For immediate release FRIDAY, MAY 27, 2005

Contact: Bill Clary
(502) 564-4696 bill.clary@ky.gov

FEARSVILLE, Ky. — It took the words of Milt Corley’s friend to plant the seed that blossomed into Christian Way Farm.

The 300-acre farm in northeastern Christian County has been in Corley’s family for three generations. His grandfather, Guy Corley, bought the land in the 1920s with bonus money he earned from serving in World War I. When Guy died in 1973, he left Milt the original 60 acres in his will, but it took Milt a quarter century to figure out what to do with it. Conventional farming was not an option after Milt grew up watching his father, Edwin, take a second job to make ends meet.

“Several years ago, I was telling a friend what I was doing [for a living],” said Corley, who then managed Jackson’s Orchard in Bowling Green. “He knew I had land. He said, ‘Why aren’t you doing that back home? You could have your own place and be your own boss.’

“That friend of mine planted the seed. I got to thinking and praying. It took a couple of years, but I figured if I was ever going to do anything with this land, I had to do it then.”

So in January 1998, Milt left the job security of his seven-year position at Jackson’s Orchard to start Christian Way Farm, a place where families from nearby cities could go to get a taste of life on the farm. When Milt told his father of his intentions to return to the family farm, Edwin was so happy that he deeded his 240 acres over to his son.

For the first year and a half, he commuted daily to the farm – more than 100 miles roundtrip – from his home in Bowling Green. He cleared brush that had grown up, since the farm had not been cropped in nearly a decade, and restored some of his grandfather’s old farm equipment to put on display for visitors. Milt moved there with his wife, Janie; 13-year-old twins Craig and Jennifer, and 9-year-old Rachael when the family’s new house was completed on the premises in August 1999.

Christian Way Farm is a particularly popular destination for school tours it calls “Sowing Seeds for Tomorrow’s Harvest.” On benches in the middle of a field, Janie quizzes the children on the ingredients needed to make tacos. She sends students to pick the ingredients in nearby fields; then they use a pestle to grind the tomatoes, onions, peppers, cilantro, and garlic cloves to make salsa.

 “We pick a familiar food for the children,” Janie said, noting she did pizzas last year and hamburgers and French fries two years ago. 

“She has a gift, and she loves what she does,” Milt said of Janie, who has a degree in Christian education from Emory & Henry College in Virginia. “I’ve always been able to do the [farm] work, but when it comes to standing up there and having the words to convey to the children, that’s where Janie’s at. That’s what makes it a wonderful mix, the two of us.”

After the taco lesson, students board a wagon for a ride to a barn to see the animals. They feed a baby calf with a bottle and a baby goat out of their hands, and view pigs and a donkey.

The kids plant pumpkin seeds in small peat pots to take home and are encouraged to transplant them there. Milt said one of the kids’ pumpkin vines was particularly prosperous: “We had one parent tell us it grew up the side of their house and got so heavy, it pulled down their gutter!”

While Janie teaches, Milt spends most of his time mowing the 7-8 acres of grass where visitors walk to keep it cut low in an effort to deter ticks and snakes. “You don’t want kids seeing critters they don’t want to see,” he noted.

But last summer, Milt said the students enjoyed seeing a big black snake sunning itself in a nearby field. “They weren’t scared at all,” he said. “They gathered around and their teacher did a little lesson on snakes. It just laid there and let ‘em stare at it.”

Milt also remembered the year his dogs caught a rabbit in front of the kids. “I thought they’d be traumatized, screaming and crying about the poor little rabbit,” he said. “But they were fine with it. It’s always an adventure.”

Christian Way Farm is open from mid-April through July. It closes during the sweltering month of August then reopens in mid-September through November.

Fall has proved especially popular with family-friendly Pumpkin Days every Saturday in October, when children are encouraged to pick their own pumpkins. Harvest Praise is Oct. 15 and includes entertainment throughout the day by Christian bands.

Christian Way Farm hosted between 1,500-2,000 kids on tours last fall, compared with 500-600 this spring. “There’s a whole mindset of going to visit the farm in October at harvest time,” Milt said. He is considering starting a festival in the spring to attract more visitors. “To me, planting time is just as important,” he said.

Milt designs two corn mazes, one for children and a difficult one for teen-agers and adults. “I make more money off that [maze] than I’d make taking it [corn] to market,” Milt noted. Milt also doesn’t sell his wheat, instead fashioning bales of it into a straw castle for visiting kids to play in.

Adults can choose from an array of Kentucky Proud products. There are daylilies and gourds they can pick, as well as cut flowers, decorative corn, crafted gourds and gift baskets to purchase. They also can buy an assortment of home-grown fruits and vegetables – peaches, potatoes, turnip greens and the aforementioned salsa ingredients.

Milt doesn’t regret his decision to make a living in the fields where his grandfather and father had sweated and toiled decades earlier.

“I really think this is something that’s in your blood,” he said. “When I was a kid, every time I stepped on his farm, I had a good feeling.

“I knew I’d get back here someday.”

For a schedule of upcoming events, directions, and more information, see the farm’s Web site, www.christianwayfarm.com.

--30--

NOTE TO EDITORS: This article is part of an ongoing series on agritourism destinations in Kentucky.