Urbanites get taste of farm life
Let the kids run free as you dig through garden or collect eggs from chicken coop
ST. MARYS, ONT.— If downtown Stratford’s farm-fresh menus aren’t satisfying your craving for the country life, a trip out to Transvaal Farm sure will.
Cindy Taylor and Scott McLauchlan’s 20.2-hectare “farm stay” lets you live out your rural fantasy. Pull up to the red barn where nosy chickens greet you at the gravel road and fresh eggs, preserves, goat’s milk, cheese and sometimes even baked goods are stocked upon arrival. After that, it’s all up to you. Roll up your sleeves, dig through the vegetable garden and pluck still-warm eggs from the chicken coop.
The couple knows what city folks are looking for. They, too, escaped to Transvaal’s greener pastures. Taylor’s parents bought the farm, but the pair raised their own children in the GTA. She worked in fashion for 30 years before changing careers and taking up baking and pastry arts.
In 2014, they bought the farm from her parents and decided to share the experience, turning the farmhouse addition into a farm stay accommodation (currently rented through Booking.com).
“We’re stumbling through this in a Green Acres fashion, but we’re having a lot of fun doing it,” McLauchlan jokes.
Many guests use Transvaal as a base to explore the region and Niagara Falls. There aren’t many formal activities here, but there’s a drawer full of farm-themed entertainment, like Little House on the Prairie DVDs, John Deere checkers and a Tractoropoly board game.
Taylor has recently started offering workshops in the summer kitchen, where guests can make their own goat cheese truffles and rhubarb simple syrups. She sells her canned and baked goods at St. Marys Farmers’ Market and her brother George Taylor owns the popular C’estbon Cheese plant.
But Taylor says she especially loves watching city kids discover the garden.
“Some kids from the city think carrots come from a bag,” she says. “To watch kids go to the garden and physically pull out a carrot . . . their eyes are like saucers . . . they really start to understand.”
She says the farm stay has been popular with families. One of the two bedrooms has two twin beds, which she makes up with farm animal toys kids can keep. (All beds are topped with a little red mailbox stuffed with two goat cheese truffles and a personalized welcome note.) She says a lot of families come for a break from their “postage stamp” backyards.
“It’s free range here,” she says. “Parents will be in the gazebo drinking wine and the kids will be all over the place because it’s safe to run around and have a good time.” Stacey McLeod was hosted by the Stratford Tourism Alliance, which didn’t review or approve this story.