Not sure if “Open Barn” is really a thing but we are rolling with it here at Freedom Farms. I LOVE TO GATHER!! I really enjoy having people over to our home (…don’t really like the unrealistic pressure I put on myself to have a neat, clean + tidy home every time someone comes over but I’ve gotten 110% less psycho than I was a few years ago!). As the same as many others, our last year has looked a lot different and has had a lot less gathering than normal. We have done our best to make the most of the situation and restrictions. Over the summer, we offered fishing camps and baseball camps at our home. Our goal was to give kids a safe place to hang out with other kids and have time to enjoy being a kid + summertime. More and more things continue to open up here in Illinois but with living in a very rural community (…nearest large town with 12,000 people is 30 miles away and a city is just less than 2 hours away…) options to do activities is very limited. On a whim, I told Curtis we should have an Open Barn and let others enjoy the abundance of cuteness we have in our barn. Lambs are so fun! They skip, jump, and prance all over. Plus, it’s always neat to get to bottle feed a baby animal. So, on a Thursday I posted on social media that we were inviting people of all ages - 3 months to 103 - to come out on Saturday to the farm. By no means is it any kind of petting zoo around here, but it is a place of love + laughter with cute animals running around making it smell like a true farm. Thirty, yes 30!, people came out!! It was a great time. New + old friends enjoyed petting the lambs, seeing the chickens run around, and a few of the kids even braved it out in the cold to go see the three pigs in their pen. RaeRae’s belly got full and she absolutely ate up all the extra attention. A couple kiddos who were hesitant around the animals at first became right at ease and started hand feeding the animals corn and hay. One grandmother gifted us with a super cute calendar full of sweet pictures of lambs. It was a day full of joy! My heart was full! (and thankfully for a sweet friend - my family’s bellies were full, too, with awesome burgers from a family owned restaurant! She knew the farm was hopping and grabbed us up lunch on her way out. Little acts of kindness mean so much!)Have a dream on your heart? Have an idea but not all the details? Have a desire to make an impact? Do it! Do it scared! Do it not knowing all the ins & outs! Do for 1 what you want to do for 100! Living a life set apart, Rachel Alyse Scripture: Hebrews 13:2 "Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it."Quote: “Instead of building a taller fence, build a longer table.” Love this quote!! We did just that… we had a table built to seat 12 people made for our home! We have gathered with so many people, a variety of walks of life, ages from newborn to way in the wisdom years and we have built great community sitting and chatting with others.