muscle disease don’t affect you.
Set up for success with the correct nutrition, it is money well spent and far cheaper then livestock losses and vet bills.
Ask us about the tried and trusted options available.
The snow came and the dogs didn’t mind.. see further below for a closer up of our dogs.
In getting ready to participate in the upcoming FARMER TO FARMER at the Fairgrounds on Thursday February 15 I realized how much has changed over the last few years.
All week there are fabulous field day workshops taking place at different locations in the South island, fingers crossed i can steal away from here to get to the odd one
Due to all these changes we are madly trying to update the current web site to better reflect who we are in 2024, it is a lot different then it was 10, 20 and 30 years ago, change being the one constant.
When we aren’t serving our community of customers, we are getting ahead on cleaning out our back barn for lambing season, which then means we’re busy making soil, the most valuable asset on this farm. This lovely November weather is keeping us hard at it around the farm, such a pleasure digging for worms.
White House Stables 