Summer tours of MetroParks Farms showcase farm

The Mill Creek MetroParks Farms hosted their weekly family tour event on Aug. 2.

The event runs throughout the summer and is used to showcase all the unique aspects of the farms while providing a fun event for families to attend together.

“Primarily it gives families the opportunity to bring little kids in,” said Bill Gilmour, a parks employee who ran the tour, “It’s a group bonding thing.”

The Family Tour event has been going on every summer for about a decade according to Kimberly Moff, a parks employee.

“It helps to keep people in touch with the farm,” Moff said.

She explained that a lot of people, even adults, are unaware of where the food they eat comes from.

This tour helps to showcase what the MetroParks Farms do, and how they operate to create the food we eat every day.

“We talk a lot about the farm to try to keep them in touch with the fact that their food doesn’t just come from the grocery store, there’s actually a place where it all starts,” Moff said.

To attend the event families have to preregister through the Metro Parks and 35 people are welcome to attend each week.

Gilmour said that even though the event takes place weekly in the summer, they still have a full or almost full group every Thursday.

To battle these numbers the parks also hosts a similar tour event about once a month on a Sunday from 1-4 p.m. Moff said.

During the tour guests take a tractor ride through the farms.

The tour goes to the poultry house and the barns where tour guests get to see and learn about all of the animals the farms keep.

“If we are harvesting wheat we can talk about that, if they are making hay we are talking about that,” Moff said. “Its kind of based on what we have going on at the farm at the time.”

During the tractor ride the tour guide uses props and goes over information about the farm and animals. The tour also goes through the barns where all of the new and old animals live, sometimes allowing children and their families to pet them. Recently, the farms have been showcasing the new born babies they have, including kids and calves Gilmour said.

“I always tell the kids on the tour that we have real kids.” he said.

The Family Tour Thursday event will take place through Aug. 23 at the MetroParks Farms.

To learn more or preregister for the event, you can go to www.millcreekmetroparks.org.

View the full article at vindy.com