Christa Hein 0:03
Hey there. Welcome to the Farm Educators Roadmap. I'm Christa Hein, former non-profit girl turned farm education entrepreneur. I've spent the last 30 years creating hands-on programs that connect people to the land, animals and the traditions that nourish our daily lives. If you're listening, you probably believe what I do that farm education is needed now more than ever, not just on rural farms, but in suburbs, cities and everywhere in between.
Christa Hein 0:33
In this podcast, you'll hear real stories and practical advice from farm educators all across the country, people who are creating change through their programs in creative and inspiring ways. Whether you're dreaming about starting your first program, are already knee deep in your own farm education work, or are just curious about how others are impacting their communities through farm education. You're in the right place. Let's dig in!
Christa Hein 1:00
Hi. Today we'll be talking to Andrea Parent-Tibbetts of Clover Brooke Farm in Hyde Park, New York. I'm so inspired by their farm programs, both on and off the farm, as well as their vibrant online presence. I can't wait to ask her all about how they got started and the programs they're sharing with their community. Thanks so much for talking to me today, Andrea. We'll jump right in. Can you tell us a little bit about your farm? How big is it? What do you raise? What's the landscape like?
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 1:29
Yes, I would love to. I’m the owner of Clover Brooke Farm. I am a woman-run enterprise, and the farm itself dates back to 1850, so there's a lot of history before, but what we're bringing to the farm is basically our focus is basically regenerative farming around, along the lines of both fiber farming and also agrotourism. So we were very fortunate to be able to find a farm after many years searching here in Dutchess County, which is about an hour and a half north of New York City. Of course, you know, hundreds of years that's all it was farmland, and there's still some pretty popular there's some family farms that go back at least a century that are still farming. But of course, with development pushing up from New York City, it has unfortunately, kind of moved the whole landscape around to either high end forest breeding farms or a few small family farms, and then there's these little niches for us, as I say. We are a much smaller venue and looking to start something new and different and unique.
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 2:35
So the farm that we purchased in 2016 presently was on 25 acres, as I mentioned. It dates back to 1850 and one family had owned it from 1850 to 2016. They were a dairy farm for three generations. The third generation decided to kind of move away from farming, and in fact, one of the family members moved out of town, became a professor in Iowa, and the other family member stayed in the area.
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 3:05
But farming wasn't at their top of their choice, and with that in mind, they did not do any work on the farm itself. And our story is such that we let people know that this is truly a labor of love, and the labor part comes from the fact that when they stopped farming in 1960 they did not do any type of keep, any upkeep, any type of renovations to the farm. So when we came here, it was about 30 years of overgrowth, pastures turned into woods, and so the whole purpose of giving this landscape is to let you know that even though it's what I refer to it as a diamond in the rough that had a lot of promise, because not only did it have its history, but it had barns dating back to 1850 and, one barn an earlier turn of the century, built in 1920. The story we tell people when they come for the tours is, we all may well, most of us remember the company, Sears and Roebuck. And Sears and Roebuck was known as a merchandising company. They also had house kits, but what we learned is they also had a barn kit. And so one of three of our barns is a kit from Sears and Roebuck that, of course, I'm dating myself at this point, but it goes back to when I was a child. I used to look at Sears and Roebuck wish book, and we would all dog ear the pages for all the Christmas gifts we wanted.
So with that in mind, it has been the journey between my husband and myself. Prior to purchasing the farm, we were both working full-time in academics. He's a college professor, I was a school administrator, and as soon as we purchased the farm, I realized that it was going to take more than just weekend jobs, which is why I retired first. And the whole purpose of retirement was to start a business. To kind of grapple with, you know, entrepreneurship, women in agriculture.
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 4:51
I had been in this venue through other organizations in New York state, one of the popular venues is Cornell Cooperative Extension. We've been a 4-H family for decades, and I've been very supportive for a lot of community activities. And so it kind of came naturally in terms of my feeling of I know I can do this, and I had a lot of support from community members. And so it meant that I quit my job, farming full time, but for the first three years was cleanup, as you can imagine?
Christa Hein 5:20
Yeah.
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 5:20
So that's kind of where we are at this point.
Christa Hein 5:23
So what is your landscape like? Are you hilly? Are there waterways on your property? Do you have - what types of animals do you have?
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 5:31
We've a little bit of everything, which is one of the reasons we call it, you call it countryside farm, rolling pasture, there are horses beside us that belong to another farm. They still do fox hunts here in Dutchess County, which dates back to one of the fox hunt clubs that goes back to, I think, the late 1800s. So as you can picture that rolling hills, ponds, waterways, just very bucolic. But in our property itself, of the 25 acres we have, let me think for a second, 19 acres in pasture, 4 acres of barns, and I should say buildings, and about 1 acre combo of federal and state wetlands. Which is not bad actually, because that as you can imagine, could be an issue in terms of pasture raising animals. But we have been working very closely with both the USDA office and soil and water conservation as soon as we purchase the farm. Having the knowledge that Cornell Cooperative Extension, again in New York State, that just county offers a lot of these wonderful services, they really were my teachers along the way, helped me develop a farm plan, helped me kind of think things through. And we are still developing more plans for growing as we not only raise fiber animals, we also have a handful of dairy goats. And I laugh because you just had 21 born, so I guess it's more than a handful. Yeah. And then also we are raising hops, which are used for brewing beer.
Christa Hein 7:02
Awesome. And I saw on your site that you also raise bees as well. Is that correct?
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 7:08
We do. So the fun part of this has really kind of been a combination of both my husband and my own personal interests that we always wanted to pursue, not one having the time or two, really the location prior to moving to the farm. And so as he's a biology professor, and of course, there's very few biology professors out there that don't work with yeast or brew beer, so that actually has always been a hobby of his. And we have always been both very interested in bees, but his timing, because bees tend to be more seasonal, and as I said, he works, and he has the summers off, he tends to be I tend to all the other animals. So we have a bit of a division of responsibility, but many times it overlaps, and it works really well. So it was a venture that not only we as a couple decided to take on because it's something that it would be very difficult, given what we've been through with all the work to do it one person, unless you had an extended family and or people to hire. And we really wanted to do everything ourselves, the best we could, because we really wanted to get the feeling of what it meant to kind of basically open a farm back up, clear the land, set it up, etc. So I do basically the mammals, he does, all of the insects and the hops.
Christa Hein 8:25
Nice. I read in your newsletter that you've welcomed over 3200 guests to your farms, and have shared over 225 virtual farm visits with some pretty notable clients. That is amazing. Can you tell us about the different programs that you offer at Clover Brooke?
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 8:42
Of course.
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 8:42
So, I have the concept of basically hit the ground running. It's really a second career for me. I was in school administration for 30 years, so you could probably figure out potentially, my age. So it was one of those things I really wanted to kind of get moving right away, we had a lot of momentum, some interest of people in the community. So between the guests, our program started with llama and alpaca hikes. It has now expanded into goat walks.
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 9:01
We also offer what we call a warm and fuzzy small animal experience. And the purpose of these three experiences is to be able to allow all ages of participants on the farm. Because some of them are restrictive based on the hikes, but you have a larger animal and so then we added what I termed, I coined, llama yoga, lavender loofahs. And that was basically a yoga class with llamas moving around you. Another part of that, I think you mentioned the lavender loofahs. And so the other part of that is to be whatever I teach on the farm, and the purpose is for it to grow, is to use the resources we have here physically. And so we have a natural as I mentioned you call it countryside. And yoga is a lot of kind of meditative practices. And having some llamas there is of an interest.
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 9:54
Then we then venture into teaching them how to wet felt a bar of lavender, soap lavender. It typically goes with yoga, and what your the materials are using to felt, the soap, are wool supplies that come for, actually, I should say fiber supplies that comes from both our sheep, our llamas and alpacas. So that we started with seven classes for yoga, every class with a maximum of about 25 people. And it really grew. We also were reaching out and working with other organizations in the area, town of La Grange and other places offering community days.
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 10:28
As you can imagine, Hudson Valley tends to be a playground, a tourism playground for people in the city. And so we also were connected with, and have still connected to, basically concierge services, people who are planning weekend activities for people who are coming up from the city. So that grew our population from I think, our first year and we started our llama walk program. I think we had maybe four or 500 people. And even with covid, because I think we were able to, and we still are able to offer a very covid friendly outdoor activities, is why it blossomed so quickly. And then during the time of let's see March 2020 to May of 2020 most of us throughout the country were closed due to the pandemic, and it was kind of a whimsical idea was to hey, let's just throw this in the air and see who wants to do a virtual visit at the farm, because we had, this was the time that we had so much going on.
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 11:26
So I happened to post something on our website, again, literally just threw it in the air to see where the wind was going to take it. A local radio station caught a hold of it, which is not unusual, because our radio stations are always pretty well connected into the community. And then one morning my phone is ringing continuously, and I'm like, where is this going? Well, USA Today got a hold of it, and that's really what blossomed the whole virtual farm visit.
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 11:50
So what we learned along the way was that as long as we can be self explanatory, we can share all of everything with our visitors through our phone. We had to update a few of our my electronic devices. We have a gimbal which allows stability when you're walking your phone, your headphones, etc. That number, even though, I think I mentioned, I don't know, two, 300 it's still growing. And you know what's nice about that is it kind of fills in the gap. So if, for some reason, inclement weather and or I want to hire someone else to start picking up the virtual program we can. And now one other additive I've been working with Amazon, and they now also have a virtual program called Explore. So I'm now been contracted with them to also offer basically virtual experiences.
Christa Hein 12:43
Wow! That is amazing. And I also saw on your site, you've partnered with match.com for llama kissing booth experiences?
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 12:53
I know that's the craziest one I say. So again, match.com, they reached out to us actually, and they were looking for, again, covid friendly activities. And we had pretty strict restrictions of how we could conduct the actual program, obtaining social distance masks, etc, and all refreshments, of course, had to be individually wrapped, etc. So kind of as a comical joke, one of our 4-H-ers. I asked her if she could make us a llama kissing booth, because we have a llama #biscotti, the kissing llama, who is very up close and personal. He is a big smoocher. Everyone loves it. So we said, let's have some fun with it. Because if we can't support any smooching from human to human, at least we can do llama to human, just to kind of lighten the whole events, because the events themselves to match.com range in age from 25 up to 70 in age segments. And you know, that could be, it's difficult for some people who maybe haven't been out in the dating field for decades, and so we are trying to find something whimsical to kind of just lighten the air and get them started. So yeah, that has been a lot of fun. And the other thing is, we're now, we've been requested to take animals to weddings, and now they're asking us if we can bring our kissing booths with us.
Christa Hein 14:08
Yeah, I also saw that you do programs out in the community at festivals and such. So it isn't just programs that you do at the farm, but you also do things out and around town as well?
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 14:18
Well, prior to covid, yes, that was actually how we started, I'll go back years, is when we started with llamas and alpacas. In 2010, we rescued a handful of them and learned that they are just amazing creatures, and participated in a program called Delta Society Pet Partners, which is a therapy assisted animal certification program. So that was really where we got to start. We went through the coursework to have our animals become registered so we could take them around to nursing homes, to schools, to rehabilitation centers. The benefit to that program through Pet Partners is, when you become certified, and it is a series of tests, it could be a little bit of a grueling process, but once you get certified and registered, you are covered through their insurance. So allows you to go to a lot of these different organizations, because most people, if you don't have a farm, your homeowners, would not cover that type of insurance. So that's how we got our start, and it pretty much launched from there. And now, since then, with Pet Partners, because obviously going off the farm is not quite as easy for assortment of reasons, mostly because we have so many things going on here, and also because of covid. I took the winter time to learn to become an evaluator, because I really do believe in animal assisted therapy. So I am now a certified evaluator with Pet Partners to be able to certify other individuals who want to certify could be a dog, cat, rabbits, bird, guinea pig, snake, rat. So it's just the point is it's to help other people deliver animals to therapy, and that's really how we got our start. Because I really do find that it makes a huge difference in people's lives.
Christa Hein 16:01
Oh, absolutely. So when you got started, what was the thing that made you change from being a school administrator to then wanting to start this farm program with animals? What was that backstory that even started the journey for you?
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 16:18
So the story, you know, people always ask me if I have farming in my background, and I did not. I grew up with a cat. I've always had an affinity for animals, but it wasn't until, of course, I was in the situation where I could start having my own animals. And of course, it started with a domesticated dog and a cat. It goes back to when we moved to the area in the early 90s. Our children were young, and we really wanted something different for them to do, because this was the beginning of the whole game boy technology era. Our child, our oldest of three, was into electronics like no one's business. And so we were trying to find something that we as a family could do together. Kept us outside, and also here in Butches County, agriculture is a pretty big driving force. And so we joined 4h and we got started with some goats, brought on some llamas, and it kind of grew from there. But again, prior to all of that, I think the other connection is my husband and I were certified foster parents, and through our travels as both foster parents, I was also a CASA worker certified. They call them guardian ad litem. So I had learned along the way again, the benefits of animal therapy. And that was really once we I had a little bit more time is really wanted to focus. And so we had a couple gaps in there because our kids were young. We do have three, and between the school administrator working many hours and we had a few gaps in there, but my focus was, eventually, was to buy a farm and to make this my full time job and allow this opportunity to people, whether it's off the farm or off the farm or on the farm.
Christa Hein 17:58
So how did you get into the fiber arts, since that's a big part of the animals that you raise. And then I also see that you teach classes in that as well, and you sell products there in your store. Where did that interest in working with fiber come from for you?
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 18:13
It goes back to my childhood. We even though we don't come from a huge fiber arts family, there was a lot of arts and crafts. My mother was a kind of a pick up, put it down, type knitter when she had time. She was a registered nurse, so it was just something that, over time, I developed, and it's hard to put my finger of what the connection was to fiber. I think, to be honest, I'm a big sensory person, and my oldest son also had sensory issues, and so we were always trying to find things that could incorporate stimulation associated with the sensory and fiber, and all of that stuff was kind of a natural go to since I had it on hand without really knowing, I've always wanted to have what used to refer to back in the 1800s your own spinners flock, meaning you had your own backyard fiber, your fiber supplies. And I've taken that a little farther than, I think, what that term was really meant for. Because at this point, we have 18 llamas and alpacas, we have 36 Shetland sheep. And we grew it over time since we've been here for four years, but I had this vision that we would buy a farm in my retirement, I would have a few animals grazing, I would sit back and just drink tea and knit.
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 19:30
Well, I forgot about someone needs to take care of the animals, which, you know what it actually is my personality. I am not one to sit long. In fact, my husband laughs at me when I say I'm just going to sit back and knit. So it has really kind of melded to be kind of a nice marriage. So to say, between my interest in fiber, my ability to raise the animals in a way that I find interesting, and I can interest other people, to educate people, because that's always been my mission in the grand scheme was to develop curriculum and programs that I could offer to others. Maybe they don't want to be a farmer, maybe they just want to learn a little bit about it.
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 20:07
So the other thing that we are developing, we're working with an organization called Fearless Farmer, and we've just developed a farmer for a day camp curriculum. Basically, around all of these focuses whether it's regenerative farming, it's soil health, it's animal health, it's also fiber arts. And so it was something that I had always on my back burner. I really wanted to camp. I wanted kids to I want, you know, I want not only the agritourism, but I want the children to come onto the onto the farm, and to be able to experience what my kids have. So it's kind of been a true journey. I couldn't have told you four years ago, this is where it was going to be. It was a matter of, and I think this is important to everyone, is that there's times you have to step to the side, you have to kind of do a few little kind of jogs here and there, but to keep things somewhat lucid, keep things kind of flexible, and knowing that it will come together in time and pieces. And most importantly, is to be healthy, mindful, and then you'll, you know, and I think that has added to our success also is just kind of the relaxed nature of it, which is very different from my previous profession as a school administrator, I was working 60, 70 hours a week, and I think that was a big driving force. I was ready to do something different and basically talk to my animals.
Christa Hein 21:29
Well, and it's so interesting. And looking through your materials, it definitely has an educational feel to it, that there it isn't just a feel good experience like somebody might classify a stereotypical petting zoo. That almost it was evident that you had this background in education before I had even read that you had been an administrator. So that education component definitely is obvious throughout your work, and I can see how important it is in the programs and in your success as well.
Christa Hein 22:00
So because you have so many things going on, you mentioned that you're a one woman show, and I just have to find out a little bit more about that. Do you really do all of this on your own, or do you have a staff there supporting you with some or a part of the programs, at least?
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 22:18
So being a school administrator is the one fault, because delegating was not always my forte. And I will say, though, as this business grows, I'm delegating more, mostly because I really wanted to build it from grassroots in terms of my thinking. So I will say I even though I say I'm a one woman show, running the program, doing the farm my husband is here. As I said, he's a college professor, so he is what I refer to fondly, Mr. Fix it on the weekends. And so I leave a list of things for him to fix, because, to be honest, I don't have time to do it, nor do I have the knowledge. And reality is, I don't have the patience for some of the things that have to be fixed. I do seasonally hire youth, mostly college students. We are fortunate to have in the vicinity of have three rather large colleges, Bard College, Vassar College, Marist College. We have an intern program with both Marist and Bard, and that's typically where I get my seasonal hires based on their schedule.
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 23:19
Because we're still morphing into some type of establishment I don't know the size. I do want to eventually keep it where I still have hands on. But there's also at the point where I feel that the programs can run with well-trained college students. To be honest, I love the college students. I love their energy. I love what they bring here. The majority of the people that come to the farm, the age group is millennials, and so I'm looking to target both the interest and the action and the energy that brings to that.
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 23:52
And so that is kind of a thought process. Because my prior job as director of HR was thinking through, you know, what is suitable for what we're trying to provide, and also the people who come here what they're looking for. So they are looking for an educational component. They're looking for kind of a feel good takeaway, and they're looking to support farms and the people who work here. And so what better than a college student, intern that's learning about potentially going into agriculture? So it kind of is a really nice grouping of, kind of the thinking between it and so, and then also with the summer camp, again, a college student. I have a couple trained teachers, and I have, I mentioned earlier on a 4-H club, and so I have a lot of wonderfully well, very articulate because 4-H itself develops an amazing, I think I should say young adults through public speaking, through education and so they're also my go to for support for some of these programs.
Christa Hein 24:52
That's awesome. So do you do your own social media and marketing? You have such a vibrant online presence? I just kept going and going in your Facebook and Instagram feeds. Is that something that you're doing yourself, or do you have help on that aspect?
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 25:07
All me!
Christa Hein 25:08
Wow!
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 25:09
And it goes back to my previous job as director of HR, and I was in finance. I knew nothing about social media. We hired people to do that. I worked at a progressive school, and my biggest goal was I'm gonna not only learn how to build my own website, but also learn how to do social media effectively. I will say I've taken a lot of classes. I've listened to tons of podcasts. I will say podcasts are the basis of my first two years of growth for everything. I still do listen to them, and it's just kind of knowing that it's a growing process. It cannot turn overnight, and more importantly my followers are the people who believe in me. I'm not trying to bring in someone who's not because they're not going to take any value from my social media, or, I should say, from my program if they don't believe in it.
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 26:02
And so that's something I've learned along the way, because you can do a lot of sponsoring ads and by people along the way, but what will happen is, if they weren't following you to start with or through a friend of a friend, then they won't stay there. So thank you. I've been fortunate to have some pretty big social media influences come to the farm, and, of course, they have shared. And that's really what it comes down to, is just growing it over time and the hope that others will come and share and, you know, in the grand scheme of things, I think the end all is to be as kind and as genuine as you can and that is the transparent part, which people will believe in and follow you for that.
Christa Hein 26:42
Such good advice. So marketing is something that a lot of people struggle with, but I see that you've been on The Today Show. So picture of you with Dr. Oz, Rachel Ray, USA today. How did you get those types of invitations and exposure?
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 26:57
That was actually through another organization, again, through networking. It was a friend who had been working with animals. She was a dog trainer in the area, and then she moved to Florida, and basically I took over some of her clients, though I still worked for her. So to be honest, it was her connections. But the benefit was the reason we kept getting called back was one we were reliable, because that goes a long way is, you know, often when someone asks you to do something, to commit to it and dedicate your time.
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 27:27
And we were professionals, and I think that is what they really respected. You know, in the media field, it moves very fast. You're there simply, you've been asked to do this, and nothing else. And I learned early on, unless they asked you, that they don't want to know. They don't want to hear. So we were very, as I said, predictable, responsible, professional, and that's why it kept us coming back each time. So I have to say it was literally a crazy ride, because what you don't know is, I will, I have a truck and trailer for our large animals, but I do not drive any farther south in the Bronx, which is one of the boroughs of New York City, north of the city. So in order for me to get into the city, I have to find another way to get my alpacas down there. And so I have a Honda Element, kind of like a minivan. And so my alpacas hop in the back and I drive them right down into Manhattan. And some of the ways we get up to the studio, it's kind of crazy. We have to take multiple freight elevators. We have to walk around the block. It's a crazy ride. And I keep thinking to myself, even though I love it, I don't know how many more years, because driving into Manhattan with two alpacas in the back of your car is a little nuts.
Christa Hein 28:36
So you also have some pretty good partnerships with Airbnb, and I see you also work with Trip Advisor. How did you explore and come up with those connections?
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 28:47
So I would always recommend to anyone who's starting out, and this is the reason why I have a good connection, is I did not have the budget for marketing, and so with that in mind, I hopped onto the Airbnb platform, and what you do is because they offer both accommodations and experiences, we listed our experience with them, and the benefit to that was I had a much larger audience than I would even if I paid for sponsorship in any way. And so that's how we got our start. There's a clause to it, though, 20% of all fees from your experience through Airbnb is basically the cost involved, which include their booking platform. It would include also their marketing and so on.
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 29:33
So I will say to anyone who's looking to get started, that is a great place to launch from, because their audience is larger than I think any of us could accumulate, even over a period of 10 years. So once we were solidly with Airbnb, my plan was to eventually navigate off of that platform part time, because the thinking was, if I had enough following to Airbnb who believed in my product that I was offering. They were following me through social media, which was my guarantee that I think I could then bring them over to my own website platform. And that's what has happened. So I still maintain a presence on Airbnb because it is an area that or a market that I can't typically reach at times. But I think what I'm seeing now, in terms of our visitors, is not only they continue to grow, but they're also reference from other people, and they're also returns. We have a lot of returns now. So that was the thinking is, you know, once I got my presence strong enough, I would navigate off and save myself some money, basically, because I've already put the money into my website, put the money into my social media marketing, and that's kind of where we are, and trip advisor is something similar. I don't find that their audience would be quite as large. And to be honest, they're not quite the age group that I think is the attraction to our farm, and that's a big component, is people need to think about who is your market, what are they, and who are they? And there's more and more platforms that are showing up there. There's VRBO, via tour, lots of them, and you need to figure out which one do you think is your audience, and which one are you willing to allow your cost reduction to go towards until hopefully, you can launch on your own.
Christa Hein 31:19
So with Airbnb, I see that you get a lot of tours with your llama walks and your goat walks. And so just a farm technical question, how did you train your animals to be so friendly, to allow complete strangers to be able to handle them with ease? What was your trick with that?
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 31:39
So two fold. First of all, we're going to go back to we have a 4-H club here, and so it kind of goes hands in hand is we have always had hands on our animals, and mostly because of the safety for our children, for our own personal children, and also the 4-H children that are in our club. And that actually kind of plays out through all the animals here in the farm. But also it's a continuation of our pet assess, our animal assisted therapy program. Also is that they need to also be, for lack of better term, what they call bomb proof in the horse field, what I call predictable. And the next level of predictable is called complex, meaning that there is nothing that is going to make them I don't want to say misbehave, but let's say spook.
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 32:20
And the problem is, when you're bringing people onto your farm, liability is absolutely huge, and that is, unfortunately, what plays out in your insurance policy, too. And so obviously, making a safe environment for both your family but also for your visitors, is number one. And so training is ongoing, continuous, never stops. But at the same time is once you get your animals up to a certain speed and you have a successful we'll say llama alpaca hike program, a goat walk program. Training is happening every day, and that's what I tell our visitors, is, not only are they paying me to exercise every day, they're also paying me for them to train my animals, and I greatly appreciate it.
Christa Hein 33:02
Right! So what is your biggest challenge with your business and your farm?
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 33:06
I'm one of these people that my glass is always full, and so I always look as a challenge, as something that I'm going to conquer. But I will tell you the thing that still makes me nervous. Well, I don't say it makes me nervous, I have to kind of regroup this, is risk is still an issue, and I think that's not surprising, and it's not just farming, it's in any field. You could have someone that could slip on a pebble and still come back to you, and unfortunately, could really hurt your whole business. And being in a school administrator, as I mentioned, director of HR, I was also Director of Finance, is risk was my job, and so I think the most important part is to be communicative, to be transparent, to tell people why they're coming there, and educate them with the knowing that you have covered, hopefully as many areas as possible to reduce. And I tell this to reduce their risk and to provide a truly enjoyable experience.
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 34:05
And I think that is what allows me to succeed. But occasionally we do have a little blip along the way, someone who maybe misunderstood what we were saying, and so that's kind of part of it. I think that to be a realistic I think that's my biggest part. That's always, let's say this always in the back of my head, everything else that maybe could be considered a challenge is something I know I can tackle. It may not be done overnight, but it'll eventually be done. But the risk part is something I think that people can never be too careful and to think about through all scenarios. When we were offering our hikes, I can't tell you how many different dry runs we did, bringing friends onto the farm and basically just asking them to try all these different things, just making sure that again, it was bomb proof. Same thing with goat walks and same thing with some of our other experiences. So I guess that's the question. Is practice, practice, practice. Experience it with friends who are willing to spend the time and help you along the way, and that will help you kind of set the tone for the experience going forward.
Christa Hein 35:01
What's the biggest area of your work that you're curious about growing?
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 35:06
Educational classes. That's really where my focus is. I'm one of these people that once I get something going and I know it's going, well, I'm willing to hand it off. And there's a lot of education that one I want to happen I want people to understand the concept of farming, the importance of farming, the benefit to it. I want them to feel as though they can learn too, and so that's kind of where my focus is. My husband, who's a college professor, it kind of comes naturally. He is a biology professor, so his wanting to teach others at any age information. And you know, it doesn't mean they have to take a take on a farm or there to become farmers, but at the very least, to have an appreciation of this venue. And I always tell people that, and I don't include myself in this, maybe I should is I find farmers are the most intelligent people I know. Because as a farmer, you have to be fluid, you've to be willing to learn, you've to be willing to continue with something, you just have to be ready on the go all the time.
Christa Hein 36:08
So, last question I have for you, Andrea, what advice would you give to somebody just starting out? Thinking back to where you were when this was all just an idea in your head, what advice would you have liked to have heard?
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 36:20
So I got up to a slower start, obviously, because we had children that we were raising. We had full time jobs, but every moment I had, I took to volunteer and help out at other farms, all different types of farms, because I wanted to shadow them. I learned about what they're doing, and because a lot of the organizations I was in was also agriculturally based, I wanted to have a deeper understanding.
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 36:43
So my suggestion is, do what you can to help out, volunteer, if you can. Start small and layer slowly, because it can catch up pretty fast without you knowing, I will have my story about my four sheep that went to 36 really fast. So I think if you can shadow, if you can continue to educate yourself, I mean, my husband I consider ourselves lifelong learners, and make it fun. Because if it's not fun, then it's not going to be something you're going to enjoy doing.
Christa Hein 37:16
Absolutely. Well thank you so much for talking to me today, Andrea. Your farm and programs are such an inspiration. Where can people go if they want to contact you or find out more about Clover Brooke Farm?
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 37:27
You can reach out to us through our website, www.CloverBrookefarm.com, and that's Brooke with an E. And of course, we always say, please follow us along on social media and also Facebook. And if you want to learn a little bit more about the experiences, you can go to also Airbnb to hopefully if it's something that you're interested in building over time. And of course, as a women entrepreneur and educator, I do encourage anyone, if you have any questions, please reach out. I love to help others along the way, so they can also secure their dreams for their future.
Christa Hein 38:00
I so appreciate you joining me today, Andrea. Thank you so much.
Andrea Parent Tibbetts 38:03
My pleasure. Thank you.
Christa Hein 38:06
Hey, farm educators, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Before you go, I've got something special for you. If you're ready to build a farm education program that people are excited to book, grab my free guide, Five Simple Steps to Growing an In-Demand Farm Education Program. It's packed with the same steps I use to grow my own farm education business, and it'll help you get noticed, attract clients and make an impact. Just head over to www.farmeducatorsroadmap.com/fivesimplesteps to get your free copy. It's quick, easy, and will make your programs irresistible. I can't wait to see what you create.
Christa Hein 38:48
Thanks for listening, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
