Drought in the Gulf Islands - Summer 2015.

Today marks the last day of summer vacation for the school kids.  Tomorrow it is back to school for my son, who will be taking a water taxi to and from the high school on Salt Spring Island. 

Although not officially the last day of summer it really feels like it. 

The drought on our farm this summer was most severe we have ever seen.  Usually it is dry and hot for July and August, but this year it was dry in May and June as well.  

This photo is from one of our hayfields in July.  We put the sheep in when it was apparent that the grass was too short and too dried out to harvest.  

For the past week or so we have had rain off and on - enough to make up for the drought, and now we are seeing green grass coming through.  In a few days I will deworm the ewes and put them into the pastures, once the grass height is sufficient to support them.

In the meantime, they graze what they can in this field and get supplemental hay that we were able to harvest earlier in the season.  Some ewes were sent to be made into burger and roasts, some will likely go to auction this weekend.  There is just not enough hay to last through the winter, and the price for hay has gone up too much.

Liberals fire head of Agricultural Land Commission

Liberals fire head of Agricultural Land Commission

Agri 007: XL customers lawsuit settled

Agri 007: XL customers lawsuit settled: Customers whose XL Foods Inc. beef was recalled will be able to share in a $1-million settlement to a class-action lawsuit, ...

COMET-Farm tool

California ranchers tackle the climate crisis one pasture at a time By Sasha Harris-Lovett from Grist.org

http://grist.org/climate-energy/california-ranchers-tackle-the-climate-crisis-one-pasture-at-a-time/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=update&utm_campaign=socialflow

more on the subject from  http://www.marincarbonproject.org/

Gulf Islands Gold?

      “There’s gold on them thar islands!” or so it seems. With the recent news of mining claims covering much of the privately owned rural and agricultural land on North and South Pender, “not in my back yard” has taken on new meaning. Property owners have been consulting with legal counsel, elected officials, neighbours and government websites to try to make sense of it all. Both the Islands Trust and CRD are conferring with the Ministry of Energy and Mines. It appears that land with a building, the area around a house, orchards, cultivated land, heritage land and parks are not included, but that still leaves large rural areas open to exploration. It surprises many residents who thought mining of this nature was not allowed in the Gulf Islands, especially since such activity is counter to the “preserve and protect” mandate of the Islands Trust.

      According to the Ministry of Energy and Mines, claim staking with Mineral Titles Online, established in 2005, has been a game changer. Creating an easy to use online system was intended to streamline the process, which it certainly did. Mining claims in BC increased substantially as a result. But there were unintended consequences. “Online staking now allows claims to be acquired without ever setting foot on the land. MTO has significantly reduced the cost of acquiring a claim, and, as a result, has allowed some claims to be registered by persons who have no intention of ever conducting any mining activity on the land.”

      Although a property owner’s initial reaction is to prohibit entry of someone with a free miner’s certificate and claim to the subsurface mineral rights, the provincial mining laws trump any local laws or private property owner’s rights. In most cases the province owns the minerals under the surface, so even if you own the land they own everything under your land. Property owners should be aware of the Mining Tenure Act regulations, which require proper notice to be given and compensation paid to the surface rights property owner. This can be as simple as an agreement with the miner, or as complicated as a hearing with the Gold Commissioner or a surface rights arbitration board. 

      In the far north corner of the province, the regional government has helped arrange for a Farmers Advocacy Office to help landowners through the complicated process with a compensation arrangement that is as transparent and fair as possible. The FAO keeps a map and database clearly showing the terms of other surface rights agreements to help farmers with their own negotiations. In the case of the grain and forage growing Peace River area the subsurface resource being extracted is oil and gas, but the principle is the same.

      All of this harkens back to the gold rush days of the 1800’s. The earliest regulation of mining in BC came with the Gold Fields Proclamation of 1859, with the appointment of two gold commissioners for the Colony of British Columbia. The original Gold Fields “Act” was to promote land settlement at a time when the province was sparsely populated and mines were smaller. The establishment of a Gold Commissioner was to serve as the law in what was a lawless frontier. It speaks volumes that we still have need of a Gold Commissioner today, and that we allow our province to continually tweak an antiquated law that clearly needs an overhaul and an updating into the 21^st century.

     The mining industry in BC is very strong and important to the BC economy. This fact is certainly not lost on our lawmakers. Perhaps a complete review is in order, and should include the importance that mineral and metal recycling may have on the environment and our economy. It is known that recycling has the advantage of energy savings and reduced pollution, in addition to the sparing effect on our environment from reduced mineral exploration. New tools and research in mining exploration can also reduce the damage to the surface and water resources and provide a targeted approach to mining, instead of a shotgun approach of yesteryear when land was seen as an unlimited resource and miners with no experience or training could stake claims over large expanses of land.

Free run, free range or just plain Free

   Caged, free run, free range or just plain free. You may be familiar with the first three terms, but “just plain free”? Raising livestock and poultry on a farm can be done different ways, depending on the facilities available, the inclination of the farmer and the market demand. Codes of practice in raising livestock and poultry are currently being revised and would also influence how animals are to be raised. But sometimes the animals take matters into their own hands (or hooves or wings).

    Last year we had a visitor fly into our farm. She was a lovely young Muscovy duck. Our two aged Muscovy drakes suddenly started to take better care of themselves, eating better, getting more exercise and grooming their feathers more. Their heads took on an Elvis Presley-style “pompadour” look.

    The female Muscovy eventually gave in to their charms, and in the spring she began to take on the nesting look and sounds – a bouncy waddle, puffed-and-fluffed up feathers, and a “ping” to her voice. We didn't know where she was nesting, but my husband found out on Mother's Day. She had hatched out fifteen babies on the porch above our deck. Glenn carefully gathered up the babies and brought them down a ladder to the ground below. Each time he went up the ladder she was waiting for him, attacking his head as he gathered more babies. Finally, she joined them on the lawn below, mothering them. We grew concerned as each day she would show up with one baby missing. It seemed that either a wild cat, or raven, or mink was snatching her ducklings. Out of desperation and with some encouragement by us, she started to sleep at night by our door, her wings gathered around her young ones. Five young ones survived – three males and two females. For quite some time they stayed each night by the door until they were big enough to fend for themselves. One day another female flew in to join them, and another male as well. I don't know where they came from. That is where the “just plain free” comes in.

    One of the challenges of “just plain free” is determining ownership. We did provide feed and protection to the ducks, but by the way they would go wherever they wanted I wasn't sure they belonged to us, or anyone. When the young ducks were big enough their mom spent a few weeks teaching them to fly. It was kind of a “OK, watch me do it, now you try” kind of trial and error. The mama duck would fly around the farm gracefully. Soon, the young ones would tentatively flap their wings and lift off for short runs, then longer ones. Sometimes they would fly over the ridge, sometimes into the neighbour's farm. One day I spotted a male and female looking lost on Port Washington Road. Somehow, this form of “just plain free” makes management a challenge. There are still three young ones that are by the door each morning, a bit hesitant about being so free. Some have been reported further down on Port Washington Road, hanging around at feeding time at one of the sheep farms. Yes, we could clip there wings, but should we? That would make them more vulnerable to predators.

    The same problem happened last year with our turkeys. All spring and summer they would stay close to home, eating lots of blackberries and such. At one point the females move far away from the males, as the females nest and go about raising their young. As fall came on they would move further afield, becoming an annoyance to some neighbours. I ended up gathering them into the barn and sending a batch at a time to the poultry swap and sales. The heritage turkeys have a way of getting up into trees, onto fence posts, or will go high on a hill to give themselves more range to fly over. I have spoken with other heritage turkey producers who occasionally need to go to the neighbours and gather up their stray turkeys, walking them home. At least I am not the only one.

    Even hooved animals can be in the category “just plain free”. A few years ago I took a healthy group of Border Cheviot sheep to a nearby farm of good size. That was my first mistake, because Border Cheviots have a wild nature. They settled into grazing, and as fall came it was quite a challenge to gather them and separate the lambs for market. The next year, it was impossible as a dog had chased and attacked them, so they would not be gathered by our Border Collie. I soon declared them “feral”, or back to wild sheep, and tried various ways to get them back to the home farm where I could use our corral to gather them up. As luck would have it, one evening the sheep decided to graze near the driveway, were spooked by a car on the driveway, ended up on the road, and the RCMP put them into our driveway and farm. Yes, the Mounties always get their lamb.