MOUNT VERNON — After taking a year hiatus, the Heart of Ohio Tour didn’t skip a beat getting back on track and showing tourists a behind-the-scenes look at six eastern Knox County stops. The tour is coordinated by the Knox Soil & Water Conservation District.
“We love the tour,” said Mary Ann Williamson of Newcastle.
Williamson and her husband, Jim, are familiar with many of the areas throughout Knox County; this, she said, is largely due to the tour.
“This is on the other end of town from where we come in. We wouldn’t know it was here if it wasn’t on the tour,” Mary Ann said of Countryside Creamery and Treat Shop, located south of Mount Vernon on Newark Road.
The couple enjoyed samples of vanilla ice cream and indulged in bowls of chocolate or maple nut ice cream made onsite. The creamy treat was well deserved after exploring Wolf Run Regional Park for the first time. The park served as the first stop on the tour.
“We’d never been to Wolf Run before. We really enjoyed it. We took a little walk. It’s really beautiful,” Mary Ann said.
After making all six stops, Jim couldn’t select just one stop as his favorite.
“I really liked it all,” Jim said. “Anytime you have a variety of stops, it’s going to be good.”
The couple has enjoyed many of the stops throughout the years, including the Knox County Historical Society Museum, Wenco and the Knox County Agricultural Museum.
“We know it’s hard work for these people to do this,” Mary Ann said of the six host stops. “We really appreciate that.”
Jeff Small knows exactly what Mary Ann was talking about, as he was one of many who assisted in getting his father, Bill Small’s, farm ready for Saturday and Sunday. Despite the extra hard work, the Small family was happy Sunday afternoon with the turnout and what that means to agriculture in the county.
“We had crowds better than we could have hoped for,” Jeff Small said. “It was really a diverse crowd. There were your typical farmers and just a lot of families with kids who had never been near a cow before.”
The Smalls asked their guests to sign in, and were surprised to find they had visitors from Cincinnati, Toledo and even Texas. However, the attraction to their farm was no surprise.
“At night when we are down here working, it’s not unusual to see cars along the roadway and people with cameras taking pictures. It’s nice that this weekend they had the chance to come down and see everything,” Small said.
The Small farm wasn’t the only farm on the tour that garnered a lot of attention. Heidi and Tim Norris welcomed visitors to their farm, and provided educational and entertainment opportunities for guests of all ages.
“We’re definitely busier today,” Heidi said on Sunday afternoon.
She added that she was happy to report that earlier guests, especially older farmers, were intrigued by the technology used by the Norris family.
The demonstrations on the farm did not include your grandpa’s tractors or farming equipment — just ask Dave Wivrig’s children Ava, 3, Ben, 5 and Eli, 7 1/2 years old.
“There’s a screen and computer and you set it,” Eli said before his little brother, Ben, jumped in to finish his sentence. “It tells it what to do.”
The Wivrig children were able to ride in a tractor that utilizes auto steering technology that took them for ride in circles, as well as a ride in a combine that was harvesting corn from the field.
“We wanted them to learn about how we get food and where it comes from,” Dave said. “We get to see how farmers plant their crops and see how it’s harvested at the end of the season.”
The Wivrigs took a two-mile ride on the Kokosing Gap Trail to get to the Norris farm on Sunday. On Saturday, they visited Wolf Run.
“We took the full hike to the pond and back. It tired everyone out, so that’s all we did [Saturday],” said Dave.
In addition to machinery and lessons for his children, Dave said he was impressed with the Norris’ other presentations, including 17-year-old Eli’s presentation on farmland presentation.
“The ag easement program was interesting, to see so much Ohio farmland is being preserved,” Dave said.
The Brown Family Environmental Center and Windy Hill Nursery and Gardens were also included on the tour.
