Ashland Optimist Bulletin January 28, 2023
We will have Bingo Friday, Feb. 3rd and should have a good attendance since it's an $1,199 game night. We have people who are scheduled to serve, but still need some cooks to help earlier on Friday.
Breakfast: FEB 4th- Pancake Day! Everyone is invited to help! If you are interested in helping cook, please come to the building at 5:00 a.m. If that is too early, you are welcome to come help later, but understand that you may be asked to help with clean-up after we quit serving at 11:30.
We had a wonderful breakfast this morning, provided by Bernie Bartel, Donna Wobbe, and Jan Palmer. Bernie invited Brenda Ravenscraft as her guest and Dorise Slinker brought his sons, Bryson and Reese.
Our speakers this morning were Erin and Zach Diederich, owners of Lloyd's Family Farm at 7015 E. Rt. Y, just east of Ashland. The farm was originally purchased by Dr. Abner Martin, Erin's fourth great uncle. The farm is named after Lloyd Martin, Erin's second great uncle, who lived on the farm his entire life. In 2014, Zach and Erin decided to open Lloyd's Pumpkin Patch as a specialty crop production agritourism site to let people visit a family farm. Since things were going well, in 2016 Zach built the big red barn that is the focus of their property.
By 2018, Timberview Tree Farm talked to Zach and Erin about taking over as a Christmas tree farm in seven years when they planned to retire. The Diederich's planted 10,000 scotch and white pine trees, some of which are close to being ready to be selected and cut for people's Christmas trees.
2000 was a busy year for the Diederichs when they expanded by providing a U-Pick Strawberry service and renamed the farm to Lloyd's Family Farm. It was also the year that Timberview lost all of their trees to a fungal disease and the Diederichs decided to sell precut trees at Christmas time since their trees weren't ready. In 2021, they planted blackberries, with two separate plantings so there are blackberries available each year.
Lloyd's Family Farm currently has items available every season, with strawberries in the Spring, blackberries in the Summer, hayrides, a corn maze, and pumpkin sales in the Fall, followed by Christmas tree sales in the Winter. The easiest way to see what is going on at the farm is to follow their Facebook page: Lloyd's Family Farm, call them at 573-808-1070, or go to their website at www.lloydsfamilyfarm.com.
After Erin had finished speaking and answering the many questions that people had, she drew for the Attendance drawing. Will Blue and Jennifer Zagorac had their chance at riches, but Ken Bishop was thrilled to announce, "It pays to attend!" when his number was drawn.
Because this was the final meeting of the month, Barrett worked on figuring the Poker Pot, which was challenging since four people had pairs of kings. Fortunately, Rev. Elmer Schiefer drew an ace, giving him a pair of aces to beat everyone else.
Letitia DenHartog
ashlandoptimist.com
