On Saturday, our hottest day so far this year, Alan and I drove out to Greendale, a farming village in the Fraser Valley between Abbotsford and Chilliwack. 3 weeks ago our son and a friend cycled all around this area on a Slow Food Tour and it sounded like a great way to spend a day. Saturday’s event was ‘Greendale Country Sampler’. Farms, gardens, small home businesses and a Nature Reserve were open from 10am to 5pm for the one day.
www.greendalepotteryandcountryguesthouse.com
Holly McKeen is the energetic organizer of the event, and a potter, so I had received an invitation via the Fraser Valley Potters Guild. She was happy to point out also that I was her first female pottery instructor! Some ten years ago she used to drive an hour to Shadbolt Centre for wheelthrowing lessons with me! Since then she and her husband Ken have established their ‘retirement’ dream of a hobby farm with B & B, the pottery and its showroom and Ken’s Black Angus herd of cattle. Holly produces several lines of functional ware with cone 6 B-mix clay but her passion is to throw elegant vases, lidded containers and platters to be finished with her signature crystalline glazes.
Even though she was very busy with customers she insisted on giving me and Al a tour of her studio, garden and inside their home where we saw pots she’s collected. She throws at a window looking out over their acres to other farms and the Coast Mountains beyond. We came away with a freezer pack of naturally raised Black Angus beef and lots of photos, and impressed by Holly and Ken’s busy lifestyle in a beautiful, quiet farm setting. I’ve been meaning to visit Holly’s studio for some years and will now recommend friends make the effort to join either the bike tour or the more leisurely driving tour when they’re offered next summer.
Besides the McKeen’s enterprise we visited farms where we bought fresh brown eggs, 3 perennials, frozen pork smokies, tomatoes, garlic, cheese and an ice cream! We didn’t have time to visit the honey farm, the flour mill, earthworms composting supplies, quilting fabrics, soaps, light sculptures or, no surprise, the corn maze. So there’s plenty to do on a return trip. We ended our drive by finding the Great Blue Heron Nature Reserve on the Vedder River and enjoyed a pleasant early evening stroll along trails by swamps, blackberries and birds. We actually only saw one heron. Our day ended with a pub supper at tour sponsor Duke’s Pub at the Highway 1 exit to Greendale before the one-hour drive home to Port Moody.
