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Our Farm
We named our farm after the former hamlet of Pendennis situated 2.5 miles to the east on the old Great Northwestern Railway line (bought by Canadian Pacific Rail, abandoned over 20 years ago). The old rail bed crosses our property and some days imaginary steam locomotives still chug their way past our yard. One day while surfing the web, we happened, by chance, upon the "4079 Pendennis Castle", a famous steam engine, the fastest in England in her day. The Town of Rivers, named for Sir Charles Rivers Wilson (president of the Grand Trunk Railway from 1895 to 1910), also has a railway theme. All these little details seemed to come together naturally as if it was meant to be. So we couldn't resist having a railway theme for our farm and website. The background image of the website banner is the Pendennis Castle locomotive.
Hills in Manitoba, you ask?! No, that's no joke! Much of western Manitoba is blessed with rolling country-
The Pendennis Hills are the highest point of land around, with more than a 100-foot rop in the half a mile width of our quarter section (160 acres). Although we are a tad more than a mile away from the Little Saskatchewan River (both to the west and south!), the natural drainage pattern of the land runs south-east in the opposite direction to the river, eventually ending up in the Little Saskatchewan, 13 miles away. There are 200-foot cliffs along the river in places with spectacular views of the valley. Recreational opportunities abound, with tubing, rafting and canoeing popular in the spring, as well as good walleye fishing and endless riding possibilities.
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A retired Provincial wildlife biologist always referred to the mostly-forested 480 acres of Crown Land which our farm nestles up against as the "Pendennis hills" for the purposes of white-tailed deer surveys. It was presumed that was a local name, but the neighbours always had puzzled looks on their faces when we described the area that way. The Crown land is leased by a neighbour for grazing and is our source of oak and poplar firewood to keep our 95-year-old farm house cozy through the winter. The bush is humming with activity during the deer hunting season but becomes our own personal playground once the snow flies. The fence lines are superb riding and sleigh trails. Randy and I both enjoy deer hunting, just a matter of a short walk from the house to one of our many stands and blinds, and great goose hunting is also right on our doorstep.
side, a stark contrast indeed to the flat-as-a-pancake Red River floodplain, often the first impression which visitors get when driving on the Trans Canada Highway from Winnipeg. Randy and I were immediately drawn to the Rivers area when we began to search for an acreage to buy. 
We rent out the 70 acres of cultivated cropland and usually hire someone to cut, bale and stack the 40 acres of hayland. We make a few hundred bales for our own use, storing it in the loft of our spacious, hip-roof barn. It seems with every winter we feed less and less as we discover just what easy keepers these Canadian horses are. In fact, it's essential to ration them to prevent them from becoming too fat. The horses are gradually introduced to grass in spring, then let out into the pasture at the end of May.
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Copyright 2007 - Pendennis Hills Farm |
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