Shaun Newman Podcast - #1139 - Mike Touesnard

Episode Date: October 5, 2026

Mike Touesnard, 81, is a farmer from Centre, Nova Scotia, whose land carries wild blueberries, honey bees, and Christmas trees. Wild blueberries already grow on the thin, acidic barrens there, so the work is management rather than planting: a two-year cycle of bloom, fruit, and harvest, then mowing or burning the field so it can rest and set a heavier crop. At the height of his career he had about 30 people hand-raking the low plants before the berries softened. Bees are a natural fit with that crop — wild blueberries need insect cross-pollination to set fruit, and the same ground that carries the fields can carry the hives that do the work and leave with honey. At 81 Mike still manages blueberries, the bees and Christmas trees. Silver Gold Bull Links:Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/Email: [e-mail] Grahame: [phone]Bow Valley Credit UnionBitcoin: www.bowvalleycu.com/en/personal/investing-wealth/bitcoin-gatewayEmail: [e-mail] Nor’East Apothecary - USE promo code SNP for 15% off your orderhttps://thepowerofplants.ca/Get your voice heard: Text Shaun 587-217-8500

This is Brett Weinstein. This is Tom Lomago. This is Bruce Party. This is Alex Krenner. Hey, this is Brad Wall. This is Dr. Pierre-Core. Hi, this is Frank Paredi. This is Daniel Smith.

This is James Lindsay. This is Vance Crowe and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Monday. Well, we are into the United States of America. We are into Maine. So we finally made it into, I don't know, is it the second leg of our journey? The first leg, Canada.

Now we're going to start heading down the east coast of the United States. So stay tuned for more coming from the US of A. Regardless, it's a Monday. We know where we're going to start. We're going to start with Silver Gold Bull. They're helping bring back the Cornerstone Forum, May 15th, 2027. And when it comes to precious metals, whether you're buying, selling, storing, looking for answers to your questions.

Text or email Graham down on the show notes for any details you have around those questions. You can also just visit silvergoldbill.com. You can open an account. It ships anywhere directly to you. Also, if you're an American, tuning in, silvergold bull.com, same format applies. Sign up for an account and start buying. Ships right to your doorstep.

Bow Valley Credit Union, yeah, they're also helping bring back the Cornerstone Forum, May 15th, 2027. If you're in Alberta, it's all about lending deposits and real financial advice. You can open accounts, talk through lending options, and get the help with banking, all in a space design for conversations,

not transactions. If you want smarter banking with gold, silver, Bitcoin, and personal freedom, think BVCU. For all your banking needs, head to Bow Valley,CU.com. Firearms in Canada, look no further. They're based out of my hometown of Lloydminster, but they go everywhere in Canada. That's Profit River. You can find them at Profitriver.com.

They are the major retailers of firearms, optics, and accessories, and they serve all of Canada. And deck season, well, I tell you what, the kids just proved here in May, and they're willing to swim. There's people walking by on the beach. And they're all in park because the kids were out in the water. When it comes to deck season and character would

look no further than Windsor Plywood. I'm talking about Windsor Flywood back in my hometown of Lloyd Minster, 360551st Avenue. That's Carly and his team. It's probably high time for hockey season back there. But whether you've got any projects on the go, mantles, decks, windows, doors, sheds, podcast studios, podcast studio table,

stop in and see Carly and the team over at Windsor Plywood. If you're tired of mass-produced wellness that doesn't deliver, my friends over at Nor East Apothecary, that's Dr. Laura Braden and her brother Thomas and their team at the power of plants.ca. You can get small batch tinctures, teas, salves, shampoos, conditioners, all the things. Use code SMP for 15% off your order. And then we've got a new addition, okay?

T-Bar-1. They go way back. They used to be the T-Bar-1 tail of the tape. Well, they started in 2002 with one picker truck, and that's the brothers, that's my brothers,

the Newman brothers, and I should say, Daddy O'Numan, the original Daddy O'Numan, that is, and the crew built it the hard way. Crash is, tough years, the good ones,

now it's one of the strongest oil field outfits in the western Canada. Man, spit it through, Sean, welcome to a first ad read again. They're still family-owned, still rooted in Lloyd Minster, and still the kind of place

where people know your name. Class 1 start at $37 an hour. Holy Mac, we've been talking about minimum wage. How about it's starting at $37 an hour? And if you want to become a picker operator, or just want to be a tractor driver, experienced or hungry to learn, if you're willing to relocate, they'll talk to you. Resumays to dispatch at tbar1.com or tbar1.com is where you can find everything out. You can also text me. I can hook you up with the brothers and get you to the right spot. Okay. If you're listening on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Rumble, X, Facebook, substack, all the things, make sure to subscribe, make sure to leave a review, make sure to share with

a friend, okay? Now, let's get on to that tale of the tape. Today's guest is an 81-year-old hobby farmer. Yeah, blueberries, honeybees, and Christmas trees. I'm talking about Mike Tustnard, so buckle up, here we go. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Today I'm joined by Mike Tustnard. Sir, thank you for allowing me in your home and having a little conversation. Oh, you're welcome. Now, Mike, I know other than our little preamble here this morning, I'm like, I know very little about Mike, so the audience is going to know less.

Tell us a little bit about yourself. Okay, I'm Mike Tewsnerd. I was brought up in Halifax, not a typical farmer. When I came to Lunarburg town here, I got interested in the area and the way of life. And after six or seven years working in Ontario, we moved back to Nova Scotia and we purchased this farm while we were in Ontario with the intention of moving back. And after probably eight years, we got here. And ever since I've been farming, I had approximately 25 acres of blueberries.

That's the wild berries, the low bush. And I also got into beekeeping because for the blueberries, you needed pollination. And the first beehive that the first beehives that I got, my wife and I drove probably about 40 kilometers from here. And we picked them up in an old van that I had, and put them in the back of the van, which was all open right to the driver's side.

And we got back here and set them up here, not anything about bees. And ever since that I've been reading about bees and studying bees and there's no end to what you can learn with bees. I made a lot of mistakes, which is normal. I lost hives, which is normal. Anyway, after a while I eventually started working the bees and looking after them the way I should, thought I should be looking after them. And I had basically good luck with them. I'd learned an awful lot on videos,

looking at people that put on these videos. They're streaming all about bees or different things, but I really tuned into the beekeeping. And when I had questions about bees, I went onto the YouTube and I typed in what I want to know. and I've always found what I need it. So anyway, I've been good luck with bees. I've got 20 hives right now.

I don't like to get too many more than 20 because it becomes work. And once it becomes work, you'll lose your enjoyment for it. Interesting. So anyway, yeah, my wife helps me a lot with them. If I need hands to put, take hives apart and put the skateboards in or do different things, carry honey out, she'll help me. And basically, that's what I've been doing for the last 40 years.

Over the years, I've picked up swarms. Matter of fact, I picked up one this summer about two kilometers from here. And it's funny, the very next day I lost the swarm, one of my own bees swarmed. So there's something that basically I was so busy looking at the blueberries that I didn't look after the bees quite enough. And I didn't notice this one swarming. What do you mean swarming? By swarming, what happens is the bees' way of multiplying their hives naturally. When they get crowded out into a hive, they will start to develop another queen.

And once the queen has started, the old queen will sense that she's being crowded out, or the hive's being crowded out, and she'll leave the hive, and she'll take about half of the bees with her that just follow it because of her sent. And she will leave the hive. She'll land in the tree nearby for an hour or two until some of the scope bees, the older bees, become scope bees, until they, until they, and go out and find a new home. And so once they find a new home, then the scope bees lead the swarm, which might comprise about maybe 5,000 bees or 10,000 bees, probably about a third of the bees that's in the nest. And they'll fly with the queen and establish a new nest.

So occasionally, people call me thinking they have bees swarming in their properties, their house. Half the time they are honeybees, other half the time they are wasps. I've been probably right around here, probably about 10 different places that have gone to collect bees. And I've had good luck once I get the swarm. You try to get a swarm, you try to make sure you have the queen in the swarm when you package it.

When you package it, for example, the one I picked up this summer was in a lilac bush, probably about six feet high, right next to a house. And I went to collect that hive of bees or swarm of bees. It took me about probably an hour to get them out of the lilac bush into one of my boxes. And I left the box there for three or four hours, hoping the queen was in there and she was and what will happen then is all the bees will follow the queen into the box. And when she's into the box, then it's safe for me to move it, but I didn't want to move it until all the bees in the area were in the box and usually you wait until nighttime

or at dusk or something like that. And I would then go down and close the hive up, close the entrances so they can't get out, put a screen top on on high so they're ventilated. And then they're safe for me to throw in the car or the van and drive away with them. Is seeing a swarm an impressive site or like I just think of five to ten thousand bees is like covering trees and being quite wild or is it not that big of a deal? It is a big deal.

This summer when the day after I got that swarm, one of mine swore My wife had me walking my daughter's dog down around the hives, and she said there's something going on down there. And anyway, she said, I think they're swarming. So I was here in the house, and so I jumped in the truck, went down to have a look. And when I got there, I could hear them buzzing, but they were already out of the hive,

and they're landing in a tree about 20, 30 feet high, above the nests, the hives. And when they're up that house, high, could not get them. I just watched them. They buzzed and buzzed and sometimes you can watch and see if you can see them making any movement. But they sat there for a couple hours. I went back a couple hours later and they were gone. I never saw them again. So anyway, I've also watched a swarm of bees come up. My driveway right behind me. And when they come up, there's probably a cluster of bees flying probably about six, eight inches of per person.

10 inches apart, and they're constantly swerve going around one another. And you've got thousands of bees doing this coming up. And they happened to go and land right in my barn on an old bee box that I had in there. So I didn't even have to set the box up and transfer them in there. So I just left them in the box for a couple days before I took them out of the barn and set them up on a stand probably 100 meters away. So I was lucky there. You said you grew up in Halifax, correct?

How long did you live in Halifax? Like all your years until you graduated from high school, like that type, like until you're 18? Yeah, actually it was around 18. I graduated from trade school. I took refrigeration and air conditioning. And when I took that, then I moved down to this community. The community is called Center, which is only two kilometers from the town of Lunenburg.

And I worked in the town of Lunenberg for four years before I met my wife and we moved to Ontario for six years. Okay. And then we moved back. What, what, um, you mentioned your 81, correct? That's correct. Maybe you didn't mention, you mentioned that to me before we started. But so if I do my mental math here, you were in, like, how's Halifax changed? since you were a kid?

Oh, it's totally just that. It changed a lot. I mean, they built the second bridge. When I was brought up in Halifax, I lived on very near North Street, which was the entrance to a McDonald Bridge. Okay. And since that bridge was built, and I think it was around 1995, they built the second bridge, so the second bridge was built.

The congestion, they were just gone crazy. And the last 10 years it's even worse because they've expanded the perimeter of the city. And now the city is almost like wall-to-wall houses being built. And if it's not houses in another section, it's almost all apartments. So it's changed a lot. I'm glad I got out of there. Eighty-one years born in 1945? Yeah.

what's your first like early memory of like I'm just wondering you know I've done a lot of interviews with people that are obviously younger but a lot of that are older than you and and one of the things it's always interesting to me is you know like did Halifax have all you know like out on the farm there's tons of people who remember no power no running water um they have all these, to me, crazy stories, but not that crazy because, you know, all that stuff came in in the 50s. I assume Halifax had all that stuff since you were a kid, but maybe you have different memories or different stories. I'm just curious. No, I was brought up in the city, and our house had like running water and inside plumbing, and basically we had the conveniences. It wasn't

the most elaborate house. It was an older house that we lived in. because I was one of eight kids. And when you get eight kids in one house, you're kind of crowded, and you're always taking turns. So other than that. Always taking turns, what do you mean? Taking turns doing the dishes.

They're doing stuff around the house. Yeah, but I mean, that isn't so bad. Once every eight days, you've got to do the dishes. That's true. Yeah. But one thing, my father always made, and my mother, They always made a summer vacation going back to Cape Breton.

Their home was in River Buzwa, Cape Breton. Okay. You might have heard about all the big floods they had here about a month ago. Yes. It was River Buzwa. That was their community that they brought up in. And Dad had a house down there. He bought it like a summer house.

And we used to go there every summer and enjoy working around the farms. My uncles all had farms. And that's what got me interested in farming. Well, it was taking the family trip. Yeah, going down there every summer ever since we were kids. I love the smell of the burn, you know, like the veneur or the whole. Yeah. A lot of people wouldn't, but I just liked it. I just liked it.

Well, the days I was playing hockey and I'd be driving back to Saskatch, and back to the farm, I knew I was getting close to home when I'd get caught behind a cattle trailer. And the smell of them knew or it smelled like, oh. So I know what you mean. Actually, you paint a very good picture in my head of the different smells and the feel of barn slash farm. When you bought this place, how much did you buy it for? We got this place for about 25 to 30,000.

And how many acres, 25 acres, or 25 acres of blueberries? Well, I've bought other land around me to add to it. But I had about this property here, I had no blueberry field. So I cleared approximately 15 acres. of blueberry, the woods here. And the reason why there were so many blueberries here is because probably about, well, now it would be about 80 years ago,

a forest fire went through here. And it burnt everything out for about probably two miles, like a strip of land, a wind up the, and it blew right behind all my fields, right up where the school next door is standing, right over to the, there's a campground up the road. And so it burnt quite a strip of land and the berries got established. So anyway, I worked with the Department of Lands and Forests.

They scote at the place and suggested that I look into getting into blueberries. And so that's what we did. So do you pick the wild blueberries, correct? Wild blueberries, yeah. So the low, because one of the things, when we were in Newfoundland, everywhere I went to Newland was nuts. It was just blueberries everywhere. Well, that's the way it is in my fields this year.

in our fields this year. So, you know, like an acre of blueberry fields, you can get probably, nowadays, the modern chemicals and all that stuff that they're used. They're getting about up to two, two and a half tons per acre. And when I was doing... Two and a half tons of blueberries? Per acre. Yeah.

Now, I only had, at that time, I only had about probably, or at one time, I only had about 15 acres altogether and I got 17 tons of berries one year. So that's a lot of berries. Yes, it is. What year did you buy this place? You bought this place in 19, probably 1971. Okay, so in 55 years? That's 55 years. 55 years of doing blue, did you do blueberries your first year? No. We, the first five or six years, we owned the property. We lived in Ontario with the intentions that coming back. And eventually we came back. And when we came back, we eventually started clearing land and expanding from blueberries.

And when I got into blueberries, then I got into honeybees. So what year did you start blueberries? I would say we started blueberries around 1976, 77. So roughly in 50 years then of being a blueberry farmer. Yeah. How have you changed since the start until now? The way the berries are harvested changed. So how did, 50 years ago, how are you harvested in berries all by hand?

It was all hand rakes. The rakes are like an upside down, like a dustpan with a bunch of teeth on it. Okay, so you just pull up through the bush. You scoop, you comb the bushes. And you remember the first time you ever used one of us? Did you did it take maybe a day or two to finally figure out a technique? Oh yeah, it did. But when I first got one, well we had half a dozen rakes and I had half a dozen people raking berries.

And once we got going, once we expanded the fields, last going off I had to, with the rakers, hand raking I had 30 people raking berries. And to rake the berries, we had to try to keep it undercar. control so everybody's not run over every one another. So we used to what they call string the field. We'd have great big coils of string and we would walk them through the string that probably eight feet apart, the strings, from one end to the field to the side. So that they knew exactly what they were. They stayed in those rows. Yes. And so anyway, you have 30 people doing that, you can knock off a pretty good size field in no time at all. You know, we had, I had one field back behind here that

was probably about two acres and there were so many berries on it that all the, mostly students I was getting because I got connections at the school next door. My wife worked there and she lined up a lot of kids for us. Anyway, they went in back into that field and in four hours they cleaned the field. There were so many. berries and they hauled off so many berries that those two acres of land probably got me probably five tons of berries and that was the best field I've ever had so but we talked about picking berries so I'd have 30 people Reagan I used to have 30 people stand by like spares and as the things start to go along things

mechanized and all that there the amount of students I had one time I was down like 30 students or 30 people, 30, Rakin, with no spares. Last going off, I was down to maybe five people Raken and no spares. So we had to switch to tractor-mounted harvesters. So the tractor-mounted harvesters, they came in for a few years, but after a while it was uneconomical for them to travel all the way from Oxford, Nova Scotia, down to Loonberg. And there wasn't enough blueberry farmers in this area to make it worthwhile.

And the economics just didn't work out. So anyway, we went back to, after using the tractor mounts for a couple of years, I bought a walk behind Harvester, which was great. It worked really good. It was built over in Prince Edward Allen, and I had it here. And the only problem is with the Harvester, my land was. so rough like hills and hummocks, little hollows and I was missing too many berries with it. So anyway, at that, once it failed, basically it failed, I sold the harvester and I continued

with the use in handrakes because in the meantime I had already bought a blueberry cleaning machine. And since the harvesters weren't working out and we weren't getting them in bulk, to take to the Oxford frozen foods or the packers, we started packaging our own blueberries in five-pound boxes. So we've only got into that back in probably 15 years ago, and we did it for about 10 or 15 years, packaged in five-pound boxes, and we couldn't keep up with the orders.

But it got to a point where we couldn't get labor. And I felt like I was just getting burnt out, doing all this work constantly. And so we just cut right back, got back to a point that we just harvest enough berries a couple days before Market Day in Lunaburg. And then we would clean them and package them and take them to the market. And the demand for them in the market, I would take a couple hundred boxes in there, I'd be sold it in two hours. Everything gone. And this would go on as long as I had the berries. How long does harvest last? Like what, you know, I come from canola, wheat, you know, all the different.

I'll show you something right here. Sure. I want to get around your cameras. Okay. Now, blueberry season starts first August. There's blueberries there that my wife picked yesterday. 30th of September. Just try some of those. Well, I don't mind if I do. And she's been picking every day, almost, I say almost every day for the last two months. She loves picking berries. And I've been eating probably a bowl of blueberries with milk or cream and sugar almost every day and sometimes twice a day, like a small fruit dish. fruit ball berries every day and I loved them well to the audience if I'm making you hungry those were delightful like that well they're very sweet this time of year they're

they're so ripe that they're that they're falling off the vine so the first of august you can start we're now through all of September yeah still picking how long will this go on for Well, normally it doesn't last this long. So what's... It's the weather. We're getting rain, we're getting sun, and we're getting sun, and we're getting sun. And I had a... The bees pollinated to feel so good this year.

They had great pollination weather that everything had pollinated. And the fruit back there was just... The bushes... I mean, you take one little tiny vine, one chute that stands up and it's holding with 20 or 30 berries. and some of the fields are just blue. Just absolutely blue. In your, once again, roughly 50 years of this, is this like abnormality

or every 10 years this kind of happens? No, the fields, the way the blueberries grow, starting out there weren't a lot of vines. But once you open up to the sunlight and get the bushes, you can either, They're mulled them or burn them. We used to burn them at one time. And it's too hard to burn anymore because of all the permits and everything and fires.

But just mowing with a lawnmower or a big bush hog or any way at all, as long as you can mowl them right as close to the ground as you can get them, you mowl them in the fall probably after frost, after everything's dried off, or early spring. You don't get berries that year the next year. two years, the second year you get the crop because they developed the first, the fruit buds the first year. And then the next year after that, they developed the fruit. And then we get the berries. So every, I want to make sure I heard that correct.

So after this year, you'll mow what has grown and develop berries. That's right. Because they won't give you berries the next year if you just left them or there won't be as many. Two things go wrong there is you don't get near as many, but also the blueberry shoots the first year they grow, they grow almost like a single step coming out the ground, and the next year they grow like a tree, and they get a little branch,

and then the next year they'll hit more branches, and it gets to a point where you can't rake the berries. The rakes won't go through the bushes. So that's why you burn them or mull them. So then I assume you have different plots of land and so you stagger them. So you're mowing one and the next year you have berries and then one of them doesn't have berries and then you mow that and then another one will have berries and it's kind of back and forth. Yeah. We had two lots. Half the berries this year, the other half next year.

And it would be always one part that we wouldn't have to harvest. That's interesting. Then going back to the 30 people raking, you got kids coming in to rake. How much did you pay, like, I assume you were paying them, were you paying them of berries? Or did you pay them like it was so much per day or per hour or how much they pulled in? How much they pulled in? Yeah. It's unbelievable that the difference in the amount of berries one kid can't versus somebody else.

Yes. Some kids can go out there and get 150, 200 pounds in a day. That's just scooping. You're small and the rakes are heavy and you get tired. doing this. Sure. Yeah. So I just let them work at their own pace. Yeah, the big thing is when we go down these rows with the strings in them, we make sure that if somebody's beside them and they're gone way ahead and they're really fast, I make them turn at the other end and come up to meet the person. Yeah. So they're not discouraged, you know, like everybody else is moving to the new rows. So you get everybody moving together. Sure. So did you pay by the pound then? All by the pound.

So what would a, what did you pay by the pound? Starting out, we were getting, how much were we getting? I'd say between 20 and 20, 30 cents a pound. And depending on how good your fields were, you get between, say, 3 and 4 cents a pound to rake them. But last going off, when I couldn't get rakers, you just pay them by the bucket. If I would hold about 10 or 12 pounds, you'd give them 5. dollars a bucket. So the, a tree planted in northern Ontario and I remember getting nine and a half cents a tree. And I was just, you know, when I, when I do that, I'm like, you would have, in order

to come and make a little bit of money then, you would have to be good at raking berries. Yeah. Okay. But as far as the fields go then and now, I was back here three or four weeks ago. And I went back and I picked 14 buckets of berries in a little over an hour. And each bucket holds will 14, 15 pounds. Okay. So I picked for 200 pounds in between an hour and hour and a half. Something like that, because they're just so plentiful this year. But not every year's like that.

And then you take the berries and you just sell them. Like when you're getting tons of berries, are you just taking them into the markets and sell them that way? Or was there a different way you dealt with that many berries? Well, I got a cleaning machine in my grudge, and we can put the berries through that. And it goes through. So when they pass through the cleaning machine,

the berries, there's a fan, and it blows all the leaves out and a lot of the stems and stuff. The berries pass through this where the fan is blown on them, and then they fall onto a conveyor, little conveyor that it's like a bunch of string, like it's a plastic, quarter inch plastic strings, probably an eighth inch apart, and a lot of the little ones will fall through the string, and then the good ones will go down, and then they fall onto a belt, which is on a slope, and if the berries are squashed or won't roll, they roll, they go on this belt,

they go off into a trash bucket or a tote. And then the good ones fall on a good belt, conveyor belt. And on the conveyor belt, they would run along the conveyor belt. But we had to have a couple of people there because the machine couldn't tell it between green ones and blue ones. So you had to make sure that they were...

You'd be sitting there picking out. These are all the problems as you're using a machine you start to realize. That's right. You know, like, To the audience, it may seem like, oh, you were a full-time blueberry farmer, but like, all this time you're still working in a career for 40 years, right? You're installing AC units? Is that the... Installing them. Central back into a house.

And now it's everything's gone to mini-splits. You know, I started putting mini-splits in years ago. So you're working a full-time job as hard as you can go. And then back on the farm, you're, you know, for close to two months, because there would be lead up to the harvest, a bunch of work there, then there would be actual harvest, then there'd be selling what you make. Not to mention you add in bees on top of it and making sure they get pollinated and everything else. I'm like, you're a busy man.

Well, we're a busy man. Plus, you had how many kids, four? I have four kids. Yeah. No, it was a busy time, but the job I had. I was home every night. Well, I say every night, almost. When I was home, I was home.

Sure. And I always had weekends off. So it's always busy on the weekends. And the nights I'd get home, if I get home at 5 or 6 o'clock, it would daylight at 9 or 10. You go out and you work, you do whatever you can. But a lot of the time, the plants are just growing. You're by themselves.

You don't have to do anything. So it comes, I always have to take a week on. off at harvest time from work to harvest because I couldn't I wouldn't get it done. Have you seen a you know you mentioned at one point you had 30 and then you know I assume it was difficult to get people to come out and harvest have you seen a huge change in that of like people willing to come do it? Not anymore. It's pretty hard to get people to do it unless you brought in foreign workers and I didn't want to get involved with looking after foreign workers because you have to make sure they have good

housing and a lot of things like that. Plus I was getting older. Anyway, so I retired from my job 21 years ago. I was 60 when I retired, figuring I was going to be a full-time farmer. Well, as a full-time farmer, I until I get tired, you know. Anyway, it was good going. And you retired and then you became a full-time blueberry honey farmer. That's right. Yeah. And I also had 10 years of Christmas trees.

I didn't tell you about that. No. I had a Christmas tree, 10 acres of Christmas trees. Had the Christmas trees for probably 15, 20 years. Okay. And that was another job. She earned Christmas trees on your Saturdays off. Yeah. So you you like work. Is that fair to say? I'd like work, yeah.

I mean, you'd, I mentioned to you, maybe it comes to the camera, to the audience, or not. I'm like, I couldn't believe you're 81. I'm like, man, you look good for 81. Your wife can laugh at me when I say that because I'm like, I don't think you're, you don't look 81. You certainly run around like you're not 81, like you're moving around real good and everything else and you're like well if you stop moving you're that probably isn't a good way to go but I'm like in the height of things you had four kids of blueberries honey Christmas trees now and you worked a full-time job yeah like most people well I shouldn't say most people that's that just seems like a lot I was busy and my wife was busy she supported me

Yeah, Rosie, as you're walking out the door, you go, at any point where you're like, we've maybe taken on too much? Maybe. Sorry, the audience can't hear her, and she's off to the... But I can't get her out of the garden now, so she's in the garden all summer. I mean, and now she's out there playing in her greenhouse. Yeah, always something to do. You have to have things to keep your mind occupied. Yeah, keeps you young.

I'll get to dig in for the blueberries here. All the blueberries are he helps keep me going. Yeah, well, like, you're, you've got riches right there in that bowl. That's, that's something. Yeah. What, uh, you mentioned that time seems to speed up. Like, since you retired, maybe, maybe, is there, you know, in like, your 81 years, was there a time where you thought time isn't moving that fast or something along those lines?

And in my own world right now, having three kids and being on the road, I always think the morning seems like it just goes on and on and on. It almost like goes for, you know, five hours seems like it's 10 hours. But as soon as noon-ish hits, it's like the day goes on overdrive. And all of a sudden it's bedtime. You're like, where did the hours go? When you're talking about, you know, it seems like time speeding up at 81. What do you mean?

It just seems like the day is fly by. I mean, you start doing a project. You probably get involved in it. and time passes as you're doing it. Like this past week, well, last week, for example, I have a bush saw, a clearing saw. The engine blew in it. So I couldn't go without it.

So I think Monday I went and bought a new one. I mean, it cost $1,000 for a saw. So I had to get a new one. And I was out the last couple of days with this bush saw. clearing bushes that were growing in the blueberry fields just to keep the fields producing. And I work an hour, two hours, doing that there on beat when I come in. I'll go have a sleep. I like to have my sleep very on that.

And maybe that's where my hours are going, sleeping. I'm going to go back to the tonnage of blueberry. You mentioned cleaning them, getting the good berries put to where they need to go, packaged. Are you selling all your blueberries? Not anymore, no. I didn't notice, like, when I pulled in, if maybe there was like a blueberry, you'd set a blueberry stand on the front of your yard and have people just, like, did you do that? Or was everything to a market? It started out for the first 25 years going to the Packers.

They went to the Big Packers, and they brought their big harvest. down the tractor mounted harvesters. I mean, they could rake the fields off in probably a day, two machines going. And it all went to the Packers. And where's the Packers? It was Packers, were up in Oxford, frozen foods. Okay. And that's about, oh, 200 kilometers from here. And they'd be trucked in. They'd would do a few other blueberry growers in the area. And, uh, it would be trucked in the area. And, uh, Well, they'd packed them and trucked them off and bring us new crates, and we'd refill the crates, and this went on for the whole week. The truck was coming in every day to get the berries.

And some days, it was a rainy week, or rainy day or something, we wouldn't get near as many berries done, or we'd miss a day. So the weather played a big part and everything we did. A real big part. And you'd mentioned there's not as many blueberry farmers in the area. anymore? No. Why is that? Well, the economics, the price of the berries there are going back ten years. They had an abundance of berries and the price went down low, low enough that the farmers did not cover their costs. And when that happens, all of a sudden... Everybody goes, what am I doing? Yeah, what am we doing this

far? And so we looked at a different way. We were, we live close to the town of Loonaberg, which is only two kilometers away. And Bridgewater is only 10 kilometers the other way. And anyway, we figured, well, we'll take a chance and we'll get a buy a cleaning machine, buy a harvester, and just do it, what we can handle, and sell them in the fresh markets, or sell them in five-pound boxes. So we would sell them, we'd package them in five-pound boxes, everything we could rake, we'd clean them, we'd be working out there in the machine, from dawn to dusk, you know, cleaning or harvesting or doing something. And what were you selling a five-pound box for?

Lots going off there, about $30 a box. Okay. Five pounds. You're getting $5 or $6 a pound for them. You know, when you stop to think, people sell scrap copper, scrap metal, loan them and all that. They're only getting $5 or $6 a pound. And I get so many pounds of blueberries out there that I just can't get them all. There's a lot of easier to pick the berries and do something else.

Sure. So those are, I mean, selling them in five pound boxes, like, that's a decent, like, what's, you go in, you have a good day in the market. What is a good day when you're coming out of there money-wise? For two hours work in the market? Sure. $1,500. $1,500.

Yeah. I mean, that doesn't take an account how many hours are spending the field and everything else getting getting to that point yeah but the the end result is a 1500 day which is pretty good yeah when you're done a season maybe i'm not supposed to ask these questions i don't know but you know like on a good crazy season do you make a hundred thousand dollars then in blueberries or is it like i made 30 000 and now you're in the ballpark and then you go but that isn't factoring in all the labor and everything else and you're not everything off. Yeah, because you're working for free basically. Yeah. You know, you're not paying

yourself. So, but $30,000 would be a good round figure, you know, what you're making. But then again, too, I only did it as a part-time job because good thing I didn't have to make a living at it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it just to me, it sounds like a ton of work. But, you know, knowing that at the end of it, you're getting paid, even paid for your time. And There is not only what you get to throw in your bowl at the end of the day or every day, right? Like, I mean, my kids would, well, they would have hammered that thing right back. Now, I'm going to switch you over to bees. So you, at the early start, you said, I made lots of mistakes.

Yeah, it's with the bees, yeah. What were the early mistakes you made with bees? I don't know. Not looking after them properly and them swarming. Okay. You know, you've got to always make sure they have lots of room to expand. Just different techniques, different stuff I did. I tried, I was always trying new inventions with my hives. Lots going off with my hives. I heard horror stories about people losing half their hives over winter and all this. And there for about seven years running, I never lost a hive over winter.

not a hive. And then that was because I figured I prepared them well enough in the fall and fed them enough. And I used treatment for getting rid of the mites, which is a problem with the bees. And they all survived. And this went on for about seven years. And then here about three years ago,

we had a drought in the summer. It was dry. Everything was dry. The wells were drying up. and when it's dry, the bees do not bring in nectar, because there's no nectar in the flowers. And the bees did not reproduce and build up its strength in the hives. And that winter or that fall going into the winter,

my bees' hives were all very weak, and I fed them, but they didn't have the numbers to bring in a lot of food. So I end up losing probably about, six or seven hives, the worst winter I had for a long time out of, say, 20 hives. So anyway, that was, I don't know if you say that was my fault or not, but it was a problem that I had. Maybe I didn't feed them enough. Maybe I should have been feeding them through the summer. But you don't want to feed them in the summertime when they take and turn around

and put the sugar syrup in with the honey. Then you don't have pure honey. So then I didn't do that. Anyway, I ended up losing some hives. Do you grow a connection with bees? I don't, you know, like they're an insect, so it's different than a big animal, a horse, or a cow or something, you know, like, or as the cat's rubbing on the door right now, a cat.

Like, as a bee farmer, do you have a connection to your hives? Is that a dumb question? Well, I don't know them by name. No. Some people ask me how many bees I got. And I might say, hmm, you gullible? And then I list off like,

I got 489,211 or something. How do you count them? So then I string them along with another little story. I got little electronic counters at the entrances with coming and going. So, no, you're not attached to the bees. You're attached when they sting you. Yeah.

Well, and I assume you've been stung enough times. I get stung pretty near every time I go at the bees. And most of the time I get stung on my fingertips. Because when I'm lifting the frames out of the hives, I squashed the bees underneath when I'm lifting them out. And the bees don't like to be squashed. So they sting me. And mostly on my fingertips.

Have you gotten used to getting sting or is it like, oh, that hurt? It hurts for about a minute. but at one time it used to hurt for hours and now I get stung and the sting is just there for a minute and it's gone so I got used to it so I can go at the bees the only thing I wear is I make sure I always wear a veil because I don't want to get stung in the face or in the throat sure or anything like that and I can go with basically short sleeves like I get on now

and you pick your days if you pick a bad day, you're going to get stung really bad. How do you know it's going to be a bad day? If you can tell if it's sunny out or not, if it's sunny out, nice and warm, not much wind. They're going to be active. They're out flying, bringing in nectar, bringing in pollen and all this,

and they're not interested in me going at the hive. So I can go rip the hive apart right down to the last box, and that they won't bother you. And I can work 15 or 20 hives in an afternoon and going at them. And I probably won't get stung once. But if I go in another day, like today's cloudy and overcasts, I would probably get stung a half a dozen times. Today is a bad day or today is a better day?

Today is a bad day. Because it's overcasts and the bees would not be flying too much because there's so much dew and dampness on the flowers. I misunderstood you then. On a sunny day, that's a good day. Yeah. Because they're moving and they're out of the hive. Yeah.

And on a cloudy overcast day, that's a bad day. Yeah, they're not leaving. They're in the hive. They're doing host duties. And they're also guarding the entrances. They guard the entrance from intruders like myself or other bees. Yeah. And then what do you do?

How much honey do you make? Oh, you can get, in Nova Scotia average is about, they save 50 to 75 pounds per high. Okay. You know, sometimes you get a little more, sometimes you get a little less. So at 50 pounds a hive, how many hines do you run? 20 hives, you get 1,000 pounds. So what do you do with the thousand pounds of honey in a year? I sell.

Do you take that to the market as well? No, I don't take any to the market because there's other people selling the honey in there too, so I don't bother with the market because I let them sell there. I sell all my honey to the Bridgewater Farmers Co-op. They've been selling my honey for quite a few years. And when my honey is on, we've almost like built up a clientele. They come in and ask for my honey. And they will sell my honey until they sell out.

And for the last couple of years, they've been sell. It's in the market now, but they will sell out probably by February or March. and then there's no honey my honey is not left so they'll try to get somebody else to bring some in for a couple months so

and anyway switching to you mentioned you've been married for 56 years correct? Yeah what can you tell a younger man who's only been married 12 years

yeah it's 12 I've got to think about that I don't know why I have to think about that but 12 years or maybe somebody who's listening who just got married or, you know, like, what would you say about being married for 56 years? The key to it. That's a tough question. Well, my wife's a saint to start with, to put up with me. But you have to get along. You have to give and take. I have to do stuff that

I don't like to do for her. And she will do stuff for me. Like working with the bees. She gets all dressed up. She'll come and help me with the bees. You know, we pull the... With something that you don't like to do that you do for her? Oh, in the garden? Pulling the weeds.

Yeah. We got a garden out there. It's 40 feet by 60 feet. A lot of weeds grow in it. Yeah. So, but she's out there now playing around with the weeds. But she loves it. She loves the out in the garden.

And a lot of flowers. She has a lot of flowers. So. You know, people have been at, like, we've been on the road now for today, as I record, this is day 89. And, you know, we've had some ups and downs. But, like, overall, it's probably the happiest I've ever been in life. Just being with my family and my kids on the road and seeing new places, meeting new people. It's been, I have some people think, you know, being in a camper, that small space with your family is insane.

Like, they're like, how are you doing that? And I'm like, I don't know, I enjoy being around my wife and kids, I guess, is a start. When you look back in your 81 years, is there a decade or a year or a time where you're like, man, those were just some fun days? Well, we were like you. We had four kids. and the kids we took part and everything they did I was like a scope leader for 10 years

I went through the scope movement with my son and my wife she did had girls in figure skating and I had my son in hockey and taking part and everything to do makes so much difference you enjoy life so much time flies then

and you look back and it's gone I'd say enjoy your family definitely while you're young do stuff with them. Anyway, but as far as stuff, we had a camper too, small camper. It's only 17 feet. We went across Newfoundland with that. We towed it to Newfoundland. And when we went, we had an infant daughter. She was probably no more than a year old. And the company I worked for let me go over and work my way across Newfoundland and back again at my own pace. And we did a lot of work at the different sites I had to go to. And at the same time, we enjoyed the senior view of Newfoundland. So you've actually done a different version of what I'm doing right now. Is that what you just said?

You were working, installing air conditioning units at different spots along Newfoundland. Yeah. And traveling with your family. Yeah. What year was that? That was in around 1974. around that time. What do you remember about those days?

I remember eating. One time we got, didn't know what we're going to eat, so we got a, somebody was peddling salmon. Okay. And we got a fresh salmon. And we barbecued the salmon. And it's probably the best salmon I've ever eaten.

Fresh rate from the guy that caught it to us eating it. Remember that? I remember some of the stuff when I had to fly in and fly out. I didn't like leaving, flying like from Sydney, Nova Scotia to St. John's or the Deer Lake. Because I'd be gone for a week and come home. My son would not recognize me. He was only four years old then. Yeah. Three or four years old. And a week? In a week. That's all it took. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't like I like coming back, but at the same time I didn't like to see him not have me around. Yeah.

But no, we did a lot of stuff with our kids, best we could do, and still firm. And all our kids worked on the farm too. They all did things. One of the things we did as far as beekeeping goes, when we came to Lunar, the first year we came, back from Sydney, we lived in Sydney for a couple years, the exhibition in Lonerberg, and we put, well, they always had a children's parade, and so we didn't know what we were going to do,

so we decided to put the children in a pool cart with a hive box on it and have them dressed up as beekeepers, and they came as the beekeepers with the smoker, wasn't going. But anyway, that year they won the first prize. It's really good. Good memories. Yeah.

I'll always remember that, though. And at that time, well, my son was five years old. He's 55 now, so that's 50 years ago. So we had bees for 50 years. I'd say 40, but... Yeah. One of the things I've been asking everybody I go across Canada about come from Saskatchewan, born and raised, but now I live in Alberta. Alberta has a big day coming up here, October 19th.

They got a referendum on whether or not to have a referendum on independence or separation, whichever word do you choose. Your thoughts on that. I mean, you've been, you know, at 81 years, you probably have early memories, I would think, I would think, about Newfoundland. becoming part of Canada that I would think on the East Coast that would have been big news I would say yeah the only thing I remember back then it was remember seeing Newfoundland money oh they had their own currency before for 1940 really yeah and they phased that out to the Canadian money and I remember seeing some Newfoundland money they don't know if it was people that saved it or not but

sure I would have been only like five years old then. Yeah. Yeah. Do you remember anything specific about Newfoundland money? No, similar to Canadian money. Wasn't like the plastic money we got today. There's been a lot of changes in 81 years. Yeah, yeah. If I go back to Alberta, what are your thoughts on Alberta having a referendum similar to, I guess Quebec would be the most recent one, although that's quite a few years ago now, 30? Man, has it been 30 years? 30 years, 31 years ago? I hate to see both those provinces want to separate Canada

because, I mean, here in the maritime, we're not the richest province in Canada, but we all get along, we all have good lifestyle, and our families have a good place to live, it's safe, and I can't see them wanting to give up this stuff and go into the unknown. Because, I mean, what would happen if these, either one of those provinces separate it. I mean, are they going to be independent for 10, 15 years

and then take over by the states or what? So I hate to see it happen. I have a grandson that works out in Northern British Columbia now, but he travels all the marries, all the provinces. He flies in and out of Winnipeg and that's where head office is. And he would fly to Edmund in Calgary, they fly him wherever he wants to go or has to go. And to have the freedom to do that, you know. And then you think, I think of the indigenous people, what they've given up over the years. And it's going to all start again.

If, like, Alberta broke apart, then to be more fighting and infighting, you know, separating treaty lands or whatever you want to call them, their lands. It's their lands and who's going to, you know, what's going to happen. So I just hope they

stay united with Canada. I guess if I had one final I'm like do I got two thoughts in my head. One is I do a rapid fire on a second part and I should do that too.

I wonder just one more on Alberta or the leave all that. If Quebec were to leave, or Alberta, or anyone, by leaving, do you think you would lose all this? If Quebec left, start off with, I think the Maritimes would be next to go, probably together, you know, like there. And you think that would be a worse off situation?

I definitely think it would all be worse off. I can't see it being any better. Just because there's cooperation amongst the provinces? Is that safety together? There is a lot of cooperation amongst the provinces, but each province has some of its own quirks that they want to keep this for themselves. You know, don't want to, you know, like Quebec, I don't know.

They're a big manufacturing province, you know, as far as that goes. But we travel through Quebec quite often. We never have any problems with people wanting to speak English to us. And if we go to an area who is totally French, they try. Actually, you know, like going across Canada or I was saying any about the United States, like what media portrays or what government says, I've never had any problems with any of the people. People have been friendly everywhere.

Everywhere I go, they've been friendly. Most places they are, yeah. People are people. And from what I can see, I mean, I'm sure you got the bad ones out there. For sure you do. But most people have been like real fantastic. Even in Quebec, even in the most French-speaking neighborhoods. That's right.

I'm like, you know, I do my parley-vous-englis, and then they laugh at me. And then I'm like, yeah, crap, all right. And then we do the old dance, right? But everybody's laughing at that point, because I've given it my honest shot of like the elite speak English and you know and there's some chuckles but it was Quebec was was great I had I had no like issues there more than any other province just a language barrier in some places and I mean that happens in other parts of the world but if they left tomorrow I still think going there you know like how many Canadians go to Quebec not that

many. Like the West doesn't go over to Quebec and the Quebec doesn't go over to the West. I mean, I don't know if it would change that much from that sense. People are still people. There being added barrier maybe of needing a passport to go into it. I guess that could be a

a barrier of how it could change. Yeah, I can see that happening. Anyway, I hope they stay. We all stay united. Fair enough. Well, what we're going to do is we're going to switch over to a portion on substack and I'm going to ask you 10 rapid fire questions and pick your brain on a

couple things before I let you back to your bees and your blueberries and everything else. So folks, hang on with me here or hop over to substack, I guess. That'd be the place to find us. We'll go there next.