Your hosts, John and Doris Landis, have shared many happy memories in their home and they have now remodeled it and are opening it up for you to come and create some of your favorite memories.
John and Doris started their lives here in the 1970’s when they purchased the farm from John’s father. Landyshade Farm was then created. Their farm is located close to one of the busier intersections in Hempfield Township, at Colebrook Road and State Road. John and his son, John Jr. are building an ag-focused business on one of the most valuable corners for development in the Township. They built their farm up with hard work and wise management. Dairy farming is a 24/7 operation, with many full-time employees, and John Jr. at the head of the operation. Their numbers are impressive, over 23,000 lbs. of milk daily from 375 head of dairy cows,that adds up to 7,500,000 lbs. of milk a year. When processed, that’s around 750,000 gallons of milk from Landyshade, sold to milk processors throgh the Mount Joy Farmer’s Cooperative. Farming is harder today than it was back in the 70’s. The traffic is so much worse than it was just a few years ago. Hauling feed, manure, or anything like that is now harder. Costs have gone up also. It is very difficult to rent ground these days. Much of the good farmland is expensive to rent, so we have to go further from home to find places to grow feed for our cattle. The farm has grown as needed throughout the years including the addition of a heifer barn and a calf barn. We have looked into ways to use the resources we have and to conserve energy in many ways.
John and Doris have always kept their home and property well and that habit led to their other major business. One day, John decided to make the flower beds and garden around their large farmhouse look better. “I took a truck and got a load of mulch from a company in Manheim and dumped it out behind our barn.” Friends from the neighborhood stopped and asked him if they could buy some of the mulch he was using. After hauling several loads for friends, he put out a small sign along the road in front of the barn. People started stopping and asking if they could have it delievered to their homes, homes that were growing up all around “Landyshade.” In 1983, we began the mulch business, now we receive hundreds of tractor-trailer loads of mulch and screened topsoil every year, and deliver it to landscapers and consumers with our own trucks.
