Open Farm Day 2012

We had so much fun at last year's Open Farm Day in Madison County that we made plans to attend again this year, which was held on Saturday. I added the event to my calendar probably six months ago and last weekend, I printed the list of participating farms. We narrowed down the list of 43 to eight and got out the map of Madison County to plan our route. We learned a few lessons from last year: take a cooler, take plenty of cash, and take a lunch in case there are no places to eat when hunger pangs strike.

The day started off with a lot of rain, but that did not deter us. Our first stop was Grunen Aue Farm, an Amish farm in Canastota. Grunen Aue is a certified organic grass based dairy and we purchased some delicious fresh butter there; Aidan enjoyed playing with their kittens. Our next stop, G&M Farms in Morrisville, turned out to be more of a farmstand amidst a large vegetable garden. Their specialty is hot peppers and they produce a line of salsas and pepper jams/jellies, which James braved the heavy rain to sample. We left with a jar of hot pepper jelly.

Next stop was Foothill Hops Farm in Munnsville, where they grow hops for local breweries. We saw the hops plants, learned about the harvesting and drying of hops, and visited the brew shop. James learned how to add hops to the home brewing process and bought a small amount for us to try. Foothill Hops Farm also inexplicably has reindeer and we learned that reindeer grow and shed their antlers each year. Here is the female reindeer:

What a fine rack!

Aidan and I were especially interested in our fourth stop, Johnston's Honeybee Farm in Eaton. We peered at bees in a glass sided hive, saw honey being extracted and asked a lot of questions about bees and bee keeping. We were given a small sample jar of honey but we also bought a larger amount of honey and some beeswax candles.

We stopped in Hamilton to eat our sandwiches. Hamilton is home to Colgate University and is a rather nice village with many places to eat. Note for next year: plan lunch stop for Hamilton. We found a covered place to eat in one of the village squares but the rain came to a stop as we ate.

From Hamilton, we drove further south to Shale Springs Stock Farm, where beef cattle, hogs and sheep are raised, primarily for other livestock farms. We were given a tour of the barn where we saw hogs - big hogs and little piglets. Their farm also has a guard llama to watch over the other livestock, but the llama did not cooperate with my photo session. Aidan was very interested in the almost wild farm cats and did not succeed in getting one to come close to him. The couple who runs the farm were very nice, answered our many questions and seemed surprised that we would drive "all the way from Syracuse".

Our next stop was one of their customers, Drover Hill Farm in Earlville. We did not get to see much there because they limited foot traffic to the front porch of their bed and breakfast. We did get to sample meats and strawberry-rhubarb jam - delicious - and purchased bacon, beef and jam. Aidan tried out the tire swing:

The swing was too close to the tree to swing much.

We drove north then west to Cazenovia, where we stopped at Amore Mini Donkeys. Donkeys! Little bitty donkeys! There were numerous mother/baby duos available to pet:

Both Aidan and I were quite taken with the donkeys. I am surprised that we didn't hear "can I keep one?" from Aidan:

One little guy had a serious case of the yayas and was running around the pen, kicking up his heels:

The farm also had a mini horse, who was clearly bored by the activity going on around him:

Our last scheduled stop was Empire Buffalo in Fenner, but we did not stay long. They did not have any buffalo close up for viewing and seemed to be only interested in soliciting tips for the musicians that were playing and in selling buffalo meat, although there weren't any samples.

There was still time left in the open farm hours, so we drove back into Cazenovia to visit Meadows Farm, which we visited last year. They raise Wagyu cattle, the source of delicious Kobe beef. We ate Kobe beef sliders - yum - and purchased several pounds of the beef to bring home. Meadows also had some piglets, which were adorable:

Another fun day at the farms!