Salatin's Polyface Farm, Oct. 20

POLYFACE FARM TOUR

Swoope, Virginia,  Wednesday, October 20, 2010, 1-3 PM

Here’s an opportunity to visit and tour Polyface Farm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. Polyface Farm is the home of Joel Salatin, the inspirational grass farmer featured in the movie FRESH. This planned visit has grown out of a sustainable agriculture discussion group held for the last four weeks at United Church of Chapel Hill. The participants in our discussion group are interested in local food production and agricultural sustainability issues. Therefore, we have scheduled a tour of Polyface Farm which is open to anyone and we invite you to join us. Here are the details:

1. This trip is open to anyone. Please share this information with anyone you wish.

2. Salatins can easily receive groups of any size. There is no limit to the number of people we can take.

3. We will be given a formal two-hour tour of the most interesting features of the farm: grass-fed beef, laying hens following the cattle, pastured poultry (meat chickens and turkeys), pastured pigs, and more. The tour will be led by Matt Rales, their official farm tour guide: 1 PM to 3 PM, Wednesday, October 20. I suggest we try to get there at least an hour early (two hours would be better) so we can look around a bit before the tour. They have an open-farm policy and I can show you quite a bit of the place myself.

4. It's approximately a five-hour drive one-way from Chapel Hill. We plan to carpool.

Fees:
a. Tour fee – We will divide the flat-rate $250 tour fee among everyone who attends. The more people who go, the lower the cost per person will be. We’d love to have 25 people (or more) and get the cost down to $10 per person (or less).
b. Shared carpool expenses.
c. Lodging for any nights you choose to spend on this trip. Some people plan to drive up the day before and spend the night of October 19th. There are several moderately-priced motels ($50 to $80 per room per night) in the Staunton, VA, area near the intersection of I-81 and I-64. Share a room or not; that would be up to you. Polyface Farm is about 15 miles south of Staunton. Other folks plan to drive up and back all in the same day; they would not have any lodging costs.
d. Meals are on your own.
e. The cost of any other attraction you might visit along the way.

To sign up for the tour or to get more information please contact:  Skip Polson
Email: skippolson@nc.rr.com    Phone: 919-889-4404