Grab the Kids, Oliver Kelley Farm Opens this Weekend

ELK RIVER -- The 167-year-old Oliver Kelley Farm is holding their grand opening celebration Saturday and Sunday.

The farm says there will be "plenty of time for kids to get dirty outside".  The weekend event schedule will include:

(All events take place both Saturday and Sunday, except where noted)

Ongoing from 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m:

• Free bandannas, Visitor Center
• Make-and-take seed planting, Visitor Center
• Make-and-taste vinaigrette activity, Visitor Center
• Button-making, Deal Classroom in Visitor Center
• Celebratory carrot cake, Kelley Annex
• Curbside Chicken food truck.

Live music on the Visitor Center patio 11:15 a.m. & 1:30 p.m.

• Saturday: Roe Family Singers
• Sunday: The OK Factor

10:30 a.m., 12:00 p.m., 1:30 p.m. & 3:00 p.m. 

• Historical games to play at the Farmstead yard

11:00 a.m., 12:30 p.m., 2:00 p.m., & 3:30 p.m.

• They'll fire up the Steam Engine Tractor near the Farm Lab Crops

11:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m., & 1:30 p.m.

• Meet the History Hound, Kelley Annex

1:00 p.m. & 2:30 p.m. Chef Demos, Q&A and author book signing, Learning Kitchen.

• Saturday: Tricia Cornell, Eat More Vegetable and the Minnesota Farmers Market Cookbook
• Sunday: Kim Ode, Rhubarb Renaissance

3:00 p.m. in the Visitor Center

• Where do I get my food? Dialogue

Oliver Kelley and his family began farming on the banks of the Mississippi in 1850. Kelley founded the first successful national farming organization, the National Grange of the Order of the Patrons of Husbandry, better known as the Grange, in 1867.

Today the farm is recognized as a National Historic Landmark and "birthplace of organized agriculture in America."