WILLOW CREEK — The Farr family has been milking Holsteins on the same 200 acres since 1919, when Henry Farr’s grandfather, Elias, started the operation with a dozen cows and a milk route that served the mill workers. This autumn Henry Farr is trying something no Farr has tried before: charging admission.
Farr Family Farm opened a five-acre corn maze and pick-your-own pumpkin patch on Labor Day weekend, marking the largest agri-tourism investment in Willow Creek’s history. The maze, designed in the shape of a moose, took three weeks to cut and winds for more than two miles of pathways through what is normally hay ground.
“We’re still a dairy farm first and always will be,” Farr said. “But if folks are driving by on their way to Baxter State Park, they might as well stop. Nobody comes to Aroostook County to see a cow, but a corn maze shaped like a moose — that might be something.”
The attraction also includes hayrides on weekends, a farm stand selling apples and cider doughnuts, and a “pooch patch” where visitors can photograph their dogs among the pumpkins. Admission is $8 for adults and $5 for children.
Farr milks 35 Holsteins — down from a peak of 80 in the 1950s — and sells raw milk and cream to local customers and the Dry Dock restaurant. He has not turned a profit in seven of the last ten years; his wife’s teaching salary and a conservation easement keep the operation afloat. The farm’s woodlot is leased to Niall O’Flaherty for maple tapping under a long-term agreement.
First-weekend traffic exceeded 300 visitors, Farr said, many of whom lingered to buy apples and jars of honey from O’Flaherty’s Maple, which Farr stocks at the farm stand.
“It is not going to make us rich,” Farr said. “But it beats watching the milk price drop and feeling sorry for yourself.”