Do you ever wish someone in the family owned a farm you could just pop out to occasionally?
Just to fill your lungs with fresh air, see some animals and leave all the hard work to someone else.
Well, Penny Allen and Dave Hanson (pictured below) are like the grandparents you never had, complete with cute sheep, alpacas, goats, chickens, geese and fresh coffee.
They have opened up their property as the Haigslea Ewe Nique Hobby Farm.
Mr Hanson gets a kick out of introducing himself to visitors.
“I’m Farmer Dave, not to be confused with (council’s) new CEO David Farmer,” he chuckles.
“Originally we were selling orchids and lotus pods, then our supplier stopped buying, but we noticed that mostly when people came to get orchids they would spend more time patting the animals. So we thought we would open the farm up for people to come and feed the animals.”
Ms Allen wants people to come and have an intimate experience.
“We only have a small number of people though at a time, we want to be able to give everyone a personal experience. We want our visitors to experience the relaxation of the farm,” she said.
“Come and feed the animals, sit and have a fresh coffee and a home baked muffin or quiche. Sit back and relax.”
All of the animals are their pets with names and accordingly have plenty of adventures to keep visitors amused.
“Gabriel, an alpaca, likes to sit in the dam. Foxy, also an alpaca, loves selfies,” Ms Allen said.
“Toffee, a sheep, likes to sometimes wear sunglasses or a hat and he likes to be in front of a camera.
“The goats, AK (for adorable kid), BK (for beautiful kid) and CK (for cute kid) don’t have very good table manners and can often be found climbing up and standing on top of it.”
The hobby farmers opened mid last year and they are already expanding their facilities.
“We are putting in a shipping container that will be our café with a nice decking area to sit on, and planting bamboo around the back so it’s secluded from the road,” Ms Allen said.
“I have plenty of ideas, but the drought isn’t helping at the moment. We are having to buy in all of the animal food.
“Later in the year I am hoping to introduce sheep gelato so I’m working on recipes for that.”
Haigslea Ewe Nique Hobby Farm is open Wednesday, Friday and Saturday 9am to 1pm.
Bookings are essential at apennyj@gmail.com or 0410 487 263.
Entry is $5 per person with a completmentry animal feed bucket for children. A morning tea deal is available for $18 which includes, entry, animal feed, fresh muffin or quiche and cup of coffee.
They also take bookings for children’s parties. The address is 187 Missigs Road, Haigslea.
For more information view their Facebook page.