Creekside Dairy
3990 Chaplin Rd Agassiz, BC, Canada

Our farm store is open until 4 today. We have a good selection of beef and pork cuts available. Just so you are aware: Seabird Band has a checkpoint set up on Seabird Island Rd to stop non-residents from visiting the reserve in their efforts to curtail the spread of COVID to band members. We have been in contact with the band regarding the need to let our customers through the checkpoint with no hassle - after all we are an essential food source business and we are not on reserve - but if there are any issues at all please do let us know. Thanks for understanding and we hope to see you soon!

Today and always, we remember those who fought and are fighting for our country, and those who paid the ultimate price. Normally our farm family attends the local Remembrance Day ceremonies. Unfortunately those are not taking place this year due to COVID. But we will endeavour to model respectful commemoration here at home with a moment of silence at the eleventh hour to remember our heroes, both past and present. I think it's important that our children are aware that living... in a peaceful, free country is not a right but a privilege, and one earned with blood and tears. Our Dutch heritage makes this day all the more poignant. The soldiers of this great country that we have adopted as our own were instrumental in freeing our grandparents from enemy oppression, and for that, we are deeply grateful. To our veterans and our fallen heroes, we salute you. Thank you for your efforts to keep our country free. We will never forget.

We got our next order of beef in this week - now fully stocked in everything, including steaks! We’ll be closed next Saturday so come on down to the farm to stock up! See you soon!

Exciting day today! Posted our building permit AND broke ground for site prep for our store and processing plant!

Move 8 cows into parlour dip wipe milk dip move row out repeat x 14 to milk the whole herd in just over 2 hours How’s your Saturday morning going? It’s still dark here but over half of the herd is milked. I’m getting hungry though and dreaming of a big breakfast of bacon and eggs then a quick snooze on the couch before beef customers start arriving at 10.... Have a happy Saturday friends!

Due to a wedding in the family, our little farm store will be closed Saturday October 24. We look forward to seeing you again October 31!

|| An Update || Last week’s rather somber post about our disappointing corn silage yields and low milk production really seemed to resonate with our readers. We so appreciated your supportive and heartwarming comments and messages. I’ll be honest: it was a tough post to write and share. Like most farmers (and most people of course!) we have an innate sense of pride and sharing that our hard work just wasn’t paying off how we’d hoped was pretty difficult to do. It’s hard to sw...allow your pride and be vulnerable. But it’s necessary. Because not every day is a good day on the farm or in life - even though our social media feeds can sometimes be filled with everyone else’s highlight reels and feel-good moments. I’m glad that our struggles resonated with you and I hope that sharing our real reel encouraged you to be vulnerable in your own life. But on to happier stuff - our girls are responding to our ration changes and milk production is coming up very nicely! We’re so thankful for the expert input from our herd nutritionists in pinpointing out a few small issues with our ration formulation and recommending a rather tiny tweak that has the cows’ production on the way to much more normal levels. We try to harvest the crops at their prime nutritive levels and our nutrition team then formulates a ration based on feed samples that will meet our cows’ nutritional needs. It’s definitely a team effort to keep our cows healthy and happy and when those efforts pay off we all celebrate the win. Team work makes the dream work!

Getting closer to construction start on our cheese and creamery building!

|| The Highlight Reel vs The Real Reel || It’s easy to share the positives of farm life. Sweet newborn calves, cows galloping happily out to pasture, farm kids cheerfully pitching in with chores, a brilliant sunrise over the farm: all of these are the moments we take pleasure in sharing with you. But it’s not all good times down on the farm. The last several weeks have been tough. Poor corn harvest yields (growing organic corn in an unusually wet and cool June/July makes it p...retty much impossible to stay on top of the weeds), mysteriously dropping milk production, and now today the sweet girl pictured above is leaving the farm. We’ve always promised transparency in what goes on on the farm. You know that we count it a privilege and a joy to spend our days doing what we love, caring for our animals with respect and affection and farming our land sustainably. But when things don’t go as we expect, when our hard work doesn’t pay off the way we’ve planned, it can feel like we’ve failed in some way, even in situations far beyond our control. And it’s in times like these that we have a choice: we can wallow in our misfortune or we can pull on our boots and roll up our sleeves and get back to work. And that’s what we’re going to do. We’ll adjust our cows’ ration to make the corn silage last until next harvest. This summer we were blessed with high quality, excellent grass yields, and this will form the backbone of a good, nicely balanced feed ration. We’ve also talked with our nutritionist about the current herd milk production and we’re making some changes and additions to our TMR (total mixed ration) that should bolster production a bit. October always is a lower production month, and it’s very likely that come November milk production will rebound to normal levels. Finally, we’ll bid sweet Olivia here a loving goodbye tonight before she leaves, knowing that she had a happy life on our farm and that she has fulfilled her purpose in providing both milk and beef for local families. And tomorrow morning we’ll roll out of bed at our 4:30 alarm, feed and milk those cows, and keep on keeping on providing the best life for our girls, living this dream that is not perfect, but a dream that is uniquely and beautifully ours.

The life of a farmer. Always busy growing and harvesting crops and/or caring for animals. Always anticipating a slower time just around the corner that never really seems to materialize. Right now is a crazy time of year for farmers. We’re racing against the weather to get our crops harvested, crops that will feed our animals for the next year. Quality and quantity are both important - we need enough feed to store to last until next harvest, but we also want it to be top q...uality to keep our animals healthy and productive. It can be a bit of a balancing act - waiting an extra week or two might boost yields but the quality might suffer, or the weather could turn. It can be a stressful and challenging time as we try to make choices that will have the most benefit for our animals. Yesterday we harvested grass silage, tomorrow we’ll be chopping corn. Then we’ll spread manure and seed a winter cover crop. Then - maybe, just maybe - things will slow down a bit. There’ll still be animals to feed, milk, and care for, equipment to repair, and to-do lists a mile long full of items that seem to get neglected during the summer time. But with cropping out of the way, fall and winter are typically slower paced. It can be a welcome relief, a time to re-charge, and a time to dream of the next growing season when we’ll do it all again - and love (almost) every minute of it.

You’ve been waiting patiently - and it’s finally here! Heritage breed (pure bred Berkshire) pork, pasture raised right here on the farm is now available in our little farm store! It’s beautifully marbled + extremely flavourful - but only available in limited cuts and quantities. Hurry down to the farm tomorrow to snag some! We’ll have the following cuts available:... chops steaks loin roasts leg roasts butt/shoulder roasts hams smoked hocks liver And, to add to this special occasion, we’re picking up our next order of beef today too, so EVERYTHING will be on hand tomorrow. Yes, that DOES include steak! See you soon! 3990 Chaplin Rd, Agassiz 10 am - 4 pm Saturdays, or by appointment Cash, credit, debit

BLOWOUT ROAST SALE! We’ve got new stock arriving next week and need to clear out the last of our July beef order. All roasts left in stock are now ... wait for it.... **** 20% OFF!!!!! ****... That means our pot, eye of round, and baron of beef roasts are now only $8/lb, and sirloin roasts are $9.60/lb! (Chuck roasts are already sold out.) That’s a steal of a deal for grass fed, organic beef! These guys won’t last long; come on down to the farm to snag some ultimate comfort food - perfect for this cozy rainy fall weather. 3990 Chaplin Rd, Agassiz 10 - 4 Saturdays or by appointment Cash, credit, debit, e-transfer

A smokey early morning haze all but hid our heifers from sight this morning. Our farm is blanketed in smoke from wildfires burning thousands of miles away in the Western USA. We’re following several farms’ social media feeds as the blazes threaten their farms and livestock - and we know how scary this feels for them. Two years ago a wildfire burned out of control just a few kilometres east of our farm and while we did not receive an evacuation alert at the time, if the wind d...irection had changed like it did this week, our farm would have been directly in the fire’s path. There’s no words for the worry and fear that envelopes you when you’re the mercy of the weather and the fierce, insatiable flames. We can’t help in any tangible way, but please know we are praying for our neighbours to the south, for better conditions for the crews to fight these awful blazes, and for those of you (and your farms) that are in the fires’ paths. See more

And off they go into a new and strange school experience. Masks, hand washing, learning groups, social distancing - it’s a much different start to school than last year. An odd way for Farm Kid #4 to start school, and one that causes many different emotions for all of us. It will be sooo quiet here at the farm with only Miss A home and no busy and energetic siblings to keep her company. It’s going to take some getting used to for sure, especially around the farm where we’ve ...grown so accustomed to cheerful and enthusiastic tag-alongs and helpers over the past half year of home time. But they’re excited to see their friends and teachers, and in all honesty the return to a more scheduled routine will be good for all of us. We’re praying for a healthy, virus free school year! How are all you other moms and dads feeling about back to school? Are your kids going back today too? Regardless of what your school plans look like, we wish all of you and your families have a safe, healthy, and happy year.

Attention!! Change in beef store hours today! Open from 3pm - 5pm only due to a family event. Thanks for understanding!Attention!! Change in beef store hours today! Open from 3pm - 5pm only due to a family event. Thanks for understanding!

Calve-alanche! That’s the term farmers use when we have a huge surge in calves being born in a short amount of time. And we’re in the middle of one right now 15 calves in the last week. 10 of them heifers. Our calf nursery is at full capacity so we’ve had to be creative to find new digs for some of these cuties. This re-purposed grain bin and fenced off outdoor run now houses 4 of our newest heifers, but we had another two arrive yesterday and now we’re stuck again! 42 hei...fer calves this year so far. Last year we had 44 total, but it’s only the beginning of September; we have 40 more cows to calve out before the end of the year. While this is a good problem to have, we do need to make some decisions. We don’t need more than 40 replacement heifers each year now that our herd size is likely to remain at 120 milking cows . We have decided to offer some of our calves and heifers (up to one year old) for sale. Every farm needs some Brown Swiss in their herd. Intelligence, great components, amazing longevity, not to mention the cutest calves around. Now’s the time to add some Swiss character to your herd! PM for details on pricing and availability.

Butter makes everything better. Right?? Seems to me we could use some extra butter around the barn these days.... flies are crazy right now!

Farmers farm because they love animals. We are no different: yes, our cows provide us with our income, but we also immensely enjoy working with them, caring for them, and meeting their every need. Because we love our animals, we are also intensely interested in ensuring that we are doing our job properly - we want to be absolutely certain that our animals thrive and are in optimal condition. That’s why we’re always eager to hear what experts think of our herd, be it our veter...inarian, nutritionist, or a cattle classifier. Yesterday, we hosted Holstein Canada classifier Morgan on the farm for a socially-distanced animal welfare assessment. This assessment is part of the ProAction Initiative, a mandatory program for Canadian dairy farms that requires compliance in a number of important categories: food safety, milk quality, animal welfare, biosecurity, traceability, and environmental sustainability. As Canadian dairy farmers, we’re immensely proud of this program that demonstrates to consumers and other interested parties that our farmers are regularly inspected and required to adhere to strict standards of quality, safety, and animal welfare. It shows that we don’t just talk the talk, we also walk the walk when it comes to how we care for our land and animals. ProAction is tangible proof that Canadian dairy farmers are held to some very stringent requirements and that our farms are happy, safe, and comfortable homes for our cows. Morgan closely examined our herd for hock, knee and neck injuries, body condition, and lameness. The cows really seemed to enjoy the attention and crowded around Morgan, watching her every move very curiously. They behaved so nicely for her, making her job quite easy, and we’re proud to report that our herd scored very well - well above the benchmarks in all categories. This was not unexpected but it’s always nice to have third party recognition of the quality of care we provide to our cows. No matter which brand of milk you purchase in your local grocery store, it will come from a farm that has been audited by a third party to ensure animal welfare benchmarks are met. All Canadian dairy cows are inspected for signs of neglect or abuse under our ProAction program, and you can be absolutely confident that the milk and other dairy products you purchase for your family are produced by happy, healthy, well cared for cows. Isn’t that a great feeling? Dairy farmers are consumers too, and I love knowing that the ice cream, cheese, butter, and cream that I purchase to feed my family is produced on farms that have met some of the most stringent safety, quality, and animal welfare standards in the world. That’s Canadian dairy, and we’re so proud of our products!