For the past 5 years on the first Sunday in October, hundreds of Iowans cruised the gravel roads of Lucas and Marion counties to visit eight small family farms. The masterminds behind the Farm Crawl are Jill Beebout & Sean Skeehan of Blue Gate Farm. When the couple lived in Houston, they attended “art crawls” where they wandered from studio to studio. “When we first moved to the farm we didn’t know many people in the community,” Beebout said, “We thought it would be neat to do something like that on an agricultural basis.” They met their neighbors who had interesting small farming operations and thought, “We could be a destination spot.” The Farm Crawl was born.
The idea is for participating farms to hold an open house on the same day and visitors crawl (or drive) from farm to farm. Guests have the opportunity to tour the farms, visit the animals, and buy locally grown products.
Reichert's Dairy Air
Matt Russell, from Coyote Run Farm, said they didn’t know what to expect the first year. “We didn’t know if we would have 50 or 100 people and we ended up with 500 to 600 the first year,” he recalled. Now in its 5th year, the event has surged in popularity. The 2011 event had record breaking attendance with over 1,350 visitors.
The eight participating farms for the 2011 Farm Crawl were Blue Gate Farm, Coyote Run Farm, Dan-D Farms, Pierce’s Pumpkin Patch, Reichert’s Dairy Air, Schneider Orchards, White Breast Pottery and Weaving, and Crooked Gap Farm.
Russell said one of the best things for him was to see how much fun the visitors were having. He said, “These people are having a fabulous time! I mean they are having crazy fun... on our farm!”
Join the fun the first Sunday in October every year. Visit the Farm Crawl website for more details.
Coyote Run Farm
