Last week, the mornings at the Farm were much cooler. These are the days were coffee tastes better, sweatshirts and jeans feel more natural, and soups on the stove once again smell like heaven after a relatively soupless four months. The birds huddle closely to each other on the corral fences and the bees stay in their hives, warming themselves and their queen with their wings. Another season is winding down, and we are here to witness its slow departure as we enter into fall. For me, there is no better time to be here on the Farm.
The inevitability of autumn also means that the annual Harvest Farm Fall Festival starts October 3rd. During this time, we will be getting the farm ready to welcome thousands of visitors, some of whom didn’t even know Harvest Farm existed until they came to the festival.
Every weekend in October, we’ll be changing our normal routines and playing host to families who come from all corners to join us and share in what we do. Instead of our typical days working and tending to the farm and its needs, we’ll be helping kids and their parents through the corn maze, guiding them on tours of the Farm, feeding the animals in the petting zoo and cheering on pigs in the pig race. An odd assortment of activities, especially for a place that houses recovering addicts. But we’re used to it by now, believe me—we wouldn’t know what do if everything became normal around here.
We get the privilege of showing these thousands of people that the men who live here at the Farm, men from all walks of life who are trying to change and heal their lives, are not only “regular people” like you and me but excellent people.
The festival allows us to dispel the myths and stigmas that addicts are some lower form of life, that they are all uneducated, manipulative, unkempt bums who are nothing more than a drain on resources. In other words, we get to show off. Folks who visit us can see firsthand that recovering addicts are not monsters or bogey-men; on the contrary. Our guests are instead met with welcoming smiles, with hopeful and inspiring stories, and an experience that will linger long after the kettle corn induced stomach ache has worn off. They get to interact with underdogs who now have a chance, some of whom are fathers, husbands, and homeowners, brilliant and hilarious men who unfortunately also had debilitating addictions that pushed them off track and steered them to Harvest Farm.
The changing season is a new transition, and we’re up here in the sticks splashing around in the mud taking it all in, preparing for our guests in less than a month. We’ll be ready to welcome you!
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Buy your tickets online here.
