We are a small husband and wife 5th generation farm who prides ourselves on educating our community online and in person.
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We open our farm to guests every weekend from April to December, including a 4 weekend Outdoor European Style Christmas Market.
11/09/2024
Hello all you loyal Belding Hill Farms followers, we have a huge ask from you. In anticipation of our piglets growing to adults by mid March of 2025 or so, we have been working with NBCC Marketing students to perform market research and brand awareness and help us come up with a plan to sell our pork. As part of this exercise, the students have created this short survey. We would love to have as many of you as possible to fill this out and more importantly, share this post with your friends and family that may have an interest in animals raised outside the large scale industrial farming system. I bet you all know someone that is looking for a different meat supplier, please tag them or share this post with them.
Thanks in advance!
Find details and the survey here:
Introduction and Informed Consent You are invited to participate in a survey conducted by second-year Business Administration: Marketing students at New Brunswick Community College (NBCC). The survey aims to gather feedback to help Belding Hill Farms improve its marketing efforts for a new pork prod...
11/09/2024
Would anyone be available tomorrow to help around the farm? Tuesday and Wednesday we plan to put the greenery up.
11/09/2024
Our girl snuck into the house this morning and made herself right at home... oh Nisa ❤️
11/09/2024
Our vendor spotlight today is Jen Merritt - Live Life Happy. We are very excited to have Jen joining us again this year.
Jen has worked in the wellness industry for 20 years. She is a Holistic Wellness Coach, Reiki Master, Certified Fitness Instructor and Alcohol Recovery Fitness Specialist. Her passion is to help and inspire others to created a healthy and balanced lifestyle and have fun doing it. She brings to the market her Essential Oil roller blends, as well as candles, sprays and bath soaks. Her blends are created for anything from anxiety to itchy bug bites, or if you have something specific she can make a custom blend just for you. This Christmas she has combined her most popular products into easy gift-giving gift bags.
The lights look so pretty reflecting off the pond, minus the head and taillights. 🤦♀️
11/08/2024
Everyone is pretty chill this morning, just waiting for me to feed them.
11/08/2024
Our spotlight vendor today is Shedman Creations , Blair joined us at our Spring Market, and thought our Christmas market would be just as fun! We are so excited to have him join us for our Dec 13th-14th weekend.
“I created Shedman Creations (named after the nickname my wife gave me for spending so much time out in the shed working on pieces) in 2022 when I inherited my fathers lathe and began experimenting with the tool. I have always been avid carpenter, making wooden Christmas ornaments for my daughters’ classes when they were younger, shelves, book cases etc. Now with a new tool like the lathe, I can create so many more things , bowls, pumpkins, plant stands, candle holders etc. I started off just using wood but have recently started getting into adding resin to different pieces. I like to create unique pieces and can say that no one piece I create is ever the same. I will have an assortment of wooden candle holders, plant stands, bowls and more for sale at Belding Hill Farms , I am very excited to see everyone this year!”
BOOM Baby! Boomer has landed! We are definitely late for breeding season, but better late than never! He is an impressive animal!
11/07/2024
Our vendor spotlight today is Big Cheese Food Truck. This will be their 2nd year with us, and they bring a great variety of food, that everyone can enjoy. They will be here for all four weekends, Nov 22nd-23rd, 29th-30th Dec 6th-7th and 13th-14th.
The Big Cheese Food Truck is a family run food truck who does everything from catering private office luncheons and weddings to some of the largest concerts in the maritime! We have been a staple at Cavendish Beach Music Fest for 13 years. We look forward to serving up our favourite maritime comfort food:)
My mission for the evening. Workday doesn’t end at 5 pm here. The cows/horses/donkeys/sheep have nearly eaten all the grass, so now we feed bales from now until late May. This is the time of year when our feed bill is considerably higher! Have a great night folks!
11/06/2024
Well, Luke and I got the sheep divided into their breeding groups, and in their appropriate paddocks. Let the breeding shenanigans begin!
This is Massey and his ladies this year...
11/06/2024
Excuse my voice, I have laryngitis. But the cows, horses and donkeys are all getting along great!
11/06/2024
Today's spotlight vendor is Brigadoon Fiber Farm. We are so excited to have Rachel and Jay join us again this year. They will be here Nov 22nd-23rd, 29th-30th, and Dec 6th-7th.
Welcome to Brigadoon fiber farms. Nestled in the picturesque River Valley, in Hoyt NB, we are a small family farm (military too!) that focuses on slow, remewable fashion. We raise some of the best quality fiber from our small herd of alpaca and sheep, established in 2015. We offer a range of eco friendly and cruelty free products in our farm store including yarns, hand woven apparel, knit apparel, roving and fiber for hand spinning or felting. You can be sure of the quality of our products, Rachel has been a fiber artist, spinner, dyer, weaver, knitter and teacher for over 15 years. She is currently completed level 4 of the Master Weaver certification. Discover the beauty and eco friendly traits of Alpaca and heritage breed sheep with Brigadoon Fiber Farm.
Soon time to wean this group of little stinkers...
11/05/2024
Our spotlight vendor today is, Tastybitenb . This is Minal's first Christmas market with us, and we are excited to have her here, Nov 22nd-23rd and 29th-30th.
TastyBiteNB is a proudly local business based in Saint John, specializing in custom edible arrangements. From flower charcuterie boards to personalized letter displays and an extensive selection of sweet and savory nuts, we offer something delicious for every taste and occasion.
11/04/2024
Oh Ger bear...
11/04/2024
Tessie is enjoying hanging out with the cows. ❤️
11/04/2024
Today's spotlight vendor is Bohemian Knits. This is Jodi's first time at our Christmas markets, and we are so happy to have her join us!
Bohemian Knits
Description:
Handcrafted macramé wall art, plant hangers, and personal accessories with a bohemian touch. Each piece is meticulously handmade for a modern vibe while still respecting macramé’s vintage aesthetic. Great gifts for any generation.
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Videos
The lights look so pretty reflecting off the pond, minus the head and taillights. 🤦♀️
Everyone is pretty chill this morning, just waiting for me to feed them.
BOOM Baby! Boomer has landed! We are definitely late for breeding season, but better late than never! He is an impressive animal!
My mission for the evening. Workday doesn’t end at 5 pm here. The cows/horses/donkeys/sheep have nearly eaten all the grass, so now we feed bales from now until late May. This is the time of year when our feed bill is considerably higher! Have a great night folks!
Well, Luke and I got the sheep divided into their breeding groups, and in their appropriate paddocks. Let the breeding shenanigans begin!
This is Massey and his ladies this year...
Excuse my voice, I have laryngitis. But the cows, horses and donkeys are all getting along great!
Volunteers Helping With Putting Siding On Our Farm Store #europeanstylechristmasmarket #christmasmarket#homesteadinglifestyle #homesteadingcanada #homesteadingcouple #homesteadinglife #homesteading #beldinghillfarms #newbrunswickhomesteading
Soon time to wean this group of little stinkers...
Oh Ger bear...
Tessie is enjoying hanging out with the cows. ❤️
Well, today was a busy day. We brought home May and Chuck, and Red and Brooks from their summer pasture in Mt. Hebron, and then we brought all 5 of the Dairy Queens home. Hopefully the first part of the week, the crew from my parents place in French Village will be coming home.
Now Luke and I are sitting down to a nice hot bowl of Korea Beef, made with our grass fed, grass finished beef. Have a wonderful evening.
Exciting Friday evening here at Belding Hill Farms! We are working in our barn, cleaning, boarding in walls, installing lights and generally getting ready to welcome our Christmas market guests into our barn. That is unique about our market, you get to eat, drink and shop and interact with the animals.
Jill and I got married in 1997 and in 1999 moved into the Coleman family homestead, or at least one of them. My great grand-father built our house in approximately 1875. We live with our 3 teenage kids (for now). My grand-parents lived in this house when I was a child. I spent a great deal of time here with my grand-parents and around the animals and have always loved them. Jill came from a farming family also. Jill’s grand-father and father ran a dairy farm and later a beef farm in her youth.
So farming is in our blood you could say, but honestly, I didn’t want anything to do with it when I grew up, but like so many of us do, we find that we like to return to our roots when we get older. Jill and I , mainly Jill tolerating me doing it, began dabbling in farming several years ago. We have always farmed because of our distrust in the industrial food system that is currently feeding our society and our world. We got away from farming when our kids were young and our life was busy, but our beliefs in our food system causing diseases in our world kept us in touch with farming and supporting local farmers. As our daughters grew older and expressed interest in farming and as I began to distance myself from a busy career in industrial automation, we began getting back into homesteading in the spring of 2017.
We started by buying 4 goats, 3 pregnant does and a buck. These were heritage breed goats, Nubians to be exact. Nubian’s are a dual purpose (meat/dairy) goat breed. We followed that up with buying 5 Tamworth piglets, also a heritage breed of animal. The heritage breeds are simply breeds that originated many years ago and have not been scientifically modified to breed bigger, quicker, heavier muscled, etc, to match current farming practices. We believe in heritage breeds in all our animals and we believe in farming in a much more traditional, natural, slow and healthy way. We do eat and we raise our own animals, but we provide our animals with the healthiest, fullest and most natural life until the day they are butchered. Our animals have the best life possible while they are with us. Our pigs are led by our fence wrecking, mischief making Berkshire boar named Curly and his two ladies, Big Momma and Sally.
Next, we bought several egg laying hens and this quickly brought about Jill’s “chicken math”! We ended up with several different heritage breed hens and roosters and in 2018 we began incubating the eggs and selling day old chicks. We have sold approximately 1200 baby chicks and we have thoroughly enjoyed meeting new chicken keepers, helping them with some advice and answering their questions. We now have dozens of chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys and guinea hens. We will be selling more chicks starting in late March each year. And as many of you know, Jill has a long list of loyal customers who purchase her farm fresh eggs, contact us to have your name added.
In the winter of 2018/2019 we bought our daughters each a Milking Shorthorn dairy calf, for their 4H projects. These calves are now affectionately known as the Dairy Queens (Luke sings a little song to that affect to them most mornings). Soon we hope these girls will be bred and will be suppliers of milk to our little homestead. In the fall of 2019, we added 5 purebred Hereford beef cattle to our herd, with one steer heading to freezer camp in the spring of 2020 and the other two heading there possibly in the fall of 2020. Both the moms are supposed to be pregnant and due to calve in the summer of 2020.
Also in the winter of 2018/2019, we purchased the centerpiece of our operation (just ask him and he’ll tell you so, LOL)!! Just before christmas of 2018, Chevy our then 7-8 year old Belgium/Clydesdale draft horse. Chevy had some previous experience being driven and working in the woods, but the spring and summer of 2019 saw us building him a logging arch and hauling 25-35 cord of hardwood and softwood out of our woodlot with him. He has taught us a great deal (again, just ask him) and plans to continue to teach us. This has not really been taken on to save money or to be more sustainable, but simply to enjoy doing things in a similar manner to our ancestors. Of all the activities we do on the homestead, I can honestly say working in the woods with Chevy and my partner in crime, Pat Coleman (Cuz), is the highlight of my year.
In the spring of 2019, we purchased 5 Katahdin (more of a mix than purebreeds) ewes and their 7 lambs and then in August, we purchased our flock leader, Henry and his girlfriend Maeve (both purebred Katahdins). Maeve quickly earned her way into being one of the favorites on the homestead (we know this because again Luke has songs he sings to Maeve) because of her affectionate and pushy personality. In the spring of 2020, we had 12 lambs born and all the lambs from last year are gone. The sheep are quickly becoming favorites as a group and certainly Jill’s passion.
Although a great deal of our focus seems to be animal related, our ultimate goal is to be self sufficient for as much of our own food (meat and produce, maple syrup, honey, etc) and supplies as possible. Our homestead is ever expanding. Stand by for further details and to see what shenanigans we get into next!!
