Latest news with #homesteading
Yahoo
4 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Holding ancient Greek and Roman coins is touching 'living history,' says N.L. collector
For one homesteader on Newfoundland's Avalon Peninsula, collecting ancient Greek and Roman coins is about holding a piece of history in his hands. Steve McBride has a homestead with his wife Lisa in Mobile, where they raise goats, honeybees, turkeys and ducks for their own consumption, and his ancient coins hit close to home. "I like them a lot because they show scenes that are very familiar to us," McBride told CBC News. He's specifically interested in coins with animals on them, which ties back to his homestead. One coin in his collection depicts a honeybee, which was a symbol of the Roman goddess Diana whose priestesses were called little honeybees and served as beekeepers. "There's a coin I've got here, one of my favourite coins, has basically somebody milking a goat. Which is something I did this morning," he said. "It makes me feel like we're directly connected to our ancestors from, not just not just a generation ago, but from many, many generations ago." Ancient coins also have propaganda messages and depict historical events. McBride said he was a child in 1986 when Halley's Comet last flew by Earth's sky. When he started coin collecting he found the Romans also marked the comet on a coin. "It brings everything full circle," he said. Accessible history McBride said history has been a longtime interest, and about 20 years ago he started acquiring his coins on eBay. Pennies, nickels and dimes are pretty common. "It means that people like me can spend $50 or something and buy one and hold a 2,000-year-old piece of history, something that was spent on bread or on a ticket to the theatre 2,000 years ago," he said. "Being able to touch something that's tangibly connected to people from so long ago … I find it really exciting." McBride has developed a deep understanding of the time periods from which these coins were made. He said he has been asked to help identify coins for others, including auction houses and museums — all from the comfort of his home. "Basically I'll identify the coins and translate the Latin on them and try to precisely date them," he said. In some cases, details can say the month or even day the coin was struck, he added, and he's even found a few coins that have never been documented before. "When you actually get to research and add a coin to a catalogue, it feels like you're creating a little bit of history or dusting off a little bit of history and putting it back up on a shelf," McBride said. "I find that really rewarding." Download our free CBC News app to sign up for push alerts for CBC Newfoundland and Labrador. Sign up for our daily headlines newsletter here. Click here to visit our landing page.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
How a jazz drummer from Montreal is building a bustling farm business in rural N.B.
On a quiet country road in Stanley, north of Fredericton, overlooking the densely forested Nashwaak Valley, is nestled an unassuming little farm where some bold moves are being made. "Our idea when we first started was to be able to produce everything that a family would need for a year," said Louis St-Pierre, owner-operator of Earth to Belly Homestead. Now, the 1½ acres he farms with his partner, Courtney Atyeo, both 31, and seven other employees are also producing enough vegetables, eggs, chicken, pork and baked goods to fill weekly meal boxes for 120 customers and make another few hundred sales in local stores. St-Pierre would like to keep adding garden beds and growing his direct client base to between 3,000 and 4,000 within the next five or six years. WATCH | Homesteader bullish on growing to 4,000 customers: "I'm pretty confident with 10 to 15 acres in vegetable production we'd be able to do that," he said. "And two or three bigger greenhouses." Selling directly means Earth to Belly doesn't have to settle for wholesale prices or supply the large quantities required for contracts with grocery store chains. "It basically allows us to get maximum dollars for what we're selling," St-Pierre said. It takes a pretty big crew to pull it off, including a driver who delivers the boxes by truck throughout the Nashwaak Valley, the Fredericton area and Saint John. "It's a big logistical nightmare, but … it's a format that works for us," he said. Earth to Belly started doing meal boxes two years ago with 15 customers. Last year, the farm supplied 80 customers for 16 weeks. This year, it's filling 120 boxes for 30 weeks and plans to keep the program going on an every-other-week schedule over the winter. St-Pierre bought the 50-acre former Flying Shoe Farm property less than eight years ago and has been steadily building a profitable, modern small-scale farm business. He and Atyeo have several fields in production, two greenhouses, a plant nursery, half a dozen chicken coops, a commercial kitchen, a vegetable washing and storage area and a pottery studio. In one greenhouse, they grow cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, turmeric and ginger — which generate about 30 per cent of the farm's vegetable income, St-Pierre said. The greenhouses and plant nursery are heated to some extent year round, which is costly, but increases the yields four fold, he said. The heating, cooling and watering systems — for the plants and the animals — are all automatic and some have remote control by app. Also helping to reduce St-Pierre's workload are two managers, one for the fields and one for the tomato greenhouse. Field manager Adam Jeffrey is originally from the area, but has experience farming in B.C. Finding workers is tough, Jeffrey said. "Consumers have to recognize the value of this kind of farming in order to support living wages on the farm," he said. Instead of pesticide, Earth to Belly uses nets in the fields and predatory insects in the greenhouse. For fertilizer, they use pelleted chicken manure and their own compost. Jeffrey is working to create a bio-complete compost so that eventually they won't have to till. Fertilizer is applied in the greenhouse weekly instead of the "old school" method of front loading at the start of the season. It's a little more work, but gives the plants what they need to bear a lot of fruit, St-Pierre said. "A commercial conventional farm gets about a fifth to a tenth the production we get per square foot," he said. That calculation is based on getting two or three crops per season and fitting five or six rows in the space that would be required for one row on a farm that uses a tractor, he explained. Last year, 18.6 kilograms of cherry tomatoes were harvested per square metre in the greenhouse, added St-Pierre. By virtue of not using tractors, artificial fertilizers, pesticides or fungicides, they've also avoided recent cost increases. Five years ago, their prices were 30 to 40 per cent higher than grocery store alternatives, said St-Pierre. Now, they're equal or below. Farm boxes are selling for $135/week. 'Huge' market opportunity It's a great time to get into small-scale farming, in St-Pierre's view. "The market is booming, and it's going to be expanding over the next few years," he said. "There's not enough food being produced in New Brunswick. If you are able to bring a good quality product to market, there will be people to buy it." But farming is not for everyone, he warned. For starters, St-Pierre estimates it would take $150,000 to $200,000 plus the cost of land. Renting might be a better option for starting out, he suggested. It also takes business and science know-how. He spends about 20 hours a week on marketing, advertising, looking at reports and making sure money is well spent. When it comes to things like crop yields, density and plant pathology, St-Pierre reads a lot, experiments and consults outside experts weekly. "Awesome" resources are available through the government, he said. Even armed with knowledge, you still have to be willing to take risks, said St-Pierre, who is well-practiced in the art. It was quite a leap to reinvent himself as a rural New Brunswick farmer after growing up in the suburbs of Montreal, studying music and working as a touring musician. The transformation began when he spent a couple of months between gigs living "on frogs and squirrels" in his father's woodlot. He got to Stanley via a posting on the World Wide Work on Organic Farms website ( and within a couple of years he had taken over the farm. St-Pierre and Atyeo lived in a tiny home while the business got going, "roughing it" with an outhouse, supplementing their diet with hunting and gardening and selling eggs to pay for fuel and other things. Today, they can live more comfortably in a regular sized house with their two-year-old child, close to nature and extended family. Carving out personal time is essential, said St-Pierre, who has seen some of his farming friends burn out. It's all feasible, he said. "You just have to plan it."
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
How a jazz drummer from Montreal is building a bustling farm business in rural N.B.
On a quiet country road in Stanley, north of Fredericton, overlooking the densely forested Nashwaak Valley, is nestled an unassuming little farm where some bold moves are being made. "Our idea when we first started was to be able to produce everything that a family would need for a year," said Louis St-Pierre, owner-operator of Earth to Belly Homestead. Now, the 1½ acres he farms with his partner, Courtney Atyeo, both 31, and seven other employees are also producing enough vegetables, eggs, chicken, pork and baked goods to fill weekly meal boxes for 120 customers and make another few hundred sales in local stores. St-Pierre would like to keep adding garden beds and growing his direct client base to between 3,000 and 4,000 within the next five or six years. WATCH | Homesteader bullish on growing to 4,000 customers: "I'm pretty confident with 10 to 15 acres in vegetable production we'd be able to do that," he said. "And two or three bigger greenhouses." Selling directly means Earth to Belly doesn't have to settle for wholesale prices or supply the large quantities required for contracts with grocery store chains. "It basically allows us to get maximum dollars for what we're selling," St-Pierre said. It takes a pretty big crew to pull it off, including a driver who delivers the boxes by truck throughout the Nashwaak Valley, the Fredericton area and Saint John. "It's a big logistical nightmare, but … it's a format that works for us," he said. Earth to Belly started doing meal boxes two years ago with 15 customers. Last year, the farm supplied 80 customers for 16 weeks. This year, it's filling 120 boxes for 30 weeks and plans to keep the program going on an every-other-week schedule over the winter. St-Pierre bought the 50-acre former Flying Shoe Farm property less than eight years ago and has been steadily building a profitable, modern small-scale farm business. He and Atyeo have several fields in production, two greenhouses, a plant nursery, half a dozen chicken coops, a commercial kitchen, a vegetable washing and storage area and a pottery studio. In one greenhouse, they grow cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, turmeric and ginger — which generate about 30 per cent of the farm's vegetable income, St-Pierre said. The greenhouses and plant nursery are heated to some extent year round, which is costly, but increases the yields four fold, he said. The heating, cooling and watering systems — for the plants and the animals — are all automatic and some have remote control by app. Also helping to reduce St-Pierre's workload are two managers, one for the fields and one for the tomato greenhouse. Field manager Adam Jeffrey is originally from the area, but has experience farming in B.C. Finding workers is tough, Jeffrey said. "Consumers have to recognize the value of this kind of farming in order to support living wages on the farm," he said. Instead of pesticide, Earth to Belly uses nets in the fields and predatory insects in the greenhouse. For fertilizer, they use pelleted chicken manure and their own compost. Jeffrey is working to create a bio-complete compost so that eventually they won't have to till. Fertilizer is applied in the greenhouse weekly instead of the "old school" method of front loading at the start of the season. It's a little more work, but gives the plants what they need to bear a lot of fruit, St-Pierre said. "A commercial conventional farm gets about a fifth to a tenth the production we get per square foot," he said. That calculation is based on getting two or three crops per season and fitting five or six rows in the space that would be required for one row on a farm that uses a tractor, he explained. Last year, 18.6 kilograms of cherry tomatoes were harvested per square metre in the greenhouse, added St-Pierre. By virtue of not using tractors, artificial fertilizers, pesticides or fungicides, they've also avoided recent cost increases. Five years ago, their prices were 30 to 40 per cent higher than grocery store alternatives, said St-Pierre. Now, they're equal or below. Farm boxes are selling for $135/week. 'Huge' market opportunity It's a great time to get into small-scale farming, in St-Pierre's view. "The market is booming, and it's going to be expanding over the next few years," he said. "There's not enough food being produced in New Brunswick. If you are able to bring a good quality product to market, there will be people to buy it." But farming is not for everyone, he warned. For starters, St-Pierre estimates it would take $150,000 to $200,000 plus the cost of land. Renting might be a better option for starting out, he suggested. It also takes business and science know-how. He spends about 20 hours a week on marketing, advertising, looking at reports and making sure money is well spent. When it comes to things like crop yields, density and plant pathology, St-Pierre reads a lot, experiments and consults outside experts weekly. "Awesome" resources are available through the government, he said. Even armed with knowledge, you still have to be willing to take risks, said St-Pierre, who is well-practiced in the art. It was quite a leap to reinvent himself as a rural New Brunswick farmer after growing up in the suburbs of Montreal, studying music and working as a touring musician. The transformation began when he spent a couple of months between gigs living "on frogs and squirrels" in his father's woodlot. He got to Stanley via a posting on the World Wide Work on Organic Farms website ( and within a couple of years he had taken over the farm. St-Pierre and Atyeo lived in a tiny home while the business got going, "roughing it" with an outhouse, supplementing their diet with hunting and gardening and selling eggs to pay for fuel and other things. Today, they can live more comfortably in a regular sized house with their two-year-old child, close to nature and extended family. Carving out personal time is essential, said St-Pierre, who has seen some of his farming friends burn out. It's all feasible, he said. "You just have to plan it."
CBC
4 days ago
- Business
- CBC
How a jazz drummer from Montreal is building a bustling farm business in rural N.B.
On a quiet country road in Stanley, north of Fredericton, overlooking the densely forested Nashwaak Valley, is nestled an unassuming little farm where some bold moves are being made. "Our idea when we first started was to be able to produce everything that a family would need for a year," said Louis St-Pierre, owner-operator of Earth to Belly Homestead. Now, the 1½ acres he farms with his partner, Courtney Atyeo, both 31, and seven other employees are also producing enough vegetables, eggs, chicken, pork and baked goods to fill weekly meal boxes for 120 customers and make another few hundred sales in local stores. St-Pierre would like to keep adding garden beds and growing his direct client base to between 3,000 and 4,000 within the next five or six years. WATCH | Homesteader bullish on growing to 4,000 customers: "I'm pretty confident with 10 to 15 acres in vegetable production we'd be able to do that," he said. "And two or three bigger greenhouses." Selling directly means Earth to Belly doesn't have to settle for wholesale prices or supply the large quantities required for contracts with grocery store chains. "It basically allows us to get maximum dollars for what we're selling," St-Pierre said. It takes a pretty big crew to pull it off, including a driver who delivers the boxes by truck throughout the Nashwaak Valley, the Fredericton area and Saint John. "It's a big logistical nightmare, but … it's a format that works for us," he said. Earth to Belly started doing meal boxes two years ago with 15 customers. Last year, the farm supplied 80 customers for 16 weeks. This year, it's filling 120 boxes for 30 weeks and plans to keep the program going on an every-other-week schedule over the winter. St-Pierre bought the 50-acre former Flying Shoe Farm property less than eight years ago and has been steadily building a profitable, modern small-scale farm business. He and Atyeo have several fields in production, two greenhouses, a plant nursery, half a dozen chicken coops, a commercial kitchen, a vegetable washing and storage area and a pottery studio. In one greenhouse, they grow cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, turmeric and ginger — which generate about 30 per cent of the farm's vegetable income, St-Pierre said. The greenhouses and plant nursery are heated to some extent year round, which is costly, but increases the yields four fold, he said. The heating, cooling and watering systems — for the plants and the animals — are all automatic and some have remote control by app. Also helping to reduce St-Pierre's workload are two managers, one for the fields and one for the tomato greenhouse. Field manager Adam Jeffrey is originally from the area, but has experience farming in B.C. Finding workers is tough, Jeffrey said. "Consumers have to recognize the value of this kind of farming in order to support living wages on the farm," he said. Instead of pesticide, Earth to Belly uses nets in the fields and predatory insects in the greenhouse. For fertilizer, they use pelleted chicken manure and their own compost. Jeffrey is working to create a bio-complete compost so that eventually they won't have to till. Fertilizer is applied in the greenhouse weekly instead of the "old school" method of front loading at the start of the season. It's a little more work, but gives the plants what they need to bear a lot of fruit, St-Pierre said. "A commercial conventional farm gets about a fifth to a tenth the production we get per square foot," he said. That calculation is based on getting two or three crops per season and fitting five or six rows in the space that would be required for one row on a farm that uses a tractor, he explained. Last year, 18.6 kilograms of cherry tomatoes were harvested per square metre in the greenhouse, added St-Pierre. By virtue of not using tractors, artificial fertilizers, pesticides or fungicides, they've also avoided recent cost increases. Five years ago, their prices were 30 to 40 per cent higher than grocery store alternatives, said St-Pierre. Now, they're equal or below. Farm boxes are selling for $135/week. 'Huge' market opportunity It's a great time to get into small-scale farming, in St-Pierre's view. "The market is booming, and it's going to be expanding over the next few years," he said. "There's not enough food being produced in New Brunswick. If you are able to bring a good quality product to market, there will be people to buy it." But farming is not for everyone, he warned. For starters, St-Pierre estimates it would take $150,000 to $200,000 plus the cost of land. Renting might be a better option for starting out, he suggested. It also takes business and science know-how. He spends about 20 hours a week on marketing, advertising, looking at reports and making sure money is well spent. When it comes to things like crop yields, density and plant pathology, St-Pierre reads a lot, experiments and consults outside experts weekly. "Awesome" resources are available through the government, he said. Even armed with knowledge, you still have to be willing to take risks, said St-Pierre, who is well-practiced in the art. It was quite a leap to reinvent himself as a rural New Brunswick farmer after growing up in the suburbs of Montreal, studying music and working as a touring musician. The transformation began when he spent a couple of months between gigs living "on frogs and squirrels" in his father's woodlot. He got to Stanley via a posting on the World Wide Work on Organic Farms website ( and within a couple of years he had taken over the farm. St-Pierre and Atyeo lived in a tiny home while the business got going, "roughing it" with an outhouse, supplementing their diet with hunting and gardening and selling eggs to pay for fuel and other things. Today, they can live more comfortably in a regular sized house with their two-year-old child, close to nature and extended family. Carving out personal time is essential, said St-Pierre, who has seen some of his farming friends burn out.
The Sun
16-07-2025
- The Sun
We moved to a cheap as chips European country with 3 kids – houses are less than UK train tickets & our food shop is £43
A FAMILY-OF-FIVE have left the UK and moved to a cheap as chips European country. Now, not only are the houses cheaper than UK train tickets, but their weekly food shop has been majorly slashed too. 2 And that's not all, as luckily for these parents, who have three children, their petrol costs are also now a third of the price. Posting on social media, a couple who are known as 'Fresh Start Sticks', have shared an insight into their new life in Bulgaria. The family made the decision to move abroad in search of a 'homesteading life,' which is a lifestyle focused on self-sufficiency and often involves practices such as small-scale farming, food preservation, and crafting. Standing in front of their three-bedroom house which they bought without viewing it in the flesh, the mother said: 'We bought a house in Bulgaria for less than a UK season train ticket, but the price is secondary to the reasons why we made the decision.' While the mother didn't confirm how much they paid for their home, the cost of a yearly train ticket in the UK varies significantly based on the specific route and class of travel. The most expensive annual train ticket in the UK is typically for journeys into London, with routes like Harlow Town to London Liverpool Street costing £3,496. However, some long-distance routes, such as those from Canterbury and Southampton into London, are set to rise more than £300 to £7,100 and £7,477 respectively. The savvy mum explained that buying the home was a 'massive risk' and while it 'isn't perfect' it's worth it for them. She then acknowledged their reasons for leaving the UK, as the content creator highlighted: 'We were running out of steam in the UK, things were not getting any better, in fact, it was getting worse - a lot of people's attitudes had changed, things were different, people were different. 'We did a lot of research before turning up in Bulgaria - for us, Bulgaria ticked all the boxes, it was warm in the summer, the only thing that we were a little unsure of was the winter, which gets down to -20.' We lived in one of the UK's most expensive seaside towns but house prices were mental - so we saved £293k by packing up and moving abroad The mum-of-three explained that the Visa process was a bit of a faff, but this wasn't the only issue they came across. She continued: 'When we came to Bulgaria, there were so many pitfalls that we unfortunately fell into and that was the first thing that really irritated us.' As well as the lengthy Visa process, she shared: 'The estate agents were showing us properties that were derelict and we were not interested in anything that was beyond what we could live in, and also the fees to get your visa were astronomical.' Huge savings In another clip, the mother got candid about the cost of living in Bulgaria. Opening up about her costs, she confirmed that the family spend around £43 a week on food shopping. They also spend around £26.60 on fuel and £15 a week on fresh fruit. When it comes to their miscellaneous spending, this normally costs just £6.65 a week, bringing their total weekly spend to around £91.25. The parents confirmed that this is much cheaper than what they were previously spending, as they explained that whilst in the UK, they would normally fork out between £60 to £80 a week on petrol. How easy is it to move abroad? Brexit means British citizens now have to apply for visas to move to countries within the EU. While some countries residency restrictions are easier than others, here's what you need to do at home before moving: Notify HMRC about your upcoming move. Let your local authority know and provide a forwarding address. Contact your mortgage and utility providers and bank before leaving. If you have paid enough UK national insurance contributions, you can qualify for a state pension abroad - contact the International Pension Centre. You can sign up to the Royal Mail's redirection service. If you have outstanding student loans, contact the Student Loans Centre. If you have children, give due notice to childcares and schools. Meanwhile, their supermarket food would typically cost them £180 a week and fruits would set them back between £70 and £80 a week. With a total cost of around £320 a week in the UK, this savvy saver beamed at the 'big difference.' And not only are they saving a huge amount, but they are also on a mission to reduce their spending even further, as the couple have plans to reduce their shopping costs and grow their own food on their land. Big divide The TikTok clip, which was posted under the username @ freshstartsticks, has clearly left many open-mouthed, as it has quickly racked up 521,400 views. But social media users were left totally divided by the family's decision to move to Bulgaria - whilst some thought they would 'love' it, others expressed their concerns. One person said: 'Enjoy your life in Bulgaria.' Another added: 'Very cool! Welcome to such a beautiful journey.' A third commented: 'You'll love it in Bulgaria.' Meanwhile, one troll slammed: 'I couldn't even be paid to move there.' A second chimed in: 'There is a reason why it's so cheap!!!' Someone else asked: 'I'm stunned 😳, why have you done this? I have no words.' Whilst another claimed: 'This is just reckless 😖 I pray for your children and the hell they'll have to go through.'
