Oakwood Grange   1994 to 2010


We moved to Oakwood Grange in 1994, a 320 acre farm in central Manitoba near a small hamlet called Edrans. It’s where our children grew up and where we enjoyed many years of country life. We took a below average producing farm and helped it to hum with prosperity. I loved the challenges that I worked through and the results that we achieved. I love farming!


Soon after moving to Oakwood Grange I became involved with the Berkshire pigs. And then a few years later we became involved with the purebred Clun Forest breed of sheep. We had owned and used Clun rams during the 1980s when we farmed in Nova Scotia and so we knew of the values of the breed and decided upon adding the Cluns to our breeding program. When I came to register my first litter of pigs I found that I really needed a name to go with my herd. I had to think of a name that could prefix all of the stock that I would sell. I had to come up with a herd name.


The yard where we lived was surrounded by hundreds of Oak trees, Manitoba Oak, and so Oakwood became an obvious part of it.


As to the word Grange in the prefix. In Britain, where I came from, the term Grange belongs to the old farm in a community, similar in many ways to the homestead where we had moved to at Edrans in 1994. In the hamlet where I grew up there was the fancy Manor Farm, with its shiny machinery and perfect animals. Mowed driveways with accurately constructed post and rail fences lined the approach to the big house. In complete contrast, there was the Grange Farm, the old farm with its older buildings and machinery. A flock of ewes, of varying backgrounds, grazed around the yard and lawn deleting the need for any mechanical lawn mower. In our village, the Grange farm was run by two elderly sisters. They milked a fairly suspect herd of crossbred cows, mostly of Jersey influence plus a little Guernsey as well. The place was a fraction scruffy. Most of the field work was powered by a couple of older grey Massey tractors and a pair of work horses. Chickens, of all colors and sizes, ran about the farmyard producing their eggs in the most unexpected places. And when the day arrived for chicken stew or soup, one of the many young cockrels, that wandered the farmyard, would be selected for the job. Sows would stand with their front feet on the brick walls of their sties letting you know, in no uncertain terms, when it was time for their dinner. Small Corgi dogs would nip at the heels of the cows as they made their way to the milking parlor or could be heard yapping constantly at something interesting when their attention was away from their job of herding the cows. It was an ideal place for my young mind, securely set on a lifetime of farming. In comparison, our new farm was also one of the oldest in the area, the buildings were very much of a different generation and it hummed with the feel of another time. And so our farm at Edrans became known as Oakwood Grange.


During our stay at Oakwood, apart from the purebred Berkshire pigs and Clun Forest sheep, we also started our Oakwood Black Angus herd. The Angus breed was a natural move for us as we had run Angus influenced commercial cows since I began farming on my own in the late 70s. At the time we started with the purebred Black Angus breed I also ran a herd of 50 Red Poll cows. In the next few years the Red Poll numbers dropped as I became more involved with the Angus. The Red Poll breed is an amazing breed but my cows were not registered and my interest was in working with a herd as a breeder. There were very few Registered Red Poll cows to be found and there was little chance in finding homes for any purebred Red Poll bulls, or so I thought. I sold the remaining red cows in 2010 to concentrate on my Angus herd.


The dynamics of family life change. Children grow up and usually leave. Parents often find the time to re-aquaint themselves with their previous careers and opportunities. Many different life situations can alter the world that we create for ourselves. And this was how we found ourselves too. Jane was offered a chance to teach, her chosen career many years earlier, at a well known college in Alberta. This was a challenge that would consume several years and it was an opportunity that suited our lives at the time. But it also resulted in some changes for myself and a need to move on and find a new interest. For more than a year I looked around for a small farm to continue my work with my selected breeds. It was hard to find what I really wanted, a small place with a future. I had almost given up looking, always discouraged with any prospects that came my way. And then in August 2010 my daughter phoned to say that there was a place, about 10 miles from their farm, that I should have a look at. It’s initial description didn’t really interest me but I agreed to take an afternoon to drive down a take a look at it.  There was much that I liked about the place, it felt right, and I could see the possibilities. But, the work it needed was mind boggling. All of the 4 big sheds needed work, their rooves being the main problems. Then there was the fencing, the fields of thistles that needed working up and reseeding. There were animal bones everywhere from a multitude of suffering and dead cattle. The corral fences were fallen over and about 5 years worth of manure filled the livestock barns. As we looked past this muddle of work, atleast the small house was in good repair after a year of renovations. I’m not sure why but I felt this could be my next challenge. Now that I know how much work this would all involve, I must have been crazy to take this on at my time of life.


Within a very short time my daughter and her husband, Darren, helped to prepare the original farm for sale. It was a lot of work. I had a couple of months to find a buyer for the farm at Edrans and to complete on the new farm at Manson. Although it didn’t really seem possible, it did all work out. It was unbelievable really, and on November 15th the Lawrences took possession of the farm at Edrans and I became owner of my new farm, here at Manson.


It’s a year later now, October 2011. Fences have been built, rooves have been replaced, some of the barns are now cleaned out and there is a glimmer of hope that this will be a fine looking farm once again. It will take a while but we will get there in a few years time.


Although there are few similarities with the character of our old Oakwood Grange, this new farm still has character and will continue with the prefix of “Oakwood Grange”.

Katherine's Farm. The video

Many years ago Rural Route Videos produced a 120 minute video program about our farm, Oakwood Grange, and our farm life.

This video, DVD, has been seen all around the world and recently a review was made of the video by Annie Kates home school reviews. Here's a link to her site and the review.


http://anniekateshomeschoolreviews.com/2011/11/review-katherines-farm-a-dvd/  

Old Oakwood in Photos

Our house was built in 1919. We spent the 16 years we lived there remodeling and improving it. It was structurally very sound but, as with most older homes, there was need for some care and attention.

Soon after it was built. The house was actually an Eaton's catalogue home, and as many prairie homes, it was ordered and turned up on a railway wagon, complete with everything needed. There were many different designs to choose from, over 100, and when I eventually found a copy of the book about the Eaton's homes, the closest house that I could find that, represented ours, was called the Grange!

Our garden was many years in the making. This is the view from our sunroom, and winter or spring, summer or fall, the garden was always interesting.

We certainly miss what we had grown accustomed to. We had planted some apple trees, raspberries, gooseberries, Blueberry bushes, plum trees. Wild and older fruits such as wild saskatoons, pin cherries, wild plums also made up our yearly gardening harvest.

A cool winter's day

One of the benefits of our modern day digital cameras is their size. Out on my quad one evening, I caught my neighbor Rob Smith's Cockshut rake with the sun setting behind.

We grew much of what we needed for feeding our livestock, both hays and grain. Here I was swathing a crop of spring barley.

In my crop rotation I usually ploughed a field or two each year, breaking up the sod of Alfalfas and grasses. The next year I would often seed a crop of Siberian Millet in mid June. This is typical of my millet crops offering usually about 10 800lb round bales per acres.

A new litter of purebred Berkshire piglets. The Berkshire breed saw a new interest about 15 years ago with the Black Gold program. It eventually fell away, for a number of reasons.

My first sow, Polly, can be found in the pedigrees of many of the lines of Berkshires from Nova Scotia through to BC.. In the photo heading at the top of each of these web pages the photo of the 2 Berk sows comes from the Ross Farm Museum in Nova Scotia. I took them down a boar, Oakwood Lad, in the late 1990s where he served many Berkshires sows all around the Maritimes.

In the fall with a spring born calf. These smaller Red Poll cows were dynamite as mothers. They put so much into their calves and yet were easy keeping, always bred back on time or before time, and raised the best of calves. These black Angus cross calves always did exceptionally well at the fall sales.