Farm Tours Season Begins – by Robert Casserly, Executive Director

Sanctuary One at Double Oak Farm

Lisa the pig enjoys a back scratch from a visitor

Now that spring has sprung, the Sanctuary has resumed offering fun and educational farm tours. If you’ve never visited our care farm before, or if it has been awhile since your last visit, I cordially invite you to make an appointment to come see for yourself what care farming is all about and how much we’ve grown over the last couple of years.

Approximately 2,000 people visited the Sanctuary last year. This year we expect even more visitors. The list of reasons people visit our care farm includes therapeutic outings for military veterans and youth groups, educational field trips, hands-on volunteer opportunities, adopting a house pet or farm animal, and our farm tours.

To try and meet the growing demand, this year we will conduct farm tours for families, couples, and individuals every Wednesdays and Saturdays from early April to early November. The tours start at 10:30 a.m. and typically take about 90 minutes. During the tour, a staff member or volunteer will guide you around the farm, show you how a care farm works, and answer your questions.

The tour also includes a chance to meet the Sanctuary’s herd of rescued and rehabilitated farm animals and house pets. Our current roster includes an assortment of cows, horses, llamas, sheep, goats, pigs, geese, ducks, chickens, dogs, and cats. We never coerce any animal to be handled or photographed if they don’t want to be, but most of the animals enjoy meeting new people-friends, so chances are you’ll be able to pet lots of friendly animals and to take pictures of them.

One of our new initiatives this year is to design and construct a habitat for rabbits. We would love to be able to add rabbits to the list of animal species we can take in from animal shelters, humane societies, rescue groups, law-enforcement agencies, and veterinarians who call on us for help to save an animal’s life. (As a general rule we do not take in animals directly from private homes.) So depending on when you visit, you may also have a chance to meet some rescued bunnies, too.

There is a recommended donation for a farm tour is $10 per person. Checks and cash are the preferred method of donating. Credit card donations for farm tours may be made via our website, www.SanctuaryOne.org.

After the tour, we invite guests to take a look around our farm stand for the chance to purchase a variety of seasonal farm goods such as homemade dog cookies; vegetables, herbs, and flowers from our organic garden; handcrafted birdhouses; “llama bean” natural fertilizer; fresh eggs laid by happy chickens; and more.

Group tours and service-learning field trips for schools, businesses, churches, retirement homes, community-service clubs, and the like are welcome. Bus and handicapped parking is available. These tours and field trips may be scheduled for any day of the week and may last from an hour to several hours, depending on the group’s interests. Please contact us if you are interested in scheduling a group tour.

For more information, please visit the Sanctuary on the Web at www.SanctuaryOne.org.

Appointments are required for a farm tour. Call 541.899.8627 or email info@SanctuaryOne.org to make a reservation.