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Approved 12/12/16 OC Board of Adjustment – 10/10/16 Page 47 of 113 1 Kara Brewer: Yes, we are. So specifically for the weddings we’re integrating a couple of different things. 2 We’re doing farm chores for the guests, honey tastings, floral workshops. For example, if the brides or the 3 bridesmaids or flower girls wanted to do floral crowns you could do something along those lines, yes. We’re 4 integrating that into each of the weddings. 5 6 Andy Petesch: And then you talked about some of the operational activities there that would involve the 7 farm and the barn itself. It’s going to be utilized for storage of farm equipment? 8 9 Kara Brewer: Yes. 10 11 Andy Petesch: And you discussed a little bit about the processing equipment. Obviously, when you’re 12 starting the farm that’s a slow process that gets layered in at a time, but you do expect that those numbers 13 for processing the chestnuts is not just your family peeling these things apart. 14 15 Kara Brewer: No, of course not. 16 17 Andy Petesch: Ok so there’s some pretty substantial equipment out there that can process these, 18 mechanically? 19 20 Kara Brewer: Yes. 21 22 Andy Petesch: Ok. And could you just tell the Board. You’ve met with quite a few people throughout this 23 process trying to educate yourselves and as you move forward with this business plan. Could you just run 24 through a list of some of the folks you’ve spoken with and asked for assistance? 25 26 Kara Brewer: Sure. Well within Orange County there have been several people that have been very helpful. 27 There’s an agri-business agent, I guess I’ll call him, who I’ve spoken with and who I was in talks with even 28 during the sup process. So he was very helpful. Mike Rotoski, I believe is how you pronounce his last 29 name. So he’s been very helpful. He introduced me back in, I believe it was, September of 2015 to Annie 30 Bagget who is the state agritourism person. So she’s been very helpful. 31 32 Andy Petesch: Is she with the North Carolina Department of Agriculture? 33 34 Kara Brewer: Yes, and she got us listed on the state agritourism websites and we’re under weddings and 35 you pick and all that so that was tremendously helpful. We’ve talked to extension agents. Both in Orange 36 County and in Chatham County. In Chatham County Debbie Rues has this beautiful pollinator garden out 37 by the Chatham market place. So of course because we’re doing so many things with bees I was 38 particularly interested in that, so she gave me a really fantastic tour of those garden and the specific types 39 of plants. She actually has a workshop that she does. We’re interested in doing composting, of course, so 40 specifically we went to a workshop a couple months ago. It’s fascinating with the worm composting. They 41 have a worm barn over at NC State and so we’ve done that. Next month I have a flower farmer workshop 42 for beginning flower farmers that I’m going to. There are just a lot of different resources in our area that’s 43 good for people starting out like me. 44 45 Barry Katz: Have you ever lived on a farm? 46 47 Kara Brewer: I have not, no. 48 49