LA CENTER — Torri and Kevin Villines moved their family from Camas to a farm in La Center about nine years ago. They wanted to move out of the more crowded city and teach their daughters — Madison, 17, and Kaiya, 14 — about living in a more rural area.
Now, the family is looking to do the same for other kids.
This fall, they started offering horseback riding for free at their farm, but the sessions have morphed more into a day of showing kids life on a farm. One visiting child at a recent session was walking around the property and asked Torri Villines what one of the animals was.
“It was a cow,” she said. “We take it for granted. If you’re living in town, you don’t have access to this sort of thing.”
Villines and her family know quite a bit about cows. They have eight of them. They also have seven horses, 100-plus chickens, four pigs, two mini pigs, four goats, two rabbits, three dogs, four kittens, a goldfish and a parakeet.
“Most of the kids wanted to spend time with the farm animals, so we started to incorporate that more into their time here,” Torri Villines said.
The sessions were something she and her husband started talking about a few years ago. They got enough horses at the ranch and started looking into setting up a nonprofit organization at their farm. They asked friends Kim Aadland-Shepherd and Allison Wilson to join the nonprofit’s board. Aadland-Shepherd, the director of the nonprofit, used to run the Silver Buckle Ranch in Brush Prairie and also helps run the Clark County Rodeo Bible Camp. Wilson worked as an emergency room pediatric nurse and a school nurse.
Soon enough, the Rockin’ Hope Youth Ranch was open and bringing about 10 kids to the family’s farm a couple of weekends a month for the riding sessions.
“A friend told me we just need a horse and a lead rope and the kids will come,” Villines said. “That’s been the truth.”
The family also has a group of 20 to 30 volunteers who have helped out during sessions, which the Villines’ are thankful to have, as they both work full-time. Torri Villines is an executive assistant at Nautilus in Vancouver, and Kevin Villines is a captain with the Camas-Washougal Fire Department.
As more kids came and showed an interest in the rest of the farm, the sessions changed from strictly riding to a spending day on the farm. The volunteers allow the kids to get some riding time in, but they also let them meet the different animals. They learn how to groom animals and how to walk safely around them. They learn about gardening and where vegetables come from. Showing the kids different farm duties teaches them about responsibilities.
“It brings an appreciation of raising animals,” Madison Villines said. “It shows the kids that you have to be organized and know how to multi-task. Living on the farm has brought life lessons to me that I don’t know if they can be taught. You have to experience them.”
Expanding the sessions to life on the farm also helps keep kids entertained while others are riding or when the weather doesn’t cooperate. When rain started falling hard at the Sept. 17 session, the kids were brought into the barn, where they bottle fed baby goats, held rabbits and giggled at the loud squeal from the mini pigs.
“It’s just fun,” Torri Villines said. “We’re not doing lessons or anything like that. We’re just spending time in the country having fun.”
Karleigh Anderson, 3, agreed. She was at that Sept. 17 session, donning some new pink boots for the occasion. They matched the pink helmet she was given during the session. The matching pink combo was one of her favorite parts of the afternoon.
“The horse was big and nice,” she said. “I liked petting her.”
Karleigh was there with her brother Kaynen Anderson, 5, and their mother, Michelle Anderson of Battle Ground. She heard about the farm through a friend on Facebook and brought her kids because Karleigh is “obsessed with horses,” Anderson said.
“It’s nice to know someone through another person, and nice to know they’re doing something you can feel safe taking your kids to,” Anderson said.
Word has spread since sessions started in the summer. There’s a list of about 15 kids who want to come out to the farm, Torri Villines said.
The riding sessions wrapped up on Saturday, and the plan is to start them up again in March or April, Villines said. However, the family has other activities planned to keep people coming to the farm.
There is a pumpkin carving event from 6 to 9 p.m. Oct. 15, which will include crafts activities and time with the farm animals, a fall festival scheduled for Oct. 22 and a tie-dye party in the barn from 10 a.m. to noon Nov. 12. That event will cost $5, which goes toward the purchase of T-shirts.
Torri Villines is thrilled that the sessions have evolved so quickly to teach kids about life on a farm.
“I had a kid tell me she was going to move in because she loved the animals so much,” she said. “I told her it’s not as fun to wake up at 5 in the morning to feed them all.”
