AGRI-TOURISM DOWN MEMORY LANE TODAY

Lisa Charles Hart, above, and family are having an open house this weekend at their maple farm down the road from where I grew up. Loved visiting with her today. And enjoying lunch with Brian, my brother Tim, and sister-in-law Jeannie. We were agri-tourists!

During all of my childhood, Lisa Charles was a pleasant, curly-headed girl, two years my junior, who lived back a long lane in a big, pretty farmhouse. Lisa’s mom, Mary, was my mother’s hairdresser and I’m pretty sure she gave me my first professional perm – something other than the Toni ones out of a box at home.

At Lisa’s farm, just a couple of properties away from ours at Route 1, Brownsville (before they did away with rural route numbers), we had 4-H meetings.

But of course Lisa and I grew up and lost touch. I saw her for the first time in nearly 40 years two years ago at The Liberty Festival and learned that she and her husband bought her folks’ place and of all things – they have turned it into a Maple syrup farm!

On well over 100 acres of woodlands, they tap the maple trees (not with buckets, we’re talking modern technology these days, folks, and lots of cool equipment and tubes that drain the sap back at their central production area).

They sell their pure Indiana Maple Syrup and related products at some of the best farmers’ markets in the state. Pretty sweet.

So this weekend, today and tomorrow, Maplewood Farms are on tour and along with watching production and Lisa explaining how it’s done, you can purchase the delicious products too.

Right there at Route 1 Brownsville, on the Charles farm.

Only now it’s 3737 N. Philomath Rd. Brownsville, Indiana 47325. And it’s the Hart place.  You can email Lisa at lhart3737@gmail.com.

I loved going down Lisa’s lane. I thought of it as Memory Lane.