We have discussed before how it our main goal to follow God in all that we do. We have also discussed how we want to aid and benefit the community as much as possible. These two goals are still very much in the picture, and today I am going paint the future picture of the farm in our mind with a little more detail.
We want to be a place where families can come and experience “farm life.” We are building up a lifestyle that we love, and we want to share it with other people who find it interesting. Here are some of our main strategies for integrating an interactive and educational atmosphere into our farm life:
1) Constantly brainstorming how to make our farm more interactive and educational. Some things will work great and others won’t, but we will keep trying and cranking out new ideas!
2) Inviting guests to come past the farm stand. We want to encourage people to walk around with us and ask questions. If people are interested, we would love to show them what we are doing and talk about it. If a customer would like, we will take them back to the garden and harvest the product right in front of their eyes.
3) Incorporating things and activities on the farm that are in themselves educational and interactive. We want to let kids get eggs out of the chicken nests and pet the goats. We want to put informational sheets at our farm stand, and we are considering putting some type of signs up next to some of the animals explaining a few basic things. Another idea we have had is to build an observation beehive.
4) Putting on events. This might take a year or two to happen, but once we move down and get things going, we would love to come up with fun events on the farm for people from the community to enjoy.
5) Hosting group field trips. This might also take a couple of years, but we would be happy to have a boy scout troop, or a science club, or church group, or anybody schedule a tour where we can show them around our farm, teach them some things they may have not known before, and answer all types of questions.
6) Speaking and Teaching. As we get more experienced and feel that we actually have enough knowledge to be able to give an enjoyable and informative presentation, we would definitely consider speaking at groups, clubs, or schools and hosting some classes (such as a beekeeping class or soapmaking class).
We have a long way to go before we reach anything like the mental picture of our future farm, and we look forward to slowly progressing towards it. We absolutely want friends, family, and anybody interested to stop by and check things out. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if a good number of people who stop by tell us something new or a way to improve what we are doing, and I look forward to learning from our guests just as much as I look forward to telling them new information!