Kricklewood Farm

It’s a blustery afternoon here in eastern Ontario and at this time it helps to focus on Spring and all the good things to come.   For me, Spring is all about new life:  hatching chickens and ducks, sprouting seeds and my favourite: baby goats!   The baby goats should start arriving at the end of March and soon after we’ll have hens and ducks sitting on eggs too.

We have a lot planned for 2012.  Our big project is (knock wood) our production of cold-pressed Sunflower Oil.  There are a lot of things to sort out but we have a field ready to go in May with oil to follow in the Fall.  We are sourcing an oil press  and  looking into all the other aspects beginning with planting and ending with ‘tastes like sunshine’ oil in a bottle.

We’re also planning to set up a couple of beehives for honey and wax production.   This will be a joint effort with some friends of ours from town.    We’re thinking to expand our workshop program too to include goat and chicken keeping 101.  And of course we’re always thinking of new varieties of goat milk soap and new flavours of goat milk fudge.   So, check back often to see what we’re up to or sign up for our email newsletter  to get regular updates from Kricklewood Farm.  All the best for 2012 from us to you!

Sunflowers have always been my favourite flower and seeing a field of them while growing up in Manitoba was a sight that is not easily forgotten.   We recently discovered a farm in Quebec that is producing cold-pressed organic Sunflower Oil and just tasting it has been an inspiration to try doing our own.  Short term, we are offering this oil at the farm gate and markets as a way to gauge the reaction in anticipation of our own production.  So far the reaction has been amazing, it ‘tastes like sunshine’ seems to be the consensus.

We have allocated one of our hayfields  for Sunflowers next Spring and now the job of  preparing it is taking place.   The field was plowed and Buckwheat planted to out compete the hay and provide  green manure.  In the meantime, we are researching  harvesting, pressing and bottling the oil.   If all goes well, we will be offering Kricklewood Farm Sunflower Oil in the Fall of 2012.  Touch wood.