Momtalk Maryland
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🔹 A mix of local insights, business spotlights, foodie finds, and honest mom-life convos
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Momtalk Maryland
Preserving Magic: How One Family Saved the Enchanted Forest and Built a Community Hub
Step back in time with Martha Clark, the sixth-generation steward of a farming legacy that has shaped Howard County since 1797. As we chat on a wooden bench surrounded by the sights and sounds of Clark's Elioak Farm, Martha reveals how her family literally put Clarksville on the map and weathered dramatic agricultural changes over centuries.
Martha's journey weaves through Maryland history like the winding paths of her farm. Born into a dairy farming family when Howard County boasted 250 dairy operations (compared to just one or two today), she initially carved her own path working in women's advocacy before life brought her back to the land. After her husband's passing in 2000, she transformed necessity into inspiration, creating a petting farm that would support her family while connecting the community to rural experiences.
What truly sets Martha's story apart is her decade-long mission to rescue and preserve pieces of the beloved Enchanted Forest theme park. What began with acquiring the famous pumpkin coach evolved into a massive preservation effort involving building movers, crane operators, and countless hours of restoration work. Today, families experience the magic of these rescued treasures in a deliberately screen-free environment where three generations often recreate cherished photos from the original attraction.
The farm isn't just about nostalgia—it represents Martha's deep commitment to agricultural preservation. As development transformed Howard County around her, she's maintained a balanced perspective on growth while championing the importance of local food production. "Would you rather eat a tomato grown in California, picked green and gassed on its way here, or one we picked this morning that's bright red and full of flavor?" she asks, making a compelling case for farmland protection.
Come experience this unique blend of history, agriculture and whimsy at Clark's Elioak Farm, where the pumpkin patch opens mid-September with seasonal festivities running through November 2nd. Discover why this family farm has become a cherished destination for countless Maryland families seeking connection to the land and each other.
🌾🐐 Want to keep up with everything happening at Clark’s Elioak Farm?
✨ Check out their website: clarklandfarm.com
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👍 Like on Facebook: Clark’s Elioak Farm
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Hey friends and welcome to MomTalk Maryland. I'm your host, claire Duarte, founder of the Columbia Mom, and this is your spot for real conversations, local love and a whole lot of community. Whether you're folding laundry, running errands or hiding in your car for some peace and quiet, let's dive in Alright. Well, martha, I'm so glad to have you here today and I can't believe I finally met you for the first time this past summer when you were getting ready for the first time this past summer when you were getting ready for the Enchanted Forest birthday celebration. But when I met you and you were obviously telling us about the Enchanted Forest, I quickly realized you are basically the walking encyclopedia of Howard County and might even call you the OG Colombian mom.
Speaker 2:Really, I should be giving you that title.
Speaker 1:But I have with us today. Martha Clark, can you tell us a little bit more about your family, about the farm, and let's just jump into it.
Speaker 2:Okay, clarks have been farming in Howard County since 1797. So I'm the sixth generation, my daughter, who farms with me, is the seventh generation and my grandson is the eighth generation of Clark's farming in Howard County. That's where Clarksville comes from and we were immigrants. We came over. The first Clarks came here and worked with Charles Carroll of Carrollton and they did some milling for him and some farming for him and then purchased the first farm, which was Wheatfield over on Montgomery Road.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there's a housing development there that still surrounds the original house. The original house is still there, someone lives in it, very nice people and and then other farms along the way. My grandfather was born on Fairfield, which is on 108, which is now Running Brook, and that house did not survive.
Speaker 2:That house was when Columbia came in and Running Brook was created there was the farmhouse which I used to go visit, I think was burnt down in one of those fire training sessions, something like that. And then my father came back from World War II and started farming the farm that we live on now, the one on the corner of Centennial Lane and 108. Yes, and that is when he came back from World War II. He had a dairy operation there. Okay is when he came back from world war ii he had a dairy operation there.
Speaker 2:Okay, and um, when I was born, there were 250 dairy farms in howard county and there are, uh, one or two now, and so that's the the 70-year change. Yeah, uh, in in the complexion of howard there were about 30,000 people and a lot of farmland, a lot of farmers, and dad made his living as a farmer his entire life and when he retired from farming he turned the farm over to my brother, who continued to dairy run it as a dairy operation until he moved the whole dairy operation down to southwest Georgia and then my dad ended up, you know, doing corn soybeans and we've always had Angus cattle in addition to the dairy cattle, and so we continued to do that.
Speaker 2:And then I had a career off on my own without any idea of having anything to do with the farm. That was my brother's thing. But I worked for the state for about 10 years. I worked on women's and children's issues. I worked for the state for about 10 years. I worked on women's and children's issues. I was executive director of the Maryland Commission for Women, which I loved. That was great fun. And then I married and worked in my husband's business, which was the Southern State Store, the farm and home store down on the corner of Frederick Road and St John's.
Speaker 1:Lane.
Speaker 2:And I helped him run that business until he passed away in 2000. And then I came back to the farm. I had a 10-year-old son and a 12-year-old daughter that I had to support, and so I came back to the farm and figured that would be the place where I would figure out how to make a living and continue to raise my family. And I had always wanted to do a petting farm. We had talked about it several times, my husband and I, but we had never, you know, sort of gotten it together to start doing that and um uh, so this was the time to do that I thought, you know, this is an opportunity and a place called the cider mill which was down in elk ridge.
Speaker 2:Um was a petting farm and pumpkin patch and um, they had um apple orchards and that kind of thing and I opened up the sun one day and um, just about the same time I was figuring out trying to figure out what I was going to do and there was an article about the cider mill selling for development and closing down, and I thought this is the opportunity, this is the time to fill that gap.
Speaker 2:yes, um, and so that's what I did. I opened up Clark's Elliott Oak Farm and have been entertaining families and children and school groups for 23 years 23 years, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:Well, first of all, I just love just kind of like you know, part of the reason why I love doing the podcast for many reasons, is, like I love to get to know, obviously, your story and you have an immense rich history and background and literal roots in Howard County, right. But I can just relate so much to that feeling of being a mom, even though you know your kids were 10 and 12 you're significantly younger than they clearly are now right of just that feeling of like you know you were sort of forced to start over, right. But I think in motherhood we often feel that way of just because sometimes it's just you know you're having your kids and that's kind of the natural force of you know starting over starting different right and you know um kind of what spurred me into creating the Columbia Mom.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. I can just I love that, you the notion. When you said that, you know, you just kind of jumped in and did it.
Speaker 2:And I love that spirit.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. And I feel like that's probably a lot of what ties into your family and their and their spirit. For even though if they had a background in farming, they still, you know did it, they made it happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, in farming they still, you know, did it, they made it, made it happen, yeah, yeah, I mean I that's, I've always felt that you know, you try, just try something. You know the worst thing that can happen is you can fail and then you do something else yeah or tweak it.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. Right, like that's just that's just a reality. Yeah, yeah, um well, I mean I I know that I can speak from the moment that we moved here have just absolutely adored clark's eelio farm. If you have a child, that's, I guess, anywhere from you know, zero to 20 is probably heard of or seen uh or on a field trip, right yeah um, obviously where it's funny because like this time of year it's like almost nearly impossible to get in, because it's just the fall season.
Speaker 1:Actually, what I was getting ready to say was my son, who's now in kindergarten. I was like I don't know that they will have a field trip there this year, because I feel like the pre-Ks do a lot of it.
Speaker 2:I don't know if it's school.
Speaker 1:Same with my daughter. I was like are we out of the Clarks field trips.
Speaker 2:We get the season pass every year, yeah um but um.
Speaker 1:So when you started clark the, the clarselio farm, did you just like pull from, like the farm animals that you guys already had, or were you kind of pulling in more? I just kind of curious how that came about.
Speaker 2:Well, I went to the auction when they sold everything from the cider mill and bought their goats. You know, a number of their goats, yeah, but we did. We, you know, have friends who are farmers in Howard County.
Speaker 1:From easily distressed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so we got pigs from somebody. We got calves from somebody. We um calves from somebody we had. We bought the goats from the cider mill, um and um the emu. I can't remember where the emu come came from, but that was just that was nobody I know as right, so that that was, that was you know. Yeah, somebody just offered us an emu.
Speaker 1:That's so funny yeah. And you know, we had friends with ponies and we had, you know, and so, yeah, we gathered animals from our farm and from other farms of people we knew, yeah, and probably easily to kind of keep evolving from there to kind of like you know, because now you've got the bunnies and the turkeys and all of that, yeah, yeah um, I think the first year we had peacocks um, yeah, yeah, but right yeah yeah, um so and so and um fast forward to you guys just celebrated the 70th birthday of enchanted forest, which obviously wasn't originally obviously at at Clark's Iliad Farm.
Speaker 1:But do you want to share a little bit more for those that might not Again, if you have been remotely anywhere part of Howard County you also would know about Enchanted Forest Right. Can you tell us a little bit more?
Speaker 2:about that. You know another thing where I opened the paper one day and read an article about how there had been a charity auction of the realtors in the county do a charity auction every year and um some one the real estate agent who had been, who was at the enchanted forest shopping center in that, yeah, that um, in their offices there had talked kimco realty into letting them have the pumpkin coach.
Speaker 2:Um, it was just sitting behind their building, you know, just sitting there yeah, no one had like picked it up and gotten rid of it or anything, right, and so they fixed it up. They learned how to fiberglass, fixed it all up and the article was about the fact that it had been sold at this charity auction the night before and it had been bought by some people who were bidding against somebody who was just going to buy it and put it in their backyard and they thought it should be more available to a wider group of people yeah, yeah so they bought it, but they didn't really know what they were going to do with it.
Speaker 2:They didn't have a plan for it. But, um, they thought, well, we can do something.
Speaker 2:We, we can, you know, put it in a parade, or you know we can do something with it and so a number of people responded to that article and got in touch with these, these people and said, oh, you know a car dealer or landscaper, you know all these different people you know with ideas, but what they wanted to do at the pumpkin coach and I was one of them, yeah, I called them up and I said, oh, I've got the place, perfect place, five miles away from the original Enchanted Forest. Yeah, family, you know venue and, but you know it was a. We spent the entire summer going back and forth and some people you know got word that you know this, that they had this coach, a pumpkin coach, and what were they gonna do with it and, and everybody's afraid it was going to leave Howard County, that somebody would get on eBay and it would, you know, go yeah and so in the end I think it made sense that and they realized that it made sense for it to come to Clark's Alley Oak Farm.
Speaker 2:It was the most positive thing they could do with it as opposed to keeping it, you know.
Speaker 1:I don't know planting somewhere, yeah, out of the county yeah, so essentially so in part of that process did you because it was already sold to the private?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah like you said. Then you approached, I approached them and and and bought it from them and, uh, they were over in Dundalk in the Essex area. So you know, got a tractor that was already been acquired.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah all over there, so I had to buy it from them and and and bring it around the beltway. Uh yeah, um, you know, on a trailer with people you know what you know watching it as it goes by and uh, and that was a very positive thing we got we had that here in in the fall of 2024 and, um, uh, it just felt like it was the right place for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah you know, we were a pumpkin patch.
Speaker 2:It was a pumpkin coach, you know. Everybody just thought that. You know it's where it should be so after that season was over, I went to kimco and I said um you know, I'd like to get some more of these pieces right. Um you know, the shopping center was there.
Speaker 1:Where were the rest of the pieces you?
Speaker 2:know everything was in place.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:They had like, basically locked the gates to the Enchanted Forest. And it was just there, and it was just they were all just sitting there, yeah, and I think they, you know, kind of checked me out and you know they understood that I was going to get these things, bring them over to my farm, not put them on eBay, not sell them to someone else, not take them out of the county, and that's what everybody seemed to think was the best thing to do.
Speaker 2:And so they go yeah, but we'd like you to take it all. And you know it's like in my complete naivete I said, oh, of course, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, take it all. You were like I just want to. You know collector's items, I just want a few more, right right.
Speaker 2:So 10 years and hundreds of thousands of dollars later, I have just anything that could have been moved from there I moved Amazing. You know picked up. I hired the people who moved the Hatteras Lighthouse. You know they picked the things up. They jacked them up a little bit at a time. The buildings put six by sixes underneath them until they get it high enough that they can drive a truck bed underneath. And then that's how they move buildings. And so they moved a couple of them.
Speaker 2:Wonderful guy, xl Tree experts, marty Levine has the most beautiful crane I've ever seen in my life and he's moved a lot of them yeah, um, a wonderful man named george miller um helped me put them back together, take them apart before we brought them over the shoes 30 000 pounds and 23 foot tall, the great big purple shoe one yeah so it had to be cut in half, um um, and put on two different trailers and brought over and then put back together did it have?
Speaker 1:did the original one have the slide? Yes, yeah, okay, I wasn't sure if that was okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that was all part of it, but which makes it all very hard to move yeah, I can't even imagine. Yeah, yeah because that sits on a higher platform and then there's the wall. So you know, it's yeah, nothing's easy?
Speaker 1:no, no, of course not. The three bears house had to be cut. Yeah, because that sits on a higher platform, and then there's the wall Right. So you know, nothing's easy. No, no, of course not.
Speaker 2:The Three Bears house had to be cut in half and the big, larger part went on one trailer and the two smaller parts went on another trailer, and every time one of these things went down the road we made the evening news.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So the migration happened you a 10 year period? Yeah, I could. I moved to you know a couple of things a year yeah, um and the things we brought over at the beginning were in much better shape than the ones we brought over later. This thing is a wood and wire frame you concrete or covering fiberglass, that kind of thing. So once they start to crack, once the water gets in, they start to fall apart pretty quickly. So you bring them over and put them back together and then now it's constant yearly maintenance.
Speaker 1:I was going to say because I saw when we were at the farm. You were sure you probably learned much more than you ever intended yes, I have learned the fiberglass.
Speaker 2:I'm terrible at it, but I do do repairs. Yeah, yeah, what you were showing me.
Speaker 1:I mean, look great, you know um, and I'm sure the shelf life on there, especially the outdoor shelf, is challenging but, um, the whale one was the one that you guys recently kind of yeah, that was great yeah um, yeah, so because I feel like so a lot of families, especially because this is very typical of howard county, you get a lot of like new families coming in.
Speaker 1:You know, like my age, your daughter's age, right moving into the area with their new babies and stuff like that, and they're like, oh, janet forrest, but we're like might not know, like realize what the channing forest the history of it, yeah. The real history of it, yeah and um, and I think too, like people don't even realize.
Speaker 1:Even when they're coming to the farm they know that like, especially if they were from this area, like okay this is like obviously the new enchanted forest here, but, um, we know where the og one was there, like I mean, like I said myself, I didn't, I had no idea about your family history. Can you tell me a little bit more? Because obviously at the farm you were walking me through and I wish like and I'll share this on our show notes I'll collect more of those pictures from you to kind of show, more of that family tree you're showing me. Wasn't there another family, was it?
Speaker 2:the Ellicott, Ellicott yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so tell me more a little bit about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, my grandmother has a rich ancestry.
Speaker 2:There was a large Quaker population in Maryland and my grandmother's descended from the Ellicott's and the Hopkins's, so you know, she's the great niece of Johns Hopkins. It's like Maryland royalty, right, yeah, yeah. And the Ellicott's who settled Ellicott City? Yeah, is so we're. You know, she's the great niece of johns hopkins and um, maryland royalty, right, yeah, yeah. And the ellicott's who settled ellicott city? Yeah, uh, so, um, so we go back. The clarks are newcomers, they, they only go back to 1797. The ellicott's um, of course, settled in pennsylvania first and came here in 1772, and that we just celebrated the sesquicentennial of uh, of ellicott city. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so, um, yes, so, so we, you know, we, we go back and have some um, and. And one nice thing is, I'm very proud of all my ancestors.
Speaker 1:They all did cool things.
Speaker 2:You know um.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, and I feel like in a lot of the the family tree you of showed me. There's a lot of like women in there and I was like that, just felt really cool to see, you know, such strong women, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do have that family tree that focuses on the women yes, women Martha Ellicott Tyson, who was the daughter of George Ellicott and Elizabeth Brooke, whose Quaker family came from Brookville in Montgomery County. And Martha Ellicott Tyson wrote a history of the settlement of Ellicott City, ellicott Mills, and a biography of Benjamin Banneker, who was a friend of her father's. And Benjamin Banneker was a free black man in Oella who was a very accomplished scientist and astronomer. He helped, he worked with Andrew Ellicott surveying Washington DC and he wrote almanacs for years and years and years. Benjamin Banneker and there's a museum of Benjamin Banneker at his home in Oella, right across the river from Ellicott City.
Speaker 2:So there's a very close connection between O'Hella and Ellicott.
Speaker 1:City. I didn't realize he was from O'Hella. Yeah, that is so.
Speaker 2:And again, in all the and there's a lovely museum there.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that shows his home site and has a tremendous amount of information about him Now.
Speaker 1:I'm adding that to my list. Yeah, that is so cool. Well, so so like in looking at Clark's Iliogue Farm and it's become such a special place for families over the years, what do you remember about the farm becoming more of a community hub and what's kind of like some of your favorite memories of watching it evolve over the years?
Speaker 2:Oh gee. Well, you know it's just so much fun welcoming families with their children to the farm and once we started getting the Enchanted Forest stuff, you know that was like a whole another thing. I mean we were having a great time, just you know, being a petting farm and a place for birthday parties and school tours, but getting the Enchanted Forest stuff did take it to a new level.
Speaker 2:I mean, you get the three generations, oh, literally the parents and the grandparents and the parents who went to the Enchanted Forest as children and parents, and they come with their picture of all of them sitting on Willie the Whale's mouth, and then they get the three generations and they do the picture and everyone tells the same story they talk about well, when we came to the Enchanted Forest, we'd get in the car and we'd drive, and we'd drive, and we'd drive, and then we would see this place. That was just magical and the world didn't revolve around children. In the 50s and the 60s, the way it does now.
Speaker 2:And usually you know you didn't go out on a lot of family trips and that kind of thing. And so when you did have the special day at the Enchanted Forest, it was really special and the kids got it. The kids, it was built for them. Yeah, oh, for sure, and they understood that the minute they got there and it was so magical for them and what was so funny that you know, they'd say they drove and they drove and they were coming from Pikesville.
Speaker 1:And they were coming from Owings Mills.
Speaker 2:And they were coming.
Speaker 1:You know, I mean a place that's 15 minutes, you know away now, and it just felt like it was forever because it was out in the middle of the country. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Farmland. Yeah, yeah, exactly, and it was just so magical, and so it's just so much fun to be able to have that for people who thought they'd never see it again and thought they'd never be able to take their children and grandchildren to see it again. And there it is, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know and I feel like, well, I know we're talking about like the Enchanted Farms but I feel like one of my favorite parts about I was going to say the farm as a whole but I was like I love kind of like the actual like woods that you have in there and it's kind of like discovering and it's funny because a lot of my kids when they get there, like we've been going there for years, like literally like my son and like they get there and they just like your grandson, just roam the roots, Like they just start sprinting in every direction because they know their way around.
Speaker 2:They know what they like. They have their mental check.
Speaker 1:That's like I'm going to hit all of these things right, yeah yeah, yeah, so we don't always hit the forest part because, like they're going for of like, it does feel like like secret woods like it literally and because it's like a little shaded in there and then there's all these different spots, and it goes so far back.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean and I just think that's like such a fun little magic and what I you know, what I think is special about the farm, too, is that there's no electronics, there's no QR codes to take a picture of and get some picture of a nursery rhyme or something like that what you're seeing is the dish and the spoon You're not seeing, you know, and it's a place to run, like you said, you get there and there's nothing that you look at a phone to do, there's nothing you look at an iPad to do.
Speaker 2:You are there to enjoy running around, feeling safe. It's a nice, safe place to go and it's a step back, really, and I love that. I don't want to go into the world of I have to engage you electronically to entertain you. I want to be the throwback, no, exactly the place where, for you know, a half a day, you don't have screen time, absolutely and well, well, I mean we know in our ever-changing society that there's merit and necessity on both ends right, it's like you can't
Speaker 2:ignore the evolving pushing technology, because that's also being taught in school, because I was like my kids aren't going to need to know how to use a phone and a computer and all of that, but I mean just as much as our kids need that outdoor nature screen for time so do we as adults. You know.
Speaker 1:I mean there's a reason why we say like take a break and go outside and, you know, have sun on your face, right.
Speaker 1:I mean again some of my other favorite memories too is like I remember I'm sure you remember this too when, um, I forget what age now, but when you know, when the babies are still taking two naps a day, like they haven't quite made it to the one right and um, but because I had two, uh two babies, two under two right, so I, so I was straddling that my daughter would take the one day nap, but my son was taking two, so I, as a mom, like during that stage of life, I felt like I was like trapped, because I was like, well, I'm like in my house the whole day because baby number one takes this nap and she takes this one.
Speaker 2:So I'm like, well, what am I going to do, right?
Speaker 1:So I think what I ended up with doing, what I would kind of push my daughter she was a little bit older Her nap and just be like you know. But I would, as soon as he woke up from that first nap, I would have lunches packed.
Speaker 2:Like already.
Speaker 1:I packed lunch while he was getting ready and I, as soon as he woke up, throw him in the car go to the farm and let them run, and we would have lunch there, tire them out. So then, um, we would get back, and um, and I put it both, they both get enough, both get down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for now, and I just I would, I did that so many times. Yeah, okay, that summer, yeah I just um.
Speaker 1:I I love that because I was just like they, they need this and again every time they get to go.
Speaker 2:It's the same thing, they're just just as excited I just love seeing they literally sprint in different directions and I'm like now they're old enough and I'm like, okay, like I know they are literally locked in here.
Speaker 1:But when they were little I was like, oh my lord but um, well so, and talking about that too, kind of like the ever-evolving, like you have literally, I mean, you and your whole family have seen this area when you said 70 years, I don't really that sounds long, but when you think of again just the history of the dairy and the farmlands.
Speaker 1:When you said from like what you said, 250 250 dairy farms in the 50s yeah so like what's that been like for you, kind of seeing the area evolve and change kind of around your farm.
Speaker 2:Well, it's interesting because, um, I mean we're in the baltimore washington corridor, so there's no way that we would have stayed a totally rural community, right, uh, forever not in this, um yeah yeah, um, so we were going to get the development.
Speaker 2:So I think that um columbia um having the plan, because otherwise it would just be a farm would sell and there would be a housing development, and a farm would sell and there would be a housing development. So I think that that columbia provided a real vibrancy and um a plan and brought wonderful people to the county that. I think would have happened differently, but probably not as well as the way it came with Columbia.
Speaker 2:Right, and the nice thing is we married that with my dad was in the legislature for a number of years. He was a senator from howard county and he was the architect, along with several other great senators that he worked with the agricultural land preservation program, and that's where um this the state buys the development rights for the farm and extinguishes them so so the farmer gets an infusion of cash, which is really helpful, and they get that pressure of developers calling them all the time, you know, saying why are you going to sell me your?
Speaker 1:farm. Why are you going to sell me your?
Speaker 2:farm Off their shoulders. Off their shoulders and then that land is, you know, stays in farmland for perpetuity. So that's the plan. So that takes that pressure off. So the nice thing about you know, and those things kind of happen simultaneously. So instead of Columbia coming in and bringing people to the county and then having them continue to, you know, settle and develop in the western part of the county, right, the farms in the western part of the county are in, a lot of them are in the farm preservation program.
Speaker 1:That's what I thought because I was going to say a lot of those still seem intact.
Speaker 2:So we have about 20, over 20,000 acres in farm preservation in Howard County and I think we're only 80,000 acres, right yeah, so it's a nice part of the county that's in preservation, our rural character right in in in the county, in addition to having this vibrant, you know, urban area too.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, well, and speaking to that, why do you think it's important, I mean obviously, to kind of keep, obviously, the 20 acres, was it 20, 20,000 acres?
Speaker 2:I was like it's not 20 20,000 acres is still preserved, right.
Speaker 1:Why do you think it's not 20. 20,000 acres is still preserved, right. Why do you think it's important? Just coming from again, your perception and background, to kind of keep that part of Howard County still preserved as we kind of keep moving forward Well, because we need farmers and we need food grown here.
Speaker 2:Would you rather eat a tomato that was grown in California or Florida, picked green, driven across the country and gassed on its way over here so that it looks kind of pale red by the time it gets here? Or would you rather have one that we picked in the morning? Would you rather have one that we picked in the morning that's bright, red and full of flavor?
Speaker 1:full of dense. You know nutrients, I mean, you know. Which one do you want? Oh for sure, always.
Speaker 2:If we, you know, pave over every farm. We have a lot of wonderful beginning farmers, people who are, you know, farming on 5, 10, you know acres and producing incredible vegetables at the farmer's markets. And that's the food we want to eat. And you have to have land, farmland to produce the food and it's going to only get worse. You can't have all the farms in Florida or in California, like in one part of the state, because you're going to have new natural disasters.
Speaker 2:You're going to have years when there's too much rain, two years that are not enough rain and if you're producing food all around the country, everywhere, then you have a better chance of being able to feed people. Right, right, yeah. So I think that makes sense.
Speaker 1:And you know I mean even speaking to the, our local natural disaster with the Key Bridge. We talk about supply distribution you know what I mean and that affecting just the chain of being a food being able to get to where it needs to go and obviously there's seasonal fluctuations in all of our areas and you know we are. We're always talking about the cost of food and now we're spurring ourselves in a whole different.
Speaker 1:That'll be podcast number two, but um, well, as we're kind of wrapping up here, um, I know we didn't specifically talk about this, but do do you have anything to share too about the? Don't you guys have a little like farmer's market stand?
Speaker 2:We do in the summer.
Speaker 1:I know it's seasonal. Yeah, yeah, it's seasonal.
Speaker 2:So it is all of July and all of August it's the summer vegetables. We find that, you know, people will stop for sweet corn, but they won't stop for kale.
Speaker 1:It's always sweet. We don't have it in the but we do.
Speaker 2:Anything we grow at the farm is always available to buy in the store okay, and what do you carry?
Speaker 1:I mean again, I'm familiar, but for anyone else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what else do you? Carry in the store so that people kind of know and, and you can shop in the store without paying the admission to go into the farm obviously yeah, yeah um, well, we're just finishing up now, so we just have um a few tomatoes and peppers and you know those kind of things.
Speaker 2:So not so much produce now, but meat. We, yeah, we raise 100% grass-fed beef, um, and uh, pork, okay, and and pig, so you can buy it's frozen, it's in individual packages, and you can buy it anytime at our store, as I said, and you can come in and purchase without you know, paying to go into the farm or you can get get it on your way out after you visited the farm awesome, yeah um well, and then um kind of final accolades for the farm.
Speaker 1:You guys are, and I know the calendar because I know the season passes burned in my brain until, like november 1st, correct second this year.
Speaker 2:Second, yeah, yeah yeah, um. So you guys are doing a lot of the fall festivals right, right, yeah, yeah, in fact, our, um, our pumpkin patch opens this weekend, september 13th and 14th, and uh, it's funny because more people have been asking um, um recently about the pumpkin patch and when we're going to start our fall activities, um, then it feels like in other years and I think it's because it feels like fall. Yeah, we've, you know, it's been felt like fall early. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah so it just, people are like cued into either that or you know.
Speaker 2:They're selling pumpkin lattes now so everybody's thinking about it.
Speaker 2:But yeah, the pumpkin patch opens. We're going to have apple cider donuts, we're going to have apple cider, we're going to have, um, uh, the pumpkin patch. We've got a little hay bale maze and several small hay bale mazes and, just you know, decorating for the fall and food vendors and all of that kind of stuff. So, yeah, we're open for business. We're normally closed on Mondays year-round, but in the fall we're even open on Mondays. So we're closed two, no, we're even open on monday. So there's okay, we're closed to no, we're closed just one more monday. We're closed monday, the september 15th, and after that we're open seven days a week until november 2nd it's like your blitz yeah, it's your farm blitz end of year blitz, exactly um.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so people can definitely come in to get their daily passes their tickets and they can also get kind of tickets for the different rides, right? And if I remember correctly too, the farm has on the weekends a few more of like the vendors than maybe during the week. Yes, yes, but well, any other final notes for us to kind of share about Clark's and the farm, for us to kind of share about Clark's and the farm.
Speaker 2:You know, when I decided to do this I didn't know how it was going to end up, but I just knew I wanted to share my farm with people. I love the farm. I've grown up there, I've spent most of my life there and it's just a very special place and it is so much fun to see people enjoy it the way you described enjoying the farm and just seeing families come either for the first time and just being blown away by what it's like, or season pass holders who come. I mean, we know our season pass holders so well and it's just so much fun to know that we have this special place and that we can share it with our neighbors, our community.
Speaker 2:And one thing that it's something you mentioned made me think of this I'm interviewing people to hire for the fall, because I need extra employees in the fall and I'm getting you know the people who are coming and go. Oh, I want to work here because I had my birthday party here you know, and I want to work here because I've come here, you know, for years and it's my favorite place to come and um, you know yeah, yeah so so you know, I've got people getting to the point where people who've worked for me as teenagers are coming back with their children my God, visiting with their children and I'm probably about ready to start hiring the children of my employees.
Speaker 1:I haven't quite gotten there yet. Won't take long, I know. So it is a family.
Speaker 2:It's a family business. We feel like all the people that come to visit us are family and we just love being part of this community Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And final plug too. I was going to say you have a lot of your history kind of posted and shared in the not the barn area, but yeah, what we call the education building, the education building which is kind of like next to that first sort of playground.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:The little like mice. Right right right, it's the white education building where you can kind of see more of like the family tree was in there, some of the posters and some of the history pieces.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, thank you so much, Martha. This has been so much fun, oh my gosh, Thank you. And like I said in our recap, I will also be sure to link and get more of the pictures that we will share For sure, More of the family tree and more of the family history, Because something I obviously love to nerd out about again, I'm from Olney which I like to think is just down the street, not too far.
Speaker 1:My husband's from Columbia. So I mean I've lived here now six years. So as someone, that is a little bit of a transplant, though it's just kind of like a hop up the road.
Speaker 1:you know, I have enjoyed getting to know places like this and when I get to know more of that rich history it just kind of really excites me and I just something that I feel so passionate that I get to kind of share that more with the families that I know and love. So thank you for continuing to share that so we can keep sharing and celebrating your legacy thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much thank you thanks for tuning in to this episode of Mom Talk, maryland. If you loved it, leave a review, share it with a friend or tag me at thecolumbiamom on Instagram. I'd love to hear what you think and don't forget to follow the show so you never miss an episode. Until next time, keep showing up, keep supporting local and keep being the incredible mom, woman, human that you are.