Redland Rambles

Hanging out at Farm Day 2008. (Grant Livingston was the musician last year.)

Farm Day

Come to the country!
Fun for the whole family!

Sunday, December 20
11:30 am – 3:30 pm

* Food * Activities * Hay Rides *
* Farm Market *
Locally-grown seasonal organic produce, dried fruit, heirloom tomato plants for sale.
* Live Music *
With Jennings & Keller: Fusion Folk Americana

Your optional $10 donation helps support our internship and student artist programs
and includes a chance to win a Smith & Hawken BioStack Composter ($129 value).

Directions:
From southbound US1, turn right (west) onto Bauer Drive (SW 264 St.) and go approx. 5 miles. The farm is about 1/3 mile past Redland Road (SW 187 Ave.) Look for the farm sign and flags.

This is Bee Heaven Farm’s annual open house. Every year more and more people show up. Last year over 200 folks participated in the event. Here’s some tips so you can have more fun: Get there early! Bring your kids, but leave the dogs at home. Bring a covered dish to share in the potluck. Bring money to buy veggies, honey, fresh herbs and flowers, and other farm goodies. Bring old clothes to make scarecrows.

Most of the local farmers who have been growing food for the CSA will be at the party. Confirmed rsvp’s: Robert Barnum of Possum Trot Nursery who will cook local foods and roast corn. Hani Khouri of Redland Mediterranean Organics will have goat milk ice cream, goat cheese and authentic Lebanese dishes, and will bring his fryer to make falafel. Still waiting on rsvp’s: Cliff Middleton and the other Clifton of Three Sisters Farm (callaloo and yuca); Gabriele Marewski of Paradise Farms (oyster mushrooms), Dan Howard of Homestead Organics (green beans, yellow squash, zucchini) and Murray Bass of Wyndham Organics (avocados).

The donations collected will go toward two very worthy causes. Farm Day overlaps during Art Loves Farms, an art students residency at Bee Heaven. Eight students from DASH will be living on the farm for four days making art, which will be exhibited at a later date. The donations will be split between an honorarium for a guest artist who will give a workshop with the students, and farm internship expenses. Almost all the farm workers are interns or volunteers who have come from all over the United States, sharpening their farming skills learning how to grow new crops. Some of the volunteers/interns have gone on to run farms of their own. (Oh, and if you see a videographer roaming around, that would be me documenting both events.)

Here are some pictures from last year’s Farm Day.

Sylvia, CSA member and site host, shopping at the mini market.

Kids of all ages get up close with a real tractor.

All aboard for a hayride.

When was the last time you made a scarecrow?