We’ve had a couple of events recently at the farm, which is out of the ordinary for Maree and me. Typically it’s rare for us to have visitors besides our families, so it was great to have the harvest party last Sunday and equally cool to host the early childhood kids tonight (Thursday). We had a good number of people out for the harvest party—if you were unable to make it, please stop by and I’ll re-give the tour and you can pick a pumpkin. Too often farming is such a solitary existence where you grow something for people you will never meet. I had such a good feeling to see “our” community gathered together in our machine shed, just eating good food and enjoying others company. Special thanks to member Ruth Sollie for the picture!
Tonight was a different, although equally rewarding experience. We hosted the early childhood classes in Pelican Rapids, which annually do a “pumpkin patch” outing for 1-5 year olds and their parents. I had been working like a dog since 8 am trying to pull in as much produce as possible since I expect a frost tomorrow morning and I was a bit in a daze when I watched car after car after car pull into our driveway. This thing was bigger than I expected. And, with about 40 little kids running around, it was a real whirlwind event. I took everybody on a hayride to the pumpkin patch in the front field and there were so many that I had to take two trips. On the hayride it was a lot of fun to stop and quiz the kids about the different vegetables. Going with my theme about connection, like the harvest party, I found the event really rewarding. I figured this may be one of those few times when kids can really get on a farm and learn about where their food comes from. We need kids to connect with farms if we expect younger generations to know of anything other than Taco Bell, Cheetos, or Coke.
