Ted’s New Year Message 2024

Happy New Year! (a little late, I know) “Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset, swiftly fly the years.” This line from the wedding scene in the famous motion picture “Fiddler on the Roof” comes to my mind at the close of each year, as I reflect on and record the highlights of the previous 12 months. It […]

Give Thanks

Give thanks! Thanksgiving weekend, that “end of summer ritual” which seems so very far away when we are immersed in planting and preparation for the growing season sneaks up on you! Can it be here already? Another growing season, the hopeful time of putting seeds in the ground, the hard labour of harvesting in the […]

In Thanksgiving

There was a time in our history when we were simply thankful for food.  As a pioneer in this country, if you had your belly full you were pretty well satisfied and likely didn’t have a care over what kind of food you had eaten or where it came from.  Back then, we were much […]

“Grass Farming” – More Important than you think

June is the month when it really shines!  The method of production that we use here at Zettel Family Farms is often referred to as ”Pasture based livestock production” or more simply “grass farming”.  This year, for the first time, we had no spring seeding to do in the fields.  All of the land is […]

What is a cover crop?

When we learned about organic farming in the 1980’s, the term “cover crop” was brand new in the language of farming here in Canada.  Pioneered by organic farmers the use of cover crops is now catching on with conventional agriculture as a means to enrich the soil and prevent erosion.  Cover crops are plantings that […]

Our Global Trade in Food

Ted reflects on the impact of COVID-19 on our food supply and how a little food insecurity might actually be a good thing.

Helicopters, Soil Life, and Healthy Food

On a warm August evening I returned home from making some deliveries to see a helicopter circling over my house alarmingly low to the ground. He headed across the river, almost brushing the treetops and dove lower out of sight in my neighbour’s corn field. There was no crash though, and soon he reappeared to […]

November 2016 Newsletter

Preparing for The Big Freeze As a livestock farmer, I am always amused that people worry and stress over the coming of winter, when for most of them it requires very little preparation and only minor changes to their daily routine. Most of us live in houses that are frost-proof, have vehicles that start in […]