Imagine a petting farm where your child says “can we take him home?” and you can.
It won’t be that simple, but adoption is the plan Sue Wilson sees for Glamorgan Farm. She took possession from current owner Anny Scoones on April 1 — no fooling.
“I want to make it the animals rescuing the animals,” said Wilson, who is also the creator of Animals for Life Society. “I want to create an adoption farm, where the animals create the revenue to save animals.”
Through Animals for Life, she’s rescued many a cat, but what brought her to the farm, was a pig.
Wilson was “helping a human” (whom she generally finds less grateful than animals). That person told her she had breast cancer, and what would make her feel better was a pig.
“I went out and got her a little pig,” Wilson said. “(Later) she realized that having a pig wasn’t such a good idea.”
After asking around, Wilson learned that Scoones at Glamorgan Farm would likely take in little Judy. Turns out she makes a great friend for fellow Vietnamese pot belly pig Raisin. Scoones also got the chicken that was leaving eggs behind the television and dryer.
As she unloaded the pig, Scoones recalled, “Sue said ‘This is my dream.’ And I said ‘do you want it?’”
Wilson’s concepts for the North Saanich farm include weddings, reunions, living wakes, a farm/garden market, tea house, mobile animal spay/neuter clinic and of course the petting zoo with adoption option.
Wilson’s Animals for Life is a non-profit society that rescues animals. They’ve re-homed 1,500 animals already, primarily cats from BC, Wilson said, along with a handful from the US and Mexico. The farm will open the options to larger breeds like horses and goats in need of homes and rehabilitation. And while making a donation to visit the planned petting zoo, people will be helping re-home more animals or apply to adopt.
“It’ll be like a rescue farm,” Wilson said. “It’ll be a really nice way to recycle animals.”
They’re all ideas that excite Scoones.
“Sue has the energy and resources to do what I had a vision of doing,” Scoones said.
Some will be surprised the noted author is selling the farm. She’s been vocal about willing the farm to the District of North Saanich should she die, and the farm was close to making that happen, Scoones explained with a chuckle.
“I’m sore and tired,” she added seriously. When snow fell this winter, she slipped, fell and sobbed in the muck with the pigs, while trying to feed the animals she cares so much for.
“In the back of my mind I was getting really dreary,” Scoones said.
The farm animals have made many an appearance in her books — one was even titled Home, tales from a heritage farm — and the characters will continue to make appearances in her writing.
“I’ll have more time to pursue cultural endeavours,” she said with a grin.
Scoones, also a North Saanich councillor, will take up residence in a little heritage house in James Bay. It has an attic loft that looks just like the barn loft at Glamorgan and Scoones plans to spend some time locked up in the attic.
“The first thing I plan to do is find a good physiotherapist and massage clinic to renew my tired old joints from slogging slop across the fields all winter through mud and ice up to my knees,” she said. “Then I’m going to go to Pic-A-Flic and rent all the documentaries and old movies that I never had time to watch here on the farm.”
Scoones likely won’t run for council come November.
“I’ll really miss it, but the farm took its toll … I’d run again if people asked me to because I am still passionate about supporting local agriculture and food security,” she said. “And I have to come out and visit my dear old pigs anyway.”