Daniel Klein, EAT YOUR HEART OUT!

On our visit to the farm lands of South Western Ontario in search of equine facilities this past weekend, AW and I accidentally found a local Elk farm: Coyote Creek Deer Company Venison on Trafalgar. We turn into this seemingly innocent residence, ring the door bell and are greeted by a tall grey gentleman with a cheerful disposition and giant smile. He's happy to see strangers... wow, I think. I tell him we've stopped because of his sign "Elk Open" and he nods and quickly tells us he's going to get a coat and shoes to show us what he's got.

We get into his double garage and he opens a huge freezer of neatly vacuum packaged meat. We're somewhat speechless and I think he senses this and says to us "why don't I take you two to see the animals. They're out back this way." Thinking about this turn of events while I'm writing, makes me wonder what we were actually thinking... this man is potentially a murderous psycho who kills and chops us strangers who stop by to innocently buy elk! But, we're so excited right now that we head to his back yard.

His dogs come bouncing out of their doggie door and follow us to the back fence. Our new friend's name is Dan and he tells us that the elk are probably near the back of the enclosure and that he'd take us on the entire tour. We grab the bucket of corn and hop on his tractor while he drives us out what seems like almost a kilometer. Now we see them... the herd of elk. He tells us that he's raising red deer and elk and the hybrids of the two.

We're in the enclosure now, and the herd comes running over and they are soon eating out of our hands (literally!) of the corn from the bucket. A few get really greedy and push themselves to eat directly out of the bucket!

Dan also raises pheasants to release into the area...

The conversation with Dan is really engaging and we learn a lot about the practices he's employing to raise these animals and the other practices that surround this endeavour. He even has a neighbour who's raising his own honey bees and we grab a raw, unfiltered, unpasturized jar of honey. I'm not sure if it's just the fabulous fall day that is making things seem so neat but I don't remember having had more fun while getting so dirty!

NB: Dan and Daniel Klein aren't the same person...