North Little Rock, Arkansas is home to the St. Joseph Center, a non-profit organization based on a historic building that was once a children’s orphanage run by the Catholic Church.  The impressive structure was built in 1910 and currently there are several Artist’s Studios inside the spacious old building that houses other functions. As a Harvest Hosts site, we used our membership to park our RV free for the night.

Currently the St. Joseph Center is an educational and working farm. The grounds are really beautiful. The first thing Sher and I did after we parked was to take a stroll around the main building, enjoying the old statuary and flower beds. We also got our first look at the garden plots. Turns out that there is a large citizen garden space  where locals can come and, for a modest fee, have their own personal garden plot.

The Farm Stand, in other words the store, offers locally sourced goods ranging from in season produce to canned veggies, jams and jellies, pickles and cheeses. Local sourced flour, grains, and even meats are for sale. We certainly took advantage of Michelle’s opening the store for us and we made several purchases including pickles, pickled green beans and peppered Colby Cheese.

 

 

 

 

 

There are quite a few head of livestock on the farm. Steve directed us to pastures and pens where goats, sheep and beef cattle make their homes. The sheep had recently been sheared ready for the hot summer. I enjoyed seeing the good quality cross bred cattle. Several calves were still on their mothers and would have been fall calves. There are also chickens supplying a great supply of free range eggs. There are two sets of beehives, and we purchased some delicious honey produced by the honey bees right there on the St Joseph Center grounds.

Sher and I enjoyed our visit at this educational farm. Owner’s Steve and Michelle made our visit to this sustainable operation very pleasant.   Recently North Little Rock was hit by a series of tornados. Fortunately the St Joseph Center only suffered the loss of several beautiful old trees, but no animals or buildings were damaged. Here is the farm website.