Dalke Family Enjoy Life on Their Picture Perfect Farm

May 30, 2008 |

PHOTOS FROM TOP: Annah surveys the farm from behind her shades; Adolf and Annah stroll to the barn; the three generations of the Dalke family, Adolf and wife Alice, daughter Christy and her kids, Annah and Julia.

Adolf Dalke spent his early childhood in West Germany playing with wood blocks that passed as toys in post-World War II Europe. Adolf said the closest he could come to a tractor was what his imagination would conjure. Times have certainly changed for the owner of Aliados Farm Corporation.

His favourite piece of equipment is a bright blue Ford 77A tractor, a sturdy machine that Adolf uses to tend to his Surrey chicken farm, which features a sweeping view of the southern edge of the Lower Mainland.

In his 37 years in the industry, the biggest change he has seen is in the health safety standards. “We have to be super vigilant about disease,” Adolf said during a family portrait shoot on his farm on Monday. “Since the Avian flu in 2004, the paperwork has been out of this world, but it’s for our own good and we do it to make sure the consumer gets a safe product.”

Adolf said he still enjoys farming and being his own boss, and also takes pride in the fact he provides a service the public needs and demands. “More and more people eat chicken every day,” said the father of two, whose company is a member of the Chicken Farmers of Canada and the chief supplier to Lilydale, the giant poultry company based in Edmonton.

The name of Aliados Farm derives from a combination of the first three letters of Adolf and Alice, his wife. The happy couple were photographed with their daughter, Christy, and her two children, Annah and baby Julia.

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