The kids and I went and toured a CSA (community supported agriculture) farm yesterday.  A friend of mine has shares and set up a tour.  I didn't get any pictures.  Well, I take that back I took a couple but only a couple.  I got into checking out the piglets, the huge greenhouse and watching the kids play in the rock piles, the wood piles, the sand, with the barn cats, and climbing over downed trees.  It was so nice to see the kids get to run around free.

It made me realize how little we get outside at our rental.  It sure will be nice to get our place where the kids can run around out and about.  They love to be outside and it will be wonderful to let them go.  In looking around at the farm though it was pretty neat and gave me some ideas for our farm.  I don't think I want anything as large as they have.  In the neighborhood of 70 acres.  That seems a bit much for what Tom and I want to do.  We want to be able to have a couple of animals but neither of us really want 70 acres to patrol weeds on.

That's one problem but some of the ideas I came away with were having a coffee shop (this area sure isn't the Northwest, it has a serious lack of coffee shops), wool shop of some sort, and a bed and breakfast type place.  Something else I thought of while walking around was to follow the lead of some other successful people I've seen and appeal to women and to keep the place neat, clean, attractive, and add a bit of girly to it.  It seems that a lot of folks seem to forget the appeal of marketing.  I know farming is a lot of work and I know these particular people are re-vamping her mother's old farm.  But... if you are going to have a business, attract customers, and make it successful it seems to me that you would like to have the place nice and neat.  I know this can be a lot easier said than done.  It is that way with a house too but there are lots of people around that do it and there are many more that seem to forget sometimes taking a bit of pride in what you do makes an impression.