WELCOME TO MAPLE CREEK FARM
BRITISH COLUMBIA CANADA
HOME OF JOE AND FERNIE HOLCOMB AND ALL THE CRITTERS
This is our Front Yard showing part of the house and some of the shrub border.
We are located about an hours drive east of Vancouver B.C. on the northside
of the Fraser River in the Lower Fraser Valley.
We have four children and six grandchildren, The last of the kids, the youngest Daughter married almost
three years ago.
So it's pretty quiet around here most days.
Joe and I taken at our Daughters Wedding in 1996
Ten years ago we abandoned the city life for 10 acres of rural solitude and
haven't looked back. We had the land cleared an acre or two at a time. First
came a building site for our House and Garden areas..little by little over the
next few years more land was cleared. A small chicken house was erected,
next came a duck house complete with a stream fed pond. Now ten years later
that chicken house is home to Prissila and Star our two sweet African Pygmy
goats. My flock of chickens has grown from a small flock of seven Plymouth
Barred Rock hens to a mixed flock of Silverlaced Wyandottes, Columbian Wyandottes,
Buff Orpingtons and Australorps. I have two Roosters..one a Silver Laced who goes
by the name of Puck and a Buff Orpington called Babushka. The chickens are housed
on one side of a small barn. Joe's Chukar are on the otherside. Somehow when
I wasn't watching, Joe also managed to sneak in a large workshop and a pigeon
Loft for his homers.
Here are my Chickens, doing what chickens
like to do best, pecking and scratching.
I am an avid gardener..favorites being Perennials but especially the plants used
frequently in Rock Gardens..be they alpines or just common groundcovers. Saxifragas
of which there are many, are among my favorites. I also have a particular fondness
for the miniture varieties of Daffodils. I have a hobby Greenhouse that I make good
use of every year. I start a lot of my vegtables in there for transplant in May to
their permanent growing position. I have tried unsuccessfully over the years to grow
Tomatoes outdoors..I think because of our Northside of the mountain locale we get
damper weather in the later part of August and they always end up with Tomato blight
so I gave up trying to even grow them until I got the Greenhouse. Now I grow them
exclusively in there. Other vegtables I grow in the greenhouse are Peppers, English
Cucumber and Eggplant. These also seem to do much better under glass.
I have a small Fishpond and a Shadehouse adjacent to the pond. I love the shade house
as in the heat of summer it is such a refreshing place to entertain or just take a
lemonade break on a hot afternoon.
The Greenhouse, Shadehouse and Pond plus some of the
backgarden flower borders..this was taken a few years ago,
probably three as the Grapes and Kiwis haven't made much growth
to cover the Shadehouse..it is completely covered over now
in the late spring through till Autumn's leaf fall.
We also have two Cats, Ruby who is our senior cat, she will be 14 in the Fall and
Koneko who is now six years old. Ruby is a very good mouser and shows her skills
regularly by bringing me her little treasures. Koneko is strictly an indoor cat..I
don't think she'd know what to do if a mouse ran up and introduced itself. I have
Zebra Finches and an Aquarium with Dicus and Angelfish and a few assorted smaller fish,
Tetras mostly. Joe has his English Setters..Llwelyn strain. He field Trials and Hunts
with them.
Pete at a training session.
Joe and Maggie, both look tired, they'd had a day out hunting.
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