It’s been a long time in the making and we are excited to share our farm life with you!

Whether you want to be a farmer for the weekend or a quiet home base for a getaway, our cabin is just what you need.

Just 1.5 hours from downtown St. Louis, getting away from it all has never been easier.

Explore the area:

• 15 minutes from Gerald for dining
• 25 minutes from Rosebud for Antiquing and dining
• 30 minutes from Owensville Antiquing, Winter Water Park, dining
• 30-45 minutes from White Mule Winery, Wenwood Farm Winery, and Pickney Bend Distillery
• 30 minutes from Meramec Caverns & Zipline.

Or stay on-farm to relax watching the animals, take a nap in the hammock under the hickory tree, or help with farm chores.

One mile down our road is the Mill Rock access to the Bourbouse River. Walk or drive to the river and enjoy a cool dip, bring your kayak for a leisurely paddle, or your fishing equipment and catch your dinner.

Our farm store is stocked with meat and eggs from the farm. Be sure to bring a cooler to take some goodies home.

Each visit includes a farm tour to familiarize you with our property and animals. We’re a working farm, so your and our animals’ safety is essential.

Cabin Accommodations

• 1 Full-size bed + 1 Full-size futon (tent space also available)
• Dining nook, seats 5
• Coffee maker, 3-gallon water dispenser, compact fridge, a/c, heater
• Bathroom and Shower in the main house
• Bed Linens and Towels provided
• Games, books, puzzles
• Picnic Table
• Firepit w/ 1 stack of wood
• Charcoal Grill
• Wi-Fi

Add-Ons at an additional cost:

• Guided Nature Hike
• Farm Chores Experience
• Learn to Make Yarn with a Drop Spindle
• Learn to Crochet a Button Bracelet or Washcloth
• Sausage Making (coming soon)
• Gardening Basics (coming soon)
• Breakfast on the Farm

Friday-Sunday stays $125/night; 2 night minimum

Check-in Friday after 3pm

Check-out Sunday before 11am

Ready to reserve your farm stay?

Click here for our Airbnb listing!

What our guests say:

Thanks for such a lovely weekend at your farm! We really enjoyed getting to know you and your animals, and learning where our food comes from. We had a great time helping with chores and loved getting the chance to feed the animals. We had a comfortable stay in the cabin and had everything that we needed for a nice stay. It was relaxing to sit by the fire at night and look up at the stars. Rhia had a great time making friends with Alma the cat! Thanks so much for the yummy breakfast each morning and for taking the time to show us around the farm! It was a wonderful experience and we look forward to staying with you again in the future ! The Williams Family

A month ago at pick-up, I had a chance to chat with a regular customer about her health. After a BIG health scare, her doctor had her on a diet that didn’t feel right to her–physically and common sense-wise.

No eggs.

No meat.

No olive oil.

She was told no eggs because of the cholesterol. UGH! My biggest pet peeve is the idea that eating cholesterol is clogging your arteries. But, she could eat the egg whites in a carton. YUCK! Egg whites in a carton are pasteurized and can have gums added to help with consistency.  And you are missing out on valuable vitamins and minerals by skipping the yolk.

She told me, “I’m standing in the store looking at this carton of eggs thinking ‘What am I doing, this can’t be good'”. And she’s right.

Another restriction was no meat. She was trying to make up for this with beans and protein powders. But again, it wasn’t feeling right to her.

And she was told no olive oil–use canola oil instead. UGH! Of all the oils, that would be my biggest NO!

But eggs, meat, and fat are not the problem. It’s all the other junk we eat with it!

It’s not the hamburger, it’s the highly processed and sugar-laden bun and condiments. Will one burger kill you? Absolutely not. It’s the accumulation of highly processed foods, sugars, and flour that causes inflammation and long-term health problems.

Don’t get me started on the whole low-fat nonsense. You need fat to synthesize and utilize fat-soluble vitamins.  And our brains need Omega 3 fatty acids for optimal functioning. You can get some of those O3FA from pasture-raised meats. NOT feedlot commercial meat. There have been depression studies where those on low-fat diets were more likely to be depressed.

Fat does not cause high cholesterol, inflammation does.  My post on lard gives you all the details.

As I was explaining this to her, another customer joined the conversation. He had Parkinson’s and completely revamped his diet with whole foods, meat, good fats, and no sugar or processed food.  Now he’s back at work symptom-free.

Looking at this woman and seeing her struggle and just not look like her usual bubbly self was so hard. What she was eating wasn’t giving her the energy she needed or satisfying her hunger. And her pain was not going away.  I recommended cutting out sugar and bread. If she had to eat bread, buy one made with sprouted grains.

Two weeks later she came to pick up eggs. She was her old self! It took so much for me to not burst into tears of happiness. She was completely transformed. She was bubbly, had a skip in her step, her face had color, and her voice was uplifted.

She cut out bread and added eggs and meat back into her diet. She was listening to what HER body told her it needed and she was now pain-free.

Now, I am not a doctor and I am NOT telling you to go against your doctor’s advice*.

What I am saying is YOU know YOUR body.

If what you’re eating is making you feel worse–no matter how “healthy” it is–don’t eat it. I had a friend who went gluten-free because she thought it was healthier. She was miserable for a month until she stopped the gluten-free stuff.  Her body is fine with carbs, but yours may not be. There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to what you eat and your health.

Our bodies are ever-changing. That means it’s up to us to notice when what we eat just isn’t benefitting us any longer.  I wrote about my sugar-free journey and how I finally had to accept I couldn’t eat sugar if I wanted to maintain good mental health. It’s hard and I do miss sooo many things, but it’s easier than feeling physically and mentally unwell.

If you are struggling with health issues, I can tell you this: if you cut out processed foods, you will see and feel a difference.

This will eliminate most sugars, flours, and additives from your diet. These are what cause and feed physical and mental health issues, not meat, eggs, or fats.

And it doesn’t have to be cutting out everything all at once.  Start small and work your way up.

If you want to take charge of your health, listen to your body.

 

Want help changing how you eat? Please send me an email at [email protected].

Ready to purchase some amazing pasture-raised meat and eggs? Click here to shop!

 

* if your doctor will not discuss dietary effects on your health, you may want to find a new doctor.

With the heat waves we’ve had recently, I’ve had a lot of people at the market ask how we’re holding up and then always ask about the animals. The concern for us makes me feel so loved and appreciated, but the concern for the animals really touches my heart.

I love that so many of our customers follow us on social media to see firsthand what we and the animals are doing. And of course, I LOVE talking about our animals and helping people understand what it means to raise animals the way we do.

It reminds me of a conversation I had with a customer about our sows farrowing. I told her how I was worried about our first-time momma, Honey, because she wasn’t quite as friendly as our others.  I explained we bought her very young, but she had never come around to affection like Baboo, the boar we bought at the same time.

She asked, “So pigs aren’t naturally friendly like yours?”

Quiet the opposite.  They have a reputation for being aggressive and you don’t want to fall into a pigpen–all they will find are your teeth. Our old-timer tells people about how we have the friendliest pigs and has brought people over to witness how they drop for belly rubs.

So why is this post titled “Love is…”?

I was listening to the book “People Can’t Drive Your Crazy if you Don’t Give Them the Keys” and the author was talking about Love as an action, not a feeling. Take, for example, wedding vows. You don’t say you’re going to feel love for the other person. You say what actions you will take to show your love.

Love is what we do.

That’s why grief is so painful. For a time, our love actions have nowhere to go. Eventually, we find ways to release our love back into the world, still with the hurt and longing of grief, but no longer as sharp and debilitating.

For me, love is the way we care for our animals. What we do to make sure they are happy and having a good life. Every lost piglet or chick breaks my heart. Every close call with difficult calving puts me on high alert for days.

Love is knowing how we farm helps the soil stay healthy, so the animals stay healthy, and everyone who eats what we produce can stay healthy.

Love is staying up for hours with that not-so-friendly sow to make sure the birth goes well.

Love is Fred doing all the chores because if I don’t pack all the eggs right now, my head may explode.

Love is taking a break when you need the rest (Fred and I have both become a bit better about this).

Love is the simple act of asking “how are you doing?”

So to everyone who asks how we are doing and/or how the animals are doing, thank you for showing us your love. We receive it, hold on to it, appreciate it, and send our love right back to you.

Or maybe I should say my listening list.

We’re in full swing production mode and as much as I’d love to make time to sit back with a book in hand, it just isn’t happening.  But listening to a book? That I can do!

If you saw my 3 favorite books post, you already know most books I recommend are farm-related.  These new books are more food-related and cover everything from eating for your health to learning why you’re hungry after eating a whole bag of chips.

Farmacology; Total Health From the Ground Up by Daphne Miller, M.D.

If you view your food as medicine or wonder if it really can be, this book takes a deep dive into how we really are what we eat.  How the food we eat is grown and produced can help us maintain our health or put us on the road to disease. Spoiler–it all starts with your farmer!!

 

Bread, Wine, Chocolate; The Slow Loss of Food We Love by Simran Sethi

There’s a slow and steady loss of diversity in the foods we grow and eat. With 95% of the world’s calories coming from only thirty species, what happens when one becomes extinct. A world without wheat? Coffee? Beer? Chocolate? Is this possible or probable?  When the end goal is production, not preservation, we risk losing not only foods we love but foods that are a part of our traditions and cultures.

Find out how your chocolate and coffee are produced and what it takes to preserve yeast to make a particular beer. You’ll look at your food in a whole new light.

 

Pig Tales by Barry Estabrook

In three parts, this book covers the history, intelligence, and lifestyle of pigs, the commercial side of raising pigs, and the pastured model of raising pigs for pork. Learn how and why pigs were first kept, why pigs are smarter than dogs (and maybe your toddler), and how humanely raising pigs on pasture on a large scale is possible.

 

The Dorito Effect; The Surprising New Truth About Food and Flavor by Mark Schatzker

“In nature,” Schatzker writes, “flavor never appears without nutrition”. There’s a connection between flavor, what our body intuitively knows it needs, and satiety.”  If you’ve ever wondered why after eating a bag of chips or cookies you don’t feel full or why peppermint tea has flavor added, this book answers those questions and more. The flavors we taste and smell impact our eating habits and food producers use this to sell cheap nutritionally deficient foodstuff.

The story of how Doritos came into being is the groundwork for every oddball food combination you can think of and how it revolutionized the food we eat. If you want a peek into why you eat what you do, this book is an eye-opener.

 

The Meat Racket by Christopher Leonard

This book hits the nail on the head as to what is wrong with meat production.  The author outlines how the Tyson family changed the way meat is produced around the world and what that means to farmers and consumers alike. The tales of contract farmers being bullied, cheated, and driven to bankruptcy by huge meat companies and the treatment of workers at the processing plants give a glimpse into what’s really behind cheap meat.

Happy Reading!

Have a book you think I’ll like? Let me know in the comments!