For nearly 30 years, Bi-Zi Farms has been entertaining Clark County and its neighboring communities with fall festivities throughout October.
The Zimmerman family has been farming the land since 1872, but the name Bi-Zi Farms only came around in 1972.
“Originally, we started in conventional farming, but that was quickly falling out,” said Bill Zimmerman, co-owner of Bi-Zi Farms. “The prices were falling and we were having issues trying to come up with enough acreage to remain viable moneywise.”
In the 1980s, the Zimmermans faced the farm crisis, and though it didn’t affect them as badly, they still needed to figure out where to turn to keep their farm afloat.
This was the time period when they switched from conventional farming to agritourism.
Bill’s son Doug had a desire to build a computer, so in 1993, Doug and his grandmother sold sweet corn off the front porch of their home.
“In about 1996 or 97, we had heard about people doing pumpkin patches, so we planted about three acres of pumpkins,” Bill said. “We were really thrilled when we could park 32 cars here, and then it just kind of grew from there every year.”
Since that first time opening the patch, the farm has added on several different attractions and amenities for community members looking for a good way to spend a fall afternoon.
One of the farm’s first attractions was the petting zoo, and they put it on by borrowing a calf and a pony from different neighbors.
What surprised the seasoned farmers the most, though, was how random things around their farm ended up becoming the most fun attraction for the children visiting.
“We had some straw bales left over, probably 30 or 40 or 50, and the next thing we knew, the children were having more fun playing on that pile than some of the other stuff,” Bill said.
When they put in a bin of corn, the tourist children immediately fell in love with it, something that Bill saw as work instead of play.
“We’ve expanded it every year. We used to buy one truckload of grain, now we have to buy about a semi and a half of corn,” Bill said.
Activities then kept piling up with the corn maze, hay bale maze and even a chore time attraction for children to simulate working like a farmer.
Thanks to a farmers marketing group that the family is part of, they get to go visit other farmers and see the stations they’ve come up with and consider ways to bring it to Bi-Zi Farms, such as one where they had actual ducks race each other.
“We have a duck race station, but it’s nothing more than little rubber ducks, and you use a hand pump and you’re trying to float them down a gutter,” said Joe Zimmerman, co-owner of Bi-Zi Farms.
The catch and difficulty of the business lies now in figuring out which features to bring in from other places and whether or not they’re financially viable for the farm.
“To put out $5,000 or $10,000 a year to add another attraction, you kind of go, ‘it’s going to have to wait a year,’” Joe said.
This roadblock doesn’t stop the Zimmermans from their goal of making the farm a good experience for those who visit.
Despite it being family owned and operated for over 150 years, they find that the farm is not just something that belongs to them.
“It’s about giving back to the community. We really look at our farm like ‘we own the farm, but this farm belongs to the community,’” Joe said.
Learn more at bi-zifarms.com. Bi-Zi Farms is located at 9504 NE 119th Street, Vancouver, open daily from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
