MEET OUR MASCOTS & RESCUES
Over the years, we have acquired several animals…some were rescued and others were acquired because they needed a forever place to land. We currently have 10 horses (one belongs to a dear friend that boards with us), 5 female Nigerian pygmy goats, 2 potbelly pigs (see the blog section for their story), 2 white geese that we deservingly refer to as the A-holes, 5 cats and 3 dogs.
It is a full time job to care for so many animals but we love them all. We also enjoy our wildlife here at the farm which includes several deer that we feed, 2 Sandhill cranes that show up every morning and spend each day in one of the horse pastures, a flock of turkeys that come to visit the animals regularly and on occasion we will see red fox. If you come to shop our market, you will see some of the animals grazing the pastures. You are welcome to take photos of them, we just ask that you do not feed or pet them. In 2022, we started Elsa's Acres, a 501c3 non-profit named after our dear dog Elsa! Find our more or donate here: www.elsasacres.com
The creative talent behind the scenes that is a master of all trades is Rog. Some of our customers know him for the propane tank jack-o-lanterns he makes every fall while others may know him for creating the interesting lighting in the market made from Chinese water buckets.
He is also the reason we were able to move our market from Michigan to our property. Rog was an Ironworker in Northwest Indiana for almost 45 years, owning his own business for almost 30 years, before he retired just a few years ago. When we were trying to find a new location for our market, we looked everywhere from Southwest Michigan to Westville, IN. We were struggling to find something that would work and one day we mentioned putting up a building on our 80 acre farm and he said “I can do that”. So…Rog designed and built our new location. We would not be able to make our market what it is without his incredible talents, patience and support.
Shopping
AND
SHENANIGANS
We have been traveling together since 2013 looking for interesting and fun items to sell at their market. We started by going to garage sales, auctions and grabbing those items off the side of the road that you slam on the breaks to pull over and grab…who doesn’t get excited when they see this?
We would bring the items home to clean, repair, and paint them when necessary. Now we go to different states and locations to search for items that we get excited about.