Gale Woods Farm connects people to their food source
In the steaming heat of summer, we creatures find all manner of ways to stay cool.
For the pigs at Gale Woods Farm, mud’s the thing. Because pigs don’t have sweat glands, they cool off by wallowing in mud. The mud also helps to repel insects and prevent sunburn.
Learning to feed and lead calves is part of the summer day camp experience for children at Gale Woods.
That’s just one thing a visitor might learn at the 410-acre working farm, located just west of Lake Minnetonka in the Three Rivers Park District. Gale Woods Farm is one of six “special recreation features” in the regional parks system.
“The primary goal of Gale Woods is to connect people to their food, so that people know how their food is grown, where it’s grown, and so they understand what agriculture and farming is all about,” explained Tim Reese, farm supervisor.
Just a generation or two ago, most people still had a grandparent living on a farm, Reese said. But with less than two percent of the Minnesota population on farms today, very few children have opportunities to be connected to agriculture.
Hands-on learning for children and adults
To create those opportunities, Gale Woods offers extensive programming for children that gives them hands-on experience working on the farm. During the summer, children can sign up for camps that run five consecutive days.
“They really get to know the farm and learn how to do chores,” Reese said. “At the end of the week they give their parents a farm tour and show them the animals and tell the parents all the things that they’ve learned. Some of the parents learn quite a bit on that farm tour.”
In the spring and fall, the farm hosts many school groups. In winter, the focus shifts more to adult education. A folk school based at the farm offers classes in food, farming and the arts, including felting wool, spinning wool and knitting. Seasonal cooking classes focus on topics like preserving the harvest in the fall and cooking with lamb in the spring.
Jessica Pieklo, Chanhassen, chooses produce for her weekly CSA (community-supported agriculture) share at the farm.
One of the most popular farming classes is called “Chickens in your Backyard.” Reese said that they’ve offered the class four times already this year and it has filled each time. “Many people are discovering the joys of having chickens as pets and egg-producing livestock,” he said.
Enjoying the garden harvest
In addition to raising livestock, the farm has an extensive garden that provides vegetables to 70 families who buy a share at the beginning of the season. These shareholders come to the farm once a week to select a variety of produce that is ready from the garden. Reese said the farm opens up registration for farm shares on the first Monday in March, and by 10 a.m. all 70 shares are sold.
“My son and I love it here,” said Jessica Pieklo, a shareholder from Chanhassen. “We love the community aspect of it.” In addition to picking up their garden share midweek, Pielko said they visit on Saturday to buy eggs and work in the garden. Her five-year-old son “loves to eat the vegetables from the farm.”
Volunteering creates a different kind of connection to the food and the farm, Pieklo said. “It’s a very important part of our summer.”
Shareholders “really do see it as their farm,” Reese said, “because they come here to pick up their produce, and they also come to go for a hike or go fishing in the lake.”
Recreation on the farm
Park visitors can stop by and see the livestock or bypass it and head straight for Whaletail Lake. Canoes are available for rent, and a 100-foot fishing pier gives anglers a chance to catch crappies and panfish.
Rows of giant hay bales provide a fun running and jumping course for children who visit the farm.
The farm also has three and a half miles of hiking trails. The trails are open year round. Though the trails are not groomed in winter, people do cross-country ski and snowshoe on them, Reese said. In the fall, the trails are used by the Minnesota State High School League for several cross-country running meets that bring thousands of people to the farm.
“It’s kind of a neat setting because those kids come out and they have no idea they are coming to a working farm for a cross-country race, and suddenly here they are amongst beef cattle and sheep and chickens and they’re having the rural experience,” Reese said.
Fulfilling a unique mission
“Special recreation features” are those units of the regional park system that are “distinctive developments…not commonly found in the parks, park reserves and trails” and that “require special programming or management,” according to the Metropolitan Council’s 2030 Regional Parks Policy Plan.
Gale Woods certainly fits the bill, with its working farm and emphasis on education. The land belonged to the Gale family, who established the farm in 1923 and worked it until they donated it to the park district in 2000, specifically to provide farm and nature-based outdoor learning for the public.
“We’ve been fortunate to be in the right place at the right time, because people really are realizing that…they don’t know much about where their food comes from,” Reese said, “and they want to have more understanding. For that reason I think we’re filling a pretty important role.”
Learn more about Gale Woods Farm.