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Shalom Hill Farm is set in an environment of restored prairie grasslands, we encourage you to walk around, explore our grounds, and meet some of God’s creatures, both domestic and wild. There is a guide pamphlet available for the three walking trails we established in the summer of 2005. These all begin at the northwest corner of our building site just past the grove.
The buildings at the Farm include the retreat spaces of the Shed and the Prairie Spirit Commons, an old stone cottage, a large hip roof barn, a hen house, and other numerous farm buildings You will also find a wind generator (completed in October of 2007), the private home of the Yackel-Juleens, a mobile home and several garden spots in season.
The Shed has a vaulted ceiling with pine sided walls and a corner stone fireplace in the large comfortable meeting space with couches, tables, and folding chairs. There is a full kitchen, a men’s and a women’s bathroom with showers and nine guest rooms, each with two twin beds. The three main floor bedrooms each have one additional futon for a total of 21 beds. This building has central air and heat with separate electric heat available in each bedroom.
The Prairie Spirit Commons houses our office, 18 bedrooms, a library/meeting room, greenhouse, conference room, community/dining room and a licensed food service kitchen. An environmental architect, who sought to make use of the land and renewable resources while at the same time creating a structure that blended well with the prairie landscape, designed the building. As a result, the Commons is built into the hillside stair step fashion, using earth insulation on the north side. The south side is composed mainly of windows, which with the help of special floor tiles, allows the solar heat to warm the rooms in the cooler seasons and provides grand views. We at Shalom Hill have a commitment to reducing the amount of energy used, thus, we encourage use of the natural heat sources, such as the sun, wood burning stoves & fireplaces, or extra quilts on beds, before resorting to the electric heat which is available in each bedroom. In the warmer seasons, the building is air conditioned by air from the crawl spaces. The underground air is a constant 56 degrees, and requires less energy to cool down than outside air.
The Food
We believe that it is important and just to eat locally grown foods, both for our health and for the benefit of local producers. All meals are home cooked and carefully prepared using as many locally grown foods as possible. We create all meal menus, but will consider requests. Our meat is growth hormone free and purchased from local farmers. Many of the vegetables we serve are grown right here on the farm. We frequently serve homemade bread fresh from our kitchen. We also have farm fresh eggs from our own hen house. We will do our best to accommodate special dietary needs if we are notified before your arrival (food allergies, vegetarian requests, etc.).
Reduce, Re-use, Recycle and Compost
As a part of God’s people to care for creation, we practice and encourage reducing, re-using and recycling. Guests we serve meals to are provided cloth napkins and cardboard napkin rings to personalize and use during their stay. You will find recycling bins in the common areas of both the Shed and Commons. We generally sort waste into recyclables, burnables, and then what doesn’t fit those definitions goes to garbage collection. Composting is also an important part of our system. It not only reduces waste, but also nourishes the soil and sometimes the chickens and cats. Please use the compost bucket we provide after every meal for collecting the plate scraps.
If you are cooking your own meals we encourage you to follow the “three R’s” as well as the composting practice. In addition, please use our washable dishes for serving meals. We strongly discourage the use of non re-usable materials, like plastics and styrofoams, which cause waste disposal issues and are destructive to our environment.
Linens
Your bedding and towels are provided, but if you choose to bring your own linens, you would be helping us out in the laundry room! We also ask guests to make up their bed on arrival and then also strip them before leave. Youth groups seem to do best bringing sleeping bags as they seldom take time to put the sheets on. All year round we try to harvest the wind and sun’s energy by drying our linens outside. A bonus is the pleasant crisp smell and feel drying outside gives them.
Animals
We invite you to visit the barn, sheds, and pastures where you can usually find the goats, sheep, and chickens. The dog, cats, and goats enjoy interacting with people, but please do so with care. Although our cats and dog are very friendly, please keep them outside, as that is their place here. We are also sensitive to guest allergies which is another reason to keep the pets outside.
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