Borealis Acres

Well it's been about a month that the page has been up on Facebook. It's all becoming a reality now: we are actually establishing ourselves as a local farm business in Northern Alberta, breeding quality German Shepherd dogs, Speckle Park cattle, and the rare but well-loved Shire horses. It's only been something I've dreamed of for well over a decade already.

Our feet hit the ground and we are already running. We had our first batch of Borealis Acres shepherd pups, and within twenty-four hours of advertising them for sale, I had over three hundred inquiries and deposits on all six pups.

The last pup went to his new home on Monday evening and we are already onto another business venture, preparing to head down to Calgary, Alberta, on Sunday to pick up a (new to us) used horse trailer of adequate size to move tall Shire horses.

We made a deal with breeders out of Manitoba after a long debate and many nights journaling the pro's vs. cons, and we are due to pick up two broke mares, bred for next August, with one young month-old stud colt at side - I'm so excited it's making me wake up in the middle of the night with the jitters sometimes.

My husband, David, or Dave as I much prefer to call him, and myself, Leanne, have been together for a great eight years already, and married for two. We have ourselves a beautiful young son together, named Daniel, who turns two in January, and a little girl on the way for January as well. We are dedicated to our work, our marriage, and our happy little family and farm, and we work very hard for everything we have. It's taken a lot of perseverance but we finally made our dream come true - we started Borealis Acres once and for all, and now we will work to build it up to a common household name.

As you might have seen, my only current Shire horse, Rhea Borealis Sophia, aka Sophy, has just completed two months of saddle training at my dear friend and trusted horse-handler's facility in Busby, and she is due to return to us on Saturday at which point she will be going for an ovulation scan at the local veterinary clinic, and then getting booked with a nearby Stallion for breeding.

It feels surreal to imagine that I will have three beautiful, broke shire mares on the farm, all having foals next August. Our Shire breeding program is finally becoming a real thing, and I could not be more proud, and happy.

We bought our starting herd of Speckle Park heifers last spring, from Drumheller. Eleven cute little heifers with curiosity and playfulness like I never knew cows could have. We bred them in the summer time, and calved them out this spring, in March. We lost one calf but gained ten, five heifer calves and five steers to sell in Spring 2021. We also bought our bull this summer, hes a young guy but we know he's doing his job and we are pleased with his quiet disposition.

I had a paralyzing anxiety of: take a guess. Cows. Horses. AND... Dogs. What happened to make me this way? And what happened to make us decide to get into the business of breeding, working with, and selling quality animals of each of the feared species? I still had a passion in my heart for all three - and with Dave's unending patience and constant support, we worked together to get through my anxieties and build something we could be proud of.

I grew up with an anxiety around cattle my whole life simply due to lack of experience with them, and their intimidating size. Anything larger than me is scary, at first. I'm getting over that more and more every day though, and since we calved these girls out in March, I have no fear left at all of them. I can't get enough of calling them over and having them nibble grain from my hand and get a quick scratch on the head.

Dogs were a little more complicated, and horses too, since the anxiety with them simply came from some accidents that happened at the wrong place and the wrong time. I got caught between a bad fight between my foundation Shepherd female and another female dog that used to stay with us, and when I got between the two dogs, both bit down on either side of my hand and wouldn't let go, thinking they had a hold of each other. I was home alone with them, and watching blood spray from my hand in tune with my heart beat put me into a fierce panic. I was able to split the two up eventually, but not without some long term damage and fear of all dogs afterward. It took several years and lots of dedication to working with our canines, for me to overcome my fears and regain the confidence I used to have.

And horses - well that was an accident I had back in 2010, with my late Shire mare, Bambi. She was being boarded at a nearby farm, and when I tied her in her stall in the barn, I stood directly in front of her when she spooked and reared, striking me down and then landing on my left knee and doing enough damage that I couldn't walk right or drive a vehicle for several months afterward. I went from fearless and over-confident, to completely shy and fearful of horses and every movement they made. Ten years passed, and though I held on to Bambi and Sophy and a couple other mares and geldings along the way, I wouldn't do anything with them - I would watch other people handle them, and simply stay back altogether. Or if I did finally make an attempt, we sometimes had other conflicts happening that made it so I couldn't safely handle my horses, and it just added to the discouragement.

If you knew me during those times, and you saw me now, you wouldn't know me anymore. I'm a completely different person now. Unafraid, calm, and ready to take anything on with my husband and my babies and a whole lot of supportive friends at my side.

A young woman by the name of Brooke - I have done a LOT of shouting from the rooftops about her and her help lately, and I don't plan to stop anytime soon, or at all - has been coming around since early March, and with her help, my horses AND I have completely transformed, and are functioning properly together, for the first time in a very long time, and we have all regained the confidence we so desperately needed.

It can only go up from here. So welcome to Borealis Acres. Watch us grow and become a blooming farm business. Thanks for joining us, tune in next week for another blog entry about my chickens and my cats.