CORNER BROOK — Growing up in Curling, Shelley Hoffer never imagined she would end up living on a farm.
But that's exactly where the former Shelley Park is these days.
Hoffer moved from western Newfoundland to Ontario in 1993 when she was 19 years old.
There, her brother introduced her to Eric Hoffer, whose family had been operating a tobacco farm in Innerkip, Ont. since 1974.
The two got married, but that wasn't the only big change that would happen in their lives.
In 2003, the Hoffer family farm got out of the tobacco farming business and began concentrating on raising pigs. Two years ago, the farm landed a major deal with supermarket giant Loblaws to provide pigs for the grocer's President's Choice "Free From" brand.
The "Free From" brand ensures customers that such products have been raised without the use of antibiotics or hormones and have been fed nothing but vegetable grains and no animal by-products.
"Before the "Free from" program, we were just a finishing barn," explained Hoffer. "We would get them in as weaner pigs and get them up to market weight. Then we converted the barn to a farrow to finish (operation)."
While Hoffer and her husband, and often their three children, take care of the work in the barn, Eric and his father tend to the crops that feed the pigs. Those crops that provide the entire, excusive diet of the pigs include 350 acres of corn and soy beans.
It's a busy life, but Hoffer said she and her family love every minute of their days on the farm, which is located about a 90-minute drive west of Toronto.
"I always thought I was more of a city girl," she said. "The country is nice, though, and I enjoy it. That surprised me."
CORNER BROOK — Growing up in Curling, Shelley Hoffer never imagined she would end up living on a farm.
But that's exactly where the former Shelley Park is these days.
Hoffer moved from western Newfoundland to Ontario in 1993 when she was 19 years old.
There, her brother introduced her to Eric Hoffer, whose family had been operating a tobacco farm in Innerkip, Ont. since 1974.
The two got married, but that wasn't the only big change that would happen in their lives.
In 2003, the Hoffer family farm got out of the tobacco farming business and began concentrating on raising pigs. Two years ago, the farm landed a major deal with supermarket giant Loblaws to provide pigs for the grocer's President's Choice "Free From" brand.
The "Free From" brand ensures customers that such products have been raised without the use of antibiotics or hormones and have been fed nothing but vegetable grains and no animal by-products.
"Before the "Free from" program, we were just a finishing barn," explained Hoffer. "We would get them in as weaner pigs and get them up to market weight. Then we converted the barn to a farrow to finish (operation)."
While Hoffer and her husband, and often their three children, take care of the work in the barn, Eric and his father tend to the crops that feed the pigs. Those crops that provide the entire, excusive diet of the pigs include 350 acres of corn and soy beans.
It's a busy life, but Hoffer said she and her family love every minute of their days on the farm, which is located about a 90-minute drive west of Toronto.
"I always thought I was more of a city girl," she said. "The country is nice, though, and I enjoy it. That surprised me."
