Old McDonald had a Farm

Sunscreen-Check
Water-Check
Cooler with ice-Check
More water-Check
Snacks for the kids-Check
Camera-Check

And off we go! Saturday we went on the Upstate Farm Tour with some of our friends. It's purpose was raising awareness of LOCAL farmers and their products. Getting the word out about eating local, buying local, and highlighting those area growers that use organic or environmentally responsible growing practices. Basically a way to discover sources for fresh, healthy food in our Upstate community. I was so looking forward to this!



You purchased a "button" ($30.00) for your car load and basically mapped out which farms you would visit. There were 20 to choose from covering many many miles across the Upstate. Ideally it would have been awesome to car pool with our friends, but with 3 car seats, 7 people total, 2 coolers, and a partridge in a pear tree...that wasn't happening. Although, it may have worked if one of us drove a minivan-but we don't so we had to buy 2 buttons and caravanned along!



About 30 minutes outside of town was our first stop-Sharon Rose Farm. It was beautiful. It was steamy hot, but it was beautiful! There was a big ole pretty farm house sitting on the property-all of the farms were family-run so it was their residence Along with a pretty big horse stable that was not used for horses, but rather, events. They had it catered so we started with lunch. It was kinda weird to think, but the catering restaurant used pork and chicken right from that farm. It was delicious-as long as I didn't look at the chickens or pigs while I was eating. Along with the pork and smoked chicken wings we also had sweet tea, collard greens, cole slaw, and potato salad. Now if that menu doesn't say "south," I don't know what does. OOOOO and strawberry shortcake for dessert, but I think the kids and I were the only ones that got dessert ;-)



Lane was itching to run around the farm and see all the animals. He talked about the farm all morning.



After lunch we did a little walking tour led by the farmer himself.




(Did I mention it was HOT) We learned very interesting things that I never ever knew about farming. And of course, the focus was on natural and organically raising their animals. It was great!







The kids were loving this dog-he was a mangy old farm dog, but super sweet.








After the short tour, we were onto our next farm-Live Oaks. We had about a 30 minute drive in between where Lane took a Cheerio and water break.



The A/C of the car felt so good. That was a perfect break to gear us up for the next stop.







At Live Oaks, we shopped in their store where they sold their own cheese, pork, beef, milk, etc that you could purchase right there. It was awesome and I only wish I could shop there every week for my groceries. Then we took a trolley tour of the farm where we learned about what animals they raised, how they raised them. etc.


We had 2 other stops planned, but by the time we were done with the 2nd farm, it was already 5 o'clock so we decided to head home. Lane looked like this:

30 seconds into our drive back to Greenville.