Friday, August 27, 2021

Ed Dunneback and Girls Farm Market, 3025 6 Mile Road NW, Grand Rapids MI 49544 ~ August 27, 2021

The farm is much more than a sunflower field but the field is magical. We visited initially on August 13 when things were just starting to bloom.
The goats are always ready for you, however.
Edwin Dunneback bought these 170 acres back in 1922 and it has continued to be family-run. His son, Edward, met his wife Helen here at a dance in the barn. Together they had three children. When their only son Michael was killed in Vietnam, the "and son" sign on the barn was changed to "and girls" and it's been that way ever since.
The farm is a wonderful place to visit, and when the sunflowers are in full bloom, areas are mowed, staged, and carved out for all of your photo opportunities. Here are a few of them, some stranger than others 😊
Someone swung a little too hard.
The flowers themselves are the stars of the show.
The temperature was 85 degrees and there was no one else in the field until we bumped into John Gonzelaz shooting a video of the farm. I asked him if he was doing a news story and he answered "yup." That's him in the red shirt in the distance.
(We ended up being in his video for a few seconds and here's a screen shot from that.)
We have it on good authority that he did not pay the required $5 fee to walk the field but he will be providing free advertising for the farm so we won't quibble 😊
We paid our fee afterward because we were already at the field when we saw the sign requiring payment at the market. As we paid a very kind woman asked if we had cut our two sunflowers, and we had not because we didn't know we could. She loaned me clippers and back I went.
Keeping with the girls theme, there's a lot of pink around here. Pink Barrel Cellars is also part of the farm, producing beer, wine, cider and seltzers.
Food, ice cream, produce, live music, and so much more is available at this Farm Market so stop in if you have a chance and experience this historic family farm.