- Story by Sean McIntyre Photography by Don Denton
From West Shore Life + Style magazine
A large sign welcomes drivers to the municipality of Metchosin, but, aside from the warnings to watch out for tractors, horses and livestock, the notice is barely warranted. Within a few metres of leaving the manicured subdivisions of Colwood and Langford, wooden signs flanking the roadside advertise fresh farm eggs, Montessori School, Pilates courses and a U-pick flower patch. These are sure indicators that the surroundings have veered markedly towards the rural-rich Metchosin.
Sunday drivers can be forgiven for momentarily buying into the bucolic image of farm life. Yet that pastoral scene of sheep along grassy hillsides doesnB次元官网网址檛 just appear from nowhere; it takes hard work and constant vigilance, as the duo who own and run MetchosinB次元官网网址檚 Stillmeadow Farm are quick to point out.
B次元官网网址淚tB次元官网网址檚 lambing season, so thereB次元官网网址檚 not a lot of sleep happening right now,B次元官网网址� says Tom Henry. B次元官网网址淗aying season is also very intense, the grain season and combining is intense B次元官网网址� actually the whole summer is intense because of irrigation and issues like that B次元官网网址� but this is the most 24-hours intense right now.B次元官网网址�
Lambing season, when the farmB次元官网网址檚 60 pregnant ewes must be checked every two and a half hours, day and night, until the deliveries are complete, is when Violaine Mitchell is in her element. She thinks nothing of waking up repeatedly during a damp and cold January night to check on her flock.
| Tom Henry and Violane Mitchell with a newly born lamb on their Metchosin farm land. Photography by Don Denton |
In her other life, Violaine is deputy director of vaccine delivery at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, where she also represents the foundation on the board of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations. It isnB次元官网网址檛 uncommon for her last international meeting of the year to coincide with the beginning of lambing season. After years of experience, sheB次元官网网址檚 narrowed down her return to work to within about four hours of the final lambB次元官网网址檚 birth.
B次元官网网址淲e sort of divvy the farm up. Vio manages the sheep and I manage the pigs. SheB次元官网网址檚 more knowledgeable about treating health issues because of her work experience, and IB次元官网网址檓 a bit more of the marketing and machinery guy,B次元官网网址� Tom says. B次元官网网址淚t wasnB次元官网网址檛 so much through head-butting, but more through gravitating to where our strengths are: we found that one sphere is kind of hers and the other is mine. At the end of the day, we both love farming B次元官网网址� underlined, in italics and bolded.B次元官网网址�
Stillmeadow FarmB次元官网网址檚 anchor products are pork, lamb, chicken and grain. The couple has a modest holly crop and farmers from near and far are always keen to chip away at the farmB次元官网网址檚 pile of steaming manure.
Tom says the mound represents the virtuous side of farming.
| Tom Henry and Violane Mitchell walk on their Metchosin farm land. Photography by Don Denton |
B次元官网网址淵ouB次元官网网址檝e got to have a strong sense of farming to appreciate this,B次元官网网址� he says, inhaling deeply during a tour of the farm. B次元官网网址淔armers who donB次元官网网址檛 have livestock would kill for this because the only other option is chemical fertilizer, which is very productive but isnB次元官网网址檛 so good for the soil.B次元官网网址�
ViolaineB次元官网网址檚 family has been working this magnificent ocean-front acreage since the early 1950s. The view across the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the Olympic Peninsula has remained largely unchanged through the decades. It is a sight whose beauty remains undiminished by familiarity.
She spent much of her childhood B次元官网网址渦p-countryB次元官网网址� in Kenya, Africa, where she enjoyed the romantic aspects of being a young child growing up on a small farm. When Violaine moved to Metchosin in 1998, she took over the sheep and was grateful to neighbouring farmers who were generous with both knowledge and time.
TomB次元官网网址檚 childhood was spent on a grain farm in northern British Columbia. HeB次元官网网址檚 written for newspapers, hosted a weekly CBC Radio column called Country Life, delved into West Coast history and penned several award-winning books, including Dogless in Metchosin: The Ideal Dog and Other Delusions, but has never shaken his fondness for agriculture.
B次元官网网址淥ur stories share strong parallels,B次元官网网址� he says. B次元官网网址淔arming gets in your blood. Even though I was a boy, I think I learned things that made getting into farming a lot easier later on.B次元官网网址�
ItB次元官网网址檚 farming that eventually brought Tom and Vio together, although initially the duo had more farm than relationship interaction, mainly trading sheep and farm knowledge.
Tom says the romantic version of the story is that the sheep brought them together, but it was really a late night telephone conversation that joined their fates. Tom was lamenting the lack of any nation-wide farming resource that small-scale farmers could access to gain knowledge about running a small farm.
B次元官网网址淪he called back the following morning and said B次元官网网址楲etB次元官网网址檚 do itB次元官网网址� and that was the beginning of Small Farm Canada.B次元官网网址�
Since 2004, the publication owned by Tom, Vio and another partner, has evolved into the magazine of record for the countryB次元官网网址檚 small-scale farmers. In an average workweek, Tom will spend his mornings working on the magazine and finish things off with a few hours across the lane back on the farm.
B次元官网网址淢y travel time is not much,B次元官网网址� he says.
B次元官网网址淭om is the one-kilometre guy when it comes to commuting,B次元官网网址� Violaine concedes.
| Tom Henry and Violane Mitchell enjoy coffee and look over their magazines on the dining room table in their house on their Metchosin farm. Photography by Don Denton |
Much of his time is spent in the farmB次元官网网址檚 newly constructed pig barn. What looks, from the exterior, to be a massive indoor tennis court, houses a cacophony of chittering personalities with the weight and energy to match. Hundreds of pigs of all sizes are divvied into pens depending on age, breed and gender. Within a minute of entering the barn, Tom spots a callus on the hind quarter of a younger pig, jostling with his brethren to stick his snout through the gate. Seconds later, Vio has spotted the injured animal and quickly applies a few shakes of antibiotic powder to thwart the possibility of infection or disease.
Constant vigilance and never-ending work are the stalwarts of farm life. The dozens of pens in the pig barn need to be fully cleaned out roughly every three days. The B次元官网网址渨orksB次元官网网址� get shovelled into the manure pile, the pads are washed down and a clean bed of straw is laid out. This rotation continues unabated year round, and neither Tom or Vio would have it any other way
B次元官网网址淔arming is really about mucking out, about hotel service for livestock,B次元官网网址� Vio says. B次元官网网址淚f you didnB次元官网网址檛 love it it would be terrible.B次元官网网址�
| Tom Henry and Violane Mitchell with piglets in the new pig barn. Photography by Don Denton |
