When Albert and Augusta Peterson signed homestead papers for their farm near Cook in 1900, I’m sure they never imagined that one day it would host a successful agritourism business. Our great grandparents’ farms were set up to support a family’s food needs and to sell whatever extra they had for income. The Peterson farm had cattle (including a couple dairy cows), two work horses, and thirty-five chickens. Most farms had huge gardens that filled cellars with canned goods for the winter. What makes the history of the Peterson farm so unusual is the preservation of five hugs albums of photos and papers dating all the way back to that original homestead agreement.
This was a family who took photos of everyone all the time, including final photos in the casket when they died. This family kept boxes of documents, from graduation certificates to newspaper clippings about fender benders resulting from moonshine whiskey. Today, Lois Pajari, great-granddaughter of Albert and Augusta Peterson, lives in the original house and welcomes guests to “Cook’s Country Connection,” a “petting farm” with many very friendly animals. Each animal has a name and a personality.
Lois started planning and constructing the business in 2013 and opened in 2015 for the summer. Today, seven years later, the 119 acres of pasture and woods including a gravel pit and a Spruce bog are home to over eighty animals. Two livestock guardian dogs, a Great Pyrenees and an Anatolian Shephard/Karakachan mix keep everyone safe. Three cats round out the pets. You’ll find full size and miniature horses and donkeys, alpacas, llamas, rabbits, yaks, cows, sheep, goats, pigs and many types of chickens, ducks, and geese on this farm. Cook’s Country Connection has a partnership with the Vermilion Community College Veterinary Technology program: the farm provides hands-on experience for vet tech trainees and the program keeps all of the medical records for the animals.
I visit on a Sunday in June and folks start arriving at 10am. About fifteen staff and volunteers move about the acres, cleaning pens and feeding animals. Rotational grazing feeds many of the larger animals. Lois also buys hay and lots of feed from Homestead Mills, just down the road. Visitors, most of them with children, stop in the main building first to pay a fee, then wander at will through the acres. They can give the animals treats for a quarter at feeders along the paths between the pens and animal houses. Everything is painted in bright colors and clean as can be.
Interior of the main building at Cook’s Country Connection.
The main building is large and airy with a concrete floor and picnic tables. Folks rent it for birthday parties, graduations, and other celebrations. Lois hosts happy hours (BYOB) and live music monthly in the summer, complete with a bonfire and s’mores and food trucks. There’s no institutional kitchen here, so folks use caterers for events. A day camp for children offers a farm experience including doing the chores each morning as well as scavenger hunts, outdoor exploring, and field trips to the gravel pit and Spruce swamp. Lois wants to help kids learn where their food comes from and what a farm is like.
About forty to fifty visitors a day come here from May through October. Cook’s Country Connection also offers camping with the critters through HipCamp and is planning a glamping experience when the original granary restoration is complete. One of the biggest draws is yoga with the animals. Folks gather on Thursday evenings to stretch and bend while the animals nuzzle and cuddle them. This summer, Mixed Precipitation will perform their pickup truck opera based on The Magic Flute at the outdoor performance venue here. In the center of it all is a huge playground with all kinds of fun activities for kids. It’s full on this sunny day and I run into my neighbors who have brought their three children. They let me take photos of their one-year-old twins feeding the goats. Fun!
Agritourism is one name for this kind of business. It includes pumpkin patch/corn maze farms like Simek’s Farm in Kelsey, flower farms where you can pick your own and take photos like Owl Forest Farm in Iron, winter venues with horse-drawn sleigh rides like Mr. Ed’s Farm in Hibbing, farms that host “dinner on the farm” (Mr. Ed’s and Cook’s) farms with on-site Airbnb rentals like Early Frost Farms in Embarrass, and pizza farms---all the rage in southern Minnesota where I used to live. And coming soon to our area--John and Emily Beaton of Fairhaven farm near Duluth have organized a Kickstarter campaign to “Help us bring wood-fired pizza and craft brews to our farm in Duluth, Minnesota!” Explore Minnesota describes pizza farms like this: “The farm provides the pizza, and the diners provide everything else—plates, utensils, picnic blankets, drinks and side dishes.” Some offer entertainment, and most make the pizzas with ingredients from the farm. https://www.exploreminnesota.com/
Farming is an economic challenge and most farms on the Range are supported by at least one full-time off-farm income. In recent years, opportunities have grown for supplementing farm income. Agritourism is one of them. Another is selling online through a “food hub” which manages marketing and distribution of farm-grown meat and produce. The new Virginia Farmers Market Food Hub will offer this service to area farms and market customers beginning this summer in conjunction with the Virginia Market Square Farmers Market. More to come on that in a future column.
In the meantime, make your way to Cook’s Country Connection on Hwy 24 just north of Cook and snuggle with a yak or two. You can check upcoming events on their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/CooksCountryConnection