Geneva’s Weathered Ways Farm offers free, local-oriented events this summer and fall

After a momentum-driven 2021, owner Ashley Keller exudes a sunny disposition about Weathered Ways Farm, a Geneva-based collective with a farmers market and space for community events.

Visitors who ventured last season to the spot at 39W270 Keslinger Road should expect expanded offerings across the board, a catapult to what Keller hopes is the creation of a longstanding Kane County favorite.

“This year, what I’m trying to do is provide the community with enough great events that they can come to that won’t cost an arm and a leg, or don’t cost anything at all, even,” she said. “So that they can see what we’re doing while we’re doing it. So they’re going to come there and they’re going to see the progress, and they’re going to see what we’re making so that next year they can come back … and support us.”

Planned offerings in one of the property’s two barns include free date night yoga (Aug. 12), a free Oktoberfest party (Sept. 16) and a chili cook-off with no entry fee, set for Nov. 13.

While Keller has reminded visitors, especially early in the season, that some facility construction remains a work in progress, she feels the rustic, community experience will be worth the trip as the project develops — and well beyond.

To her, Weathered Ways sets itself apart by being “more of a place where you go with your family and you stay for a while, and the kids are running through the alfalfa fields and they’re playing with kids’ toys out there and bags and stuff that’s fun for adults and for kids.”

The Local Love Market features 35 vendors and operates from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the second and fourth Saturdays of each month.

“Initial expectations when I purchased the farm were a dream, of course. I’d never done it before,” Keller said. “And it was very much like, ‘OK, year one, we’re going to put up a barn, we’re going to do all these things.’

“And reality kind of hit year one, where you’re trying to get (utility) installation and a well put in and trying to do everything the correct way through the county, and just delays, obviously, with COVID and everything that’s going on. So I am in a very comfortable place right now, but I can definitely say that it was much longer than expected to get everything kind of off the ground.”

Gerrit Husar, farmer florist and proprietor of Farmdog Flowers in Batavia, built a quick rapport with Keller when the pair had adjacent booths at the St. Charles Farmers Market in 2020. Now, Farmdog grows almost an acre on the Weathered Ways property and sells on-site.

“Weathered Ways has become family,” Husar said. “Being able to make land and machinery available to small, startup farms like us is unlike anything else, anywhere. This sort of model simply doesn’t exist to my knowledge, and it’s genius.”

For more information on events or other offerings, visit www.weatheredways.com.

This article originally appeared in the July issue of Kane County Magazine.