Solace Farm, the Tourist Destination?

 

Free Shipping over $35

As some of you know, we have a mini-horse named Fiona that we got several years ago for Liam to ride.  It turns out, after a winter of riding lessons, that Liam does not appear to be a horse person.  He has no desire to really do anything with Fiona, and she's just hanging out with goats, getting fat and lazy again.  We had a long talk about her usefulness here, and decided that, since Malachi is absolutely enthralled with her, we should keep her, and try to work her at least once a week (twice in theory!) to keep her trained until Malachi is older.  

One problem is that it's difficult to keep Fiona trained for being ridden, with no rider - other than little Malachi bouncing along, grinning.  My brainstorm this past week was to send out an open invitation through some friends for interested children to ride her.  Thursday we had 2 families - two 5-year-old girls and two 2-year-old boys - come out for an hour or so (they also spent a while climbing on the firetruck and eating watermelon!), and we had another 2 families/3 kids out on Saturday afternoon.  Even if the kids aren't familiar with riding, it's a good intro to riding for them and good practice for Fiona to have an actual body on her.  If the kids continue coming weekly, they can quickly learn to give simple commands - walk, whoa - and even progress to using reins, riding without the lead rope, etc.  We don't really want to be selling riding lessons since we don't feel we're actually qualified to be doing that, but it could end up being very similar on a basic level.  I think this will be beneficial to everyone, and having other people involved will help us actually follow through on our decision to keep Fiona trained.  

We also had company last weekend, I finally sold our first Scottish Highland tanned hide on Etsy!  The couple actually bought it a couple of weeks ago, but lived close enough to come pick it up, so they came out Saturday evening, had a farm tour and dinner, camped for the night, joined us for breakfast, and then headed back to Memphis with the hide and a couple skeins of yarn.  They were a really lovely couple - they both dealt with Liam's incessant talking and Malachi's loathing of clothes very well :)  This sale is a big deal for us, it almost doubles the profit off that cow (Mona) and is great motivation to work on the next one that's still pickling in the basement. The Highland hide was always the most viewed item - by far - on my Ety store, so I have high hopes for a second.  

A couple of weeks ago we also finished up 2 sheepskins we were tanning for my midwife, and sold those back to her.  Caleb has always had success with the sheepskins so we're happy to take those anywhere we can find them (we still don't have totally reliable results with cow and goat).  There's two sheepskins currently salted on boards in the basement, waiting for room in the pickling barrels - we got those from a local sheep farmer who lets us know when she gets them butchered, and sells us the hides at cost.  One of these last ones was absolutely filthy, the sheep got stuck in a fence in a mud puddle, and I've never seen anything this dirty.  I don't know how much work it'll take to get it clean, but I'm hoping after it's tanned and dry, it'll brush out better than when it was fresh and wet.  

Lastly, on the subject of Solace Farm tourism, about two weeks ago I got an email from a company called Hipcamp - if any of y'all have any experience with them, I'd love to hear about it.  They are a camping website, and are looking for farms to be hosts for primitive camping.  It sounds right up our alley - after this summer of vanishing interns, we had been joking that we needed to just charge for people to stay for a weekend, get a tour, and leave.  Well, this is exactly that!  We need to put in a composting toilet (something we'd already been discussing for interns), set up somewhere to park (again, useful for interns as well), and put some signs on gates to keep them closed.  The company takes care of all the publicity, website maintenance, PR etc, and even has insurance for us.  

I don't know how popular we would be, if we'd really ever get any campers, but I'm curious - if it worked well, it could be a really simple way to increase our farm's reach, both in terms of marketing our products, and just spreading awareness/education of this lifestyle.  I'd love to do what I do without having to leave the farm :)  We've been talking about the possibiities of offering workshops on things we do - tanning, soapmaking, papermaking, spinning/knitting, etc - and the thought of turning what we already do here into a profitable part of the farm is very appealing.  

Comments

tourism destination

Great news this--as for camping--you live in an area that is ripe for travel tourism, the gorgeous state parks that are just down the road from your farm. I think you might be surprised at the response you will get if you make sure people understand the availability of hiking and views! in the area.

Tennessee Tourism

I sure hope so. I agree, we've got some really beautiful trails, waterfalls, overlooks, etc. right around here. Even just the names are enticing - Stone Door, Fiery Gizzard, Savage Gulf....

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
CAPTCHA
To help us prevent spam, please prove you're human by typing the words you see here.