Soil is the fuel that energizes life.
It all begins with an idea.
Recently, I listened to a blog by John Chester of Apricot Lane Farms. He discovered a lot about farming by looking at the history of the earth (4.6 billion years old) condensed into one calendar year.
"Humans are 0.01 percent of life on earth, and we showed up in the last 23 minutes. The Industrial Revolution started in the last 2 seconds (260 years), so factory/chemical farming is essentially brand new.
In the last 2 seconds of our time on earth, the industrial revolution has destroyed 33% of the world’s topsoil, 46% of trees, 50% of biodiversity and 85% of wetlands. Clearly, this is not sustainable.
The earth is resilient. We weren’t conscious of the consequences of factory farming before but we are now. The 'feed the world at any cost' mentality is disastrous. We need to respect what is right and wrong, what works and what doesn’t." John Chester
The top 12 inches of soil is the only alchemizer of death into life. Soil is the fuel that energizes life. 70-80% of insects require the top 2 inches of soil for life. We need to treat soil as a living organism. And livestock, particularly ruminants, helps soil do this critical
Cheftimony Podcast
It all begins with an idea.
Graham MacLennan
Talking to chefs and sometimes lawyers…
Join me for a trip to a beautiful farm on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia and hear recommendations for food-friendly wines from BC's wine islands region.
Meet Bobo.
It all begins with an idea.
Bobo is our senior Purebred Registered Berkshire Boar. He was born on September 15, 2014 and came to Hough Heritage Farm at 12 weeks old. He is rare in that most farms don't keep their senior pigs after 4-5 years old. Bobo will stay on this farm and enjoy his life as long as possible. His arrival to the farm started in the backseat of my Honda CRV in a dog crate but he soon busted out and ended up riding shotgun in the front passenger seat for most of the drive over to the Sunshine Coast. Bobo was the size of my Shih Tzu when he arrived. He is now over 1000 lbs, about 4 feet tall, and 8 feet long. He is truly a gentle giant, baby goats and piglets often used him as a jungle gym while he naps. Pigs achieve adult weight at the age of 5 so while Heritage breed pigs grow to 250 lbs by 7 months of age, the age of processing, it takes a lot longer to grow to their adult size. This is why so many people are surprised when they see Bobo, an adult boar. We are used to seeing pigs up to the processing age of 7 months, or weight of 250 lbs.