| Farm tour in Ohio attracts visitors from around world |
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| By JANE HOUIN
Ohio Correspondent
MILLERSBURG, Ohio — It may be a community of small towns, but the Holmes County farm tour was enjoyed by visitors from as far away as Somalia and the Netherlands, in addition to people from across the United States.
Participants in the tour listed hometowns of Oklahoma City, Dayton and Cincinnati, as well as several foreign countries during their stops along the back roads of rural western Holmes County.
Heavy rains the preceding week led to flooding of the Holmes County Fairgrounds in Millersburg, resulting in last-minute plan changes to the start of the tour, but hosts and volunteers remained flexible as they directed visitors along a slightly altered route. Participants were able to visit two dairies, an Amish-crafted furniture shop, an alpaca farm, a small diversified family farm, a large-scale grain and cattle farm and a local potter.
Hyland Acre Jerseys, owned by Ron Kandel, Larry Alexander, Dave Halloran and Jerry Shonauer, is home to 850 registered Jersey milk cows. With a milking herd of 480, they also operate approximately 800 acres of cropland used primarily for supplying feed to the dairy herd.
Amish-crafted hardwood furniture is the bread-and-butter at Prairie Lane Furniture, just outside Nashville in western Holmes County. But visitors to this stop could also learn about and see breeding stock Lowline Angus cows, a miniature breed relatively new to the United States, the first imports arriving in the 1990s.
From there, visitors were directed to Spring Walk Farm north of Nashville, a fourth-generation farm with approximately 750 acres of farmland, that milks 150 head of registered Holstein and Guernsey cows.
In addition to the dairy, it grows corn, alfalfa, soybeans and wheat and is well-known for its elaborate Christmas light display. The farm is now operated by Bill and Kurt Wachtel, though it was Bill’s late father, Floyd, who started the Christmas tradition.
Alpacas are the main attraction at Spring Ridge Alpacas, owned by Denny and Connie Snell of Lakeville. Their small farm specializes in raising alpacas, and other alpaca breeders also had animals on-hand to showcase, as well. Relocated from the flooded fairgrounds, Royal Livestock had its registered Boer goats and crossbred sheep here to share.
Showcasing another side of agriculture in Holmes County was The Shepherd’s Fold, a small diversified farm that is home to breeding stock Nubian goats used to provide milk for the family, as well as pasture-raised lamb, beef and chickens.
Owned by Joseph and Marion Yoder, it also boasts a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) garden – where community members purchase shares of produce from and pick up their food weekly – and beehives used in making home-raised honey.
Holmes County Pottery, owned by Cary Hulin, specializes in handmade, wood-fired stoneware pottery for the home and garden. All of its pottery is handmade, from the mixing of clay and glazes to the firing of the finished product.
The Hulins have constructed their own enormous kiln based on a century-old Asian design, that they fire only three to four times each year; it takes the remainder of the year to throw enough pottery to fill the kiln for the firing process. It takes a minimum of two to three days for their large kiln to preheat for the firing.
The final stop on the tour was Tate Farms, a large-scale family farm near Shreve that specializes in crop and custom farming and is home to 140 head of Shorthorn cattle.
While in scenic Holmes County, visitors had opportunity to stop at several small businesses along the farm route as well, including Keim Vintage Watches, which specializes in sales and service of new and used mantle and wall clocks as well as vintage pocket and wristwatches; County Hills Bulk Foods, a small Amish store nestled in the quiet hills of western Holmes County that sells bulk foods to the community; Hillside Rocker Shop, which specializes in Amish-made bent hickory rustic furniture; Woodland Harness Shop, which manufactures a variety of leather products including harnesses, motorcycle bags, saddlebags, holsters and more; and Weaver Produce, a 25-acre spread of farm-fresh, home-grown produce that is for sale to the general public.
This farm news was published in the Sept. 5, 2007 issue of Farm World, serving Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee. |
| 9/5/2007 |
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