Cows and chickens and fun, oh my!

This week our office had a company picnic at the Wheeler Farm. There are picnic tables throughout this 75 acre farm, which is located in the middle of Salt Lake county. We found a place under a shade tree and enjoyed an early summer day for couple of hours before taking a 5 minute drive back to the office. What fun!

All the barnyard animals are about, including cows, chickens, horses, pigs and geese plus the stuff they leave behind. Every day at 5 pm is milking time, and throughout the day one can watch the blacksmith, have a tour of the turn of the century farm house or ride the hay wagon around the property. In the winter there is even ice cutting on the ice pond, in the summer a liquid mountain stream runs right through the farm property.

When our family was young, we spent a lot of time at Wheeler, whether it was cow milking or getting scared to death in the Halloween Haunted Woods! For a number of children this might be the only place to be able to see where milk really comes from, it's not the neighborhood Albertsons!

Here is short history of the the farm. "It was founded in June 17, 1886, when Sariah Hankinson Pixton married Henry Joseph Wheeler and together they made their home on this seventy-five acre farm. Helping Henry run the prosperous dairy enterprise, Sariah and the six Wheeler children each assumed a portion of the chores around the farm. Everyday there were cows to milk, eggs to gather, and wood to shop. Churning butter, making soap, trimming wicks, and cutting ice were just a few of the many necessary tasks.

The Farm is a restoration of the turn-of-the-century dairy farm of Henry J. Wheeler. Maintaining the farm presents to the public the history of Utah family agriculture. It is a representation of the rural lifestyle in Salt Lake County from 1890-1920 and presents the best farming methods of the Progressive Era. Historic demonstrations and exhibits are just a few of the things that will take you back in time. Here you may discover the old time farm lifestyle once common for most families in Utah but which is now largely past and gone."

http://www.wheelerfarm.com/index.html