Small fry farmers living the handbuilt hobby farm dream in the sunny Okanagan. We started with 2 alpacas back in 2010, but decided to get a bit more serious with our animal husbandry and purchased our first flock of chickens that fall. Well the chickens truly were ‘the gateway farm animal’ that got the hay bale rolling. We now have close to 75 birds here on our hilly little acreage, and are continuing our heritage livestock expansions with Nigerian Dwarf Goats, Olde English Southdown ‘Babydoll’ Sheep, and Heritage Registered Tennessee Walking Horses. We also grow our own organic vegetables in summer of Kale, Tomatos, Onion, Lettuce, Beets, Sunchokes, Squash to name a few, and keep a large bee and butterfly friendly organic medicinal and culinary herb garden with Bergamont, Calendula, Mint, Sage, Echinacea, Chamomile and lots more. In the future we would like to keep our own bees and produce honey from our herbal and wildflower gardens, we also hope to expand our vegetable garden and donate and sell the surplus to local Food Banks and Farmer’s Markets. Our current project at the moment is working on getting our little farm SPCA certified, and looking at the idea of hiring 2-3 WWOOFERS or interns to help our expansion goals for 2014.
In the future we would like to pilot a 'Flockshare/Herdshare' lease program for eco-conscious, land deprived, sustainably minded urbanites who would like to have their own chickens for eggs, or goats for milk/cheese. This program will build on the successful concept of community supported agriculture (CSA) and take it one step further. We also actively encourage local young agrarians stuck living in apartments and condos to adopt bantam Old English Game hens in their homes -this very small heritage breed of chicken is smaller than the average grey parrot, and with a properly equipped cage/coop, they can live very happily inside an apartment or on a balcony and provide fresh eggs everyday, it is even simple and easy to grow small trays of fodder for real 'pastured' and happy hens! Anything is possible when you think outside the box and we definitely do at Tangible Farm!
