The miniature cow poked her wet nose through a gap in the wooden corral at the Agricultural Heritage Center just northwest of Longmont Friday. The brown-eyed bovine almost dared Debbie Arato and her five-year-old son Zachary to reach out and pat her.
Zachary could not resist and he tapped her on her snout. Zachary grinned at Arato and scampered off to look at another exhibit on the 10-acre Heritage Center site. “He loves this place,” Arato said. “Everytime we go by here we have to stop and he has to see all the animals.”
The 21-year-old Heritage Center features chickens, pigs, goats and horses and an heirloom garden. It opened for a full-time schedule earlier this month for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Before the center was closed for the virus, it drew about 10,000 visitors.
The dusty complex is designed to teach people about Longmont’s agricultural roots and to remind us that farm products don’t just come from the grocery store, Jim Drew, volunteer coordinator for the Heritage Center, said.
“We really want to connect people where food comes from,” Drew said.
The farm also feeds Zachary’s ambition to be a wheat farmer, his grandmother said. “Wouldn’t that be something, if he really became a farmer,” she said. “That would be a good thing because we need more farmers.”
Officially known as the Agricultural Heritage Center at Lohr/McIntosh Farm, the facility opened on April 1 for everyone, free of charge, for drop-in visits on Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The site, managed by Boulder County Parks and Open Space, will remain open through Oct. 31.
Visitors can also schedule private tours year-round, according to the Agricultural Center’s website.
The farm, located at 8348 Ute Highway, is also bordered on the south by 140 acres of preserved crop land and by McIntosh Lake. The farmhouse, built in 1909, is furnished with items from the 1910s. Visitors can tour two barns, outhouse, milk house, the garden and a blacksmith shop, the website states.
The farm’s big red barn has several interactive exhibits, including a tractor cab and new bilingual exhibits. Hispanic contributions to Boulder County’s farming heritage are featured.
About 40 children with the Estes Park Homeschool group scrambled around the site, eyeing the animals and churning on an old outdoor water pump.
Christie Nagl, one of the homeschool moms, said the hands-on approach at the exhibits encouraged her two children to think more about the source of her family’s food.
“This place is awesome,” Nagl said. “Everybody always thinks the grocery store is the first place to start for their food. This makes us understand the real source of what we eat.”
