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Farms and vineyards entice visitors for a rural weekend
Blazing leaves, mountain vistas and crisp air make fall an ideal time to drive through the countryside. On Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 17 and 18, 32 Loudoun farms, vineyards and orchards will open their doors for the annual Loudoun Farm Color Tour.
This self-guided, family-friendly excursion features strolls through pumpkin patches and Christmas tree fields, enhanced with wine tasting, grilled lamb sausages and fresh-pressed cider. Hayrides, animal encounters, hands-on educational activities, children's crafts, shopping opportunities and practical advice from seasoned growers and landscapers round out the package of rural events.
Some of the neighbors you can meet on the tour are Gerry and Catie Dutcher and their 25 cuddly alpacas. In 2003, the year they moved to Loudoun, Catie Dutcher had a broken leg. She was being pushed in a wheelchair through the Bluemont Fair when a llama reached its head over the fence and nuzzled her.
“That’s what did it,” Gerry Dutcher said.
They considered starting a llama farm. But once Gerry Dutcher saw alpacas up close, he would never be the same.
“It was love at first sight,” Catie said, “I don’t know why. He doesn’t even like the cat.”
Alpacas – a member of the camel family -- were a practical choice for the Dutchers’ small Waterford farm. “Llamas need more pasture and produce more poop,” Catie said. Gerry saw breeding alpacas as an investment, and Catie weaves the downy fleece into needle-felt hats and knitted items that will be for sale during the tour. They’ll also bring folks into a pen with the alpacas, including the huacaya alpacas Catie calls “long-legged teddy bears,” and the new cria, or baby, who will be 6 weeks old. “These animals are very curious and that is fun for everyone,” Catie said.
Down the road apiece from Butterfly Hill is Jim and Debbie Ballentine’s 12-acre Waterford farm, new to the tour in 2009. Debbie and her daughter, Sarah, have merged their skill at teaching and their love of farming into educational field trips and camps for children in preschool through fourth grade, and classes for all ages.
“We model a hands-on teaching style called guided discovery -- engaging children in conversation as opposed to the teacher teaching and the children listening,” Debbie Ballentine said.
During the farm tour, the Ballentines will press apples for cider, and churn ice cream with children 3 and older at noon and 2 p.m., both days. Families can take a hayride, dig potatoes, and pick a pumpkin to take home.
“When people visit our farm, they learn why farming is important,” she said. “Most children have lost respect for farming because they do not understand why it is important for their lives. Here they collect eggs, learn the life cycles and care of animals and poultry, and visit our horses and cows in the barn. For most children in eastern Loudoun, this is very new.”
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