Six Masters Farm

We’re called “Six Masters” because between the four of us - Walter, Janet, Marlene and I - we have six Masters’ degrees.  And none in agriculture.  Try philosophy, music, education and health care! 

After my college teaching came to an end, Walter and I spent many hours walking our dogs on nearby paths along the river.  He spoke often about the farm and his love for land, animals and healthy food.  So one winter day, I decided to come out and have a look.  I still remember it like it was yesterday:  snow, blue sky, cold and crisp.  Driving to Greendale was like going to another country.  I fell in love with the place!  Walt has farm experience - he lived and worked on his parent’s farm until his late teen years.  I grew up on a farm but my dad sold it when I was thirteen.  So, I had a memory of farming, but no real experience.  

Walt and I would like people to feel “at home” when they arrive on our farm.  We have three goats (that we’ve been bottle feeding these last few weeks - they are our ‘eat the wild brambles program’ instead of herbicides) that will meet the folks, and a couple of very people-loving dogs.  As they enter, we’ll have sheep in the fields as well as the rabbit tractors.  We should be raising either ducks or chickens by then in portable sheds that sit on the land and allow the birds to eat the grasses, bugs and worms.  We don’t know of anyone raising birds this way, but we believe it goes way beyond people’s expectations of the two words “free range.”  The rabbits, we have been told by chef Dominque Couton of Bouchon’s Bistro  in Kelowna, taste outstanding.  Again, this is because all they eat is grass.  

So we’re grass farmers really.   We let the sun do its thing.  We use no chemical fertilizers - only the best dung on the planet:  dove doo-doo.  We spread it on the fields this year and the pastures have so much grass that the cattle and the sheep can’t keep up with it.