Stephen Gleave

There’s just something magical about forests. Walking through them in the late afternoon, the sunlight filtering through the leaves. The quiet murmur of animals scurrying about. It’s contemplative, healing even, to spend time within them. I have an orchard of plum, apple, pear and cherry trees on my 100-acre farm in Ancaster, where I also care for old Carolinian forests and am growing new forests with Tulip trees, Kentucky coffee trees and other antique trees. So, I spend a lot of time in and around forests. And I’ve found their benefits, to humans and the natural world, are virtually endless. I can’t imagine my property without its beautiful trees. Consider orchards. Today, most of the world’s commercially grown apples come from just a handful of varieties. But start a small orchard on your property and you can begin to diversify the kind of fruits you and your friends may sample. And once a single tree is established, it can provide a substantial yield of fruit for decades.  Of...

2 years ago, my family decided we were going to introduce cattle to our 100-acre farm in Ancaster. There were a lot of choices. We researched and researched the best breed for our needs.  Researching many of the 250 recognized cow breeds (Maine Anjou, Red Angus, Shorthorn, Blonde d'Aquitaine, etc.) was no easy task, but it was important that we found animals that would be happy living alongside our family at the farm.    We decided Scottish Highland cattle would be best for the farm. Choosing the World’s first registered breed of cattle wasn’t a difficult choice given their qualities and their ability to thrive in Ontario’s climate –during both cold and hot spells. And since Canada has roughly 10,000 breeders of registered beef cattle of all breeds, there was  no shortage of places willing to sell us our first herd of cattle.   We are ranchers, kind of, now that we have 12 Scottish Highland living on the farm.    A group of Highlands is called a “fo...