Edencrest Farm is located on the crest of a hill overlooking a very picturesque setting of a small farm community surrounded by one of the largest wetlands and conservation areas in the province. We live close to the little village of Minesing and our motto is: “ We are in the middle of nowhere but 20 minutes from everywhere”. The towns of Wasaga Beach, Collingwood, Barrie, Elmvale, and Stayner are all within a 20 minute drive from our farm.
Edencrest is a certified organic farm, growing approximately 40 different vegetables, alfalfa hay, wheat, pasture, barley, and pasture raised Red Angus beef cattle, meat chickens, and free range laying hens. A team of small draft horses completes our livestock inventory and they are used for spring and summer cultivation in our gardens and also for wagon rides and sleighrides when we offer children’s birthday parties at the farm. We operate a 200 family Summer CSA, a 65 family Winter CSA, attend an organic Farmer’s Market in North Toronto every Saturday, and operate a small store on the farm also.
Accommodation for our apprentices will be in our private B&B guesthouse. It is adjoined to our farm house but completely separate. The guesthouse includes two bedrooms, one bathroom, a fully equipped kitchen, a furnished living room and dining room, high speed internet hook up, satellite TV, a fire pit, small patio, and a bar-be-que. We will supply all food, and some extras like shampoos, toothpaste, etc. Most of the time we will cook and eat together and during days off the apprentices have the option of cooking by themselves or eating with us. You may see pictures of our farm and our guesthouse at: www.edencrestfarms.com
Most days would start at 6 am with the feeding of the animals and related chores, watering the greenhouses and gardens, and pulling weeds. Breakfast is at 8:30 am and then back to the gardens where we take turns cultivating with the horses and tractors, transplanting vegetable crops, harvesting crops for our CSA and Farm Market, haying, collecting eggs and fixing fence for the cattle. Lunchtime is at noon. In the afternoon, we continue in the fields or if it is too hot, we generally take a break and begin a little later in the afternoon. We expect our apprentices to work from Monday through Saturday, but we do take Sundays off for relaxation and family fun. Since the livestock must still be fed on Sundays, everyone would take turns doing the chores. Some work days may be long but others may be quite short when we have achieved our objective for the day or we have a rainy day. Special projects are on the go each year.
We would hope our apprentices will be keen on learning how to farm organically, have the patience to work with livestock and with our customers, have a good work ethic, have a valid driver’s license, and have a work commitment to work with us from April through to Thanksgiving. In return we would hope our apprentices would learn how to farm, how to work with horses and other farm animals, learn how to plant, grow, and harvest many different vegetables, learn about soil preservation, and protection of our environment, learn how to fix and repair some farm equipment, and we would expect our apprentices to obtain a great deal of experience when working with the public: how to sell products, how to work with the consumer, and how to deal with customers in general.
We are in need of 4 apprentices for the upcoming 2013 season.
Incentives and bonuses are available and determined by the individual’s
skill level and work ethic.
Those interested please contact by phone or e-mail (below)
Jim and Maureen Giffen
705-737-2491
2904 Rainbow Valley Road West
Minesing, Ontario L0L1Y0
www.edencrestfarms.com
edencrest@yahoo.ca
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