6th/7th Annual Open Barn event recap
INCREDIBLE!
I keep thinking of how to start this recap and that’s the word that keeps bubbling to the surface!
It really was incredible.
Not only did we have perfect weather, we had so much awesome support from family & friends!
My Dad, Tom, flew in from St. Louis. Mike’s mom, Nancy, came from Salt Lake City. And my Aunt Kathy & Uncle Mark traveled all the way from Orlando!
And then two of my best girl friends, Alex & Laura, took time off their own jobs and families to come help!
Not a season goes by where we don’t rely on our circle to make this farm happen. And not a moment of that do I ever forget how fortunate we are to have such genuinely supportive people in our life.
Farming takes every ounce we have…and then some. We simply cannot put on an event like this without each and every one of them!
So here’s a little recap of the event!
Gates opened at 10am and —I’m not joking— we had a stream of cars instantly! Including a bus load from the nearby retirement home.
Dad & Uncle Mark were our Parking Engineers, which might sound tongue-in-cheek but with a single lane driveway off a very busy road - It.is.a.thing. A necessary thing, at that!
We strive to be good neighbors so keeping traffic flowing is top of our list. And I have to say, they did a really great job. I’d give these two Purdue grads a solid A!
Guests were greeted by Nancy - who looked absolutely adorable in the flower cart!
Thanks to her, we got everyone signed in. We recorded a total of 276 guests over the course of the 6-hour event! The guestbook showed many locals plus folks from Hermiston, La Grande, Seattle and Colorado Springs!
The first stop for guests was in the pasture with me and the alpacas. Oh and every paca was on their best behavior, too! Not one person got spit on!
The herd was happy to be hand fed from so many new friends.
Our four new cria (babies) were a big hit, especially Hammie.
I spotted him taking treats from several lucky kiddos.
The barn was bubbling with excitement, too, as folks took in a bit of a history lesson from Aunt Kathy. She is a retired elementary school teacher and she did the farm proud, sharing about the homestead process as well as the Native heritage.
The dye house was open, where Alex was busy brewing up a fresh batch of our botanical dyes.
Not only is she the best kind of friend a girl could ever ask for, she’s also a Jill of All Trades — stepping in to watch the farm when we’re gone, being the Knitwear Collection model, and she’s an artist and weaver in her own right! The hand woven baskets holding the dryer balls and yarn in the farm store were made by Alex!
And despite being October, we hadn’t had a frost so the dye garden was still looking lush with indigo leaves, amaranth and madder. Guests were able to meander the garden alongside the boy herd.
The last stop in this year’s self-paced, semi-guided event was in the farm store where so many folks were able to purchase a piece of the alpacas they just fed!
So many pieces of our 2021 Harvest Knitwear Collection flew off the shelves. Biggest of thanks to Laura, a local winemaker & greyhound mama who managed to take a day off during harvest & crush to come work for us.
It was really the most perfect way to reboot our annual event! We hope you’ll join us for our 8th Annual Open Barn in 2022!
