Catching up! 2025 — Bakie Farm Initiative

Given the current state of the union, I am forcefully reminded of Candide’s assertion, “… we must cultivate our garden.” And we have. However, not that anyone is holding their breath waiting to hear from us, it has been brought to my attention this blog needs updating. Three years have passed since I last posted! Who knew? Far too much has happened to review in a single post. A few highlights are worth mentioning. We have new roofs on the farm house, Barn Swallow, and the Annex, the cluster of buildings in the center of the aerial photograph on the home page. That’s a lot of shingles! We cleaned out three large cellars, one of which involved shoveling by hand tons—literally—of chicken manure, deposited by 600+ chickens over several years under the tenure of the previous owner. It took seven years for it to cool down enough to enter the cellar without a hazmat suit. In the “Bakie Farm” barn we installed a drain to keep the root cellar from flooding and a rail system for storing heavy pallets out of the weather. In the Hidden Barn we built a food-safe washroom and are currently building a 1,200 cu. ft. walk-in cooler, all to accommodate our farmers’ needs for processing, packing and shipping more food and flowers. In the last two years we’ve broken several acres of new ground. In addition to two vegetable growers, one cut-flower farm, a sugar bush, and a haying operation, we are in discussions with an organic herb farmer who plans to join us in the spring. In summary, all is well at Bakie Farm!

For the archive, below I have posted photos of some of these projects because the “before” and “after” shots are suggestive of the nature and extent of the work that has kept us preoccupied! Thank you for your interest.

The Bakie Barn cellar following a heavy spring rain. The water inside is over a foot deep.

The new drain.

The rail system, installed over the drain, with “wooden skids” for holding heavy pallets positioned end to end and pushed inside with a tractor. There are ultra high density polystyrene pads—the same stuff as my artificial knees!— under the wings of the skid, resting on the polished steel rails that are coated with a polycarbonate spray to reduce friction. We can drag them back out using a chain. The rails will hold five 40” x 48” x 60” pallets weighing up to 2000 lbs. each!

The sub-basement of Barn Swallow, where the chickens dwelled. The entire space (roughly 40’ x 50’) had a foot to over two feet of manure, wall to wall, door to door. I discovered a concrete floor underneath so began the excavation in the early spring.

Here it is, now. That far corner, under the roosting bars (now raised to enable access underneath) still needs some work, but it’s now an enormously useful space!