Ian Smith, whose parents started the farm, continues to crop the original quarter section of land, inhabits the farmhouse and buildings, and raises pigs, cattle and chickens.
“Things are going fine,” said Smith on his messenger communications app after a question prompted that remark. “I will start cultivating later today as I have press drills so I need to work the field and it has just got dry here at my place.”
He cultivated the garden the night before and put up an electric fence around the house yard for the cattle to come in and cut the grass.
“As a good friend said to me only a bachelor could get away with that idea … lol,” he chuckled.
He plans to plant 45 acres of Conlon barley and 45 acres of alfalfa and rent out the other 55 acres for a neighbour to plant into soybeans.
“The fertilizer for the barley is next to nothing because of the manure I put on and soybeans from last year. I believe in soil testing and have done it for 30 years and I go by the soil test. I may be small but I try my best.”
Asked whether he raises anything else, Smith said no that is it, but hand washes 90 plus eggs every evening and grows a good size garden.
The business for his off-the-farm pork beef and eggs sales remains good. Eggs are really in demand and so is beef.
“I have sold two steers and have another two steers spoken for to people for the freezer. They need to buy a side of beef much the same as I sell my pork.”
Smith is proud of his Shorthorn purebred herd and will promote the Shorthorn beef as good if not better than the Angus buoyed with some recent data.
It prompted him to make plans to show a Shorthorn cow and her calf at the Stonewall Fair on June 3. It’s something new for the 55-plus eligible bachelor and the Manitoba Shorthorn Association will help with some promotional materials because he’s never done this before.
He said the extra amount of natural marbling makes the Shorthorn beef more delicious and the grading of the carcass means the loin and the rib eye.
“Marketing pork for 20 years and more recently selling sides of pork for your deep freezer has made it easy to market my Shorthorn beef for your freezer too.
“I have customers who buy pork, beef and eggs from me. They get their eggs every two weeks, pork twice in 12 months and beef in May or June. I am like a one-stop shopping centre right from the farm.”
He picks up the pork and beef from the butcher shop and delivers it for free to the customers’ door but never from his freezer and he gets to visit with the people buying from him.
“I get to educate the customers in how I raise the animals humanely. It is government inspected and I do not cut corners to try and save a buck.”
The customer needs to be happy and able to talk to the farmer that has raised their food.
“I am a one-person business so I cannot do like the Government does pass the buck on to some other person. I am responsible for the product and the needed service.” •
— By Harry Siemens