ANNUAL EVENT Country Tour offers glimpse at Mercer's farming industry

MERCER, Pa. -- The 20th annual Mercer County Country Tour featuring seven stops in the Jackson Center-Wolf Creek area will run Saturday and Sunday.
It's a "drive it yourself" tour offering visits to farms and other venues that are representative of the agriculture industry and rural community of Mercer County.
Participants in the free tour can make the stops in any order. Tour hours are from 1 to 6:30 p.m. both days.
A self-guiding tour map is available at area agricultural businesses, libraries and the Mercer County Cooperative Extension office on U.S. Route 19 about one mile north of Mercer.
Stops include visits to International Timber and Veneer Plant, which processes about 6 million board feet of logs annually; Heather's Acre Alpaca Farm, which breeds and sells alpacas; Jackson Meadows Country Farm & amp; Craft Market and Fair Winds Farm, the former an indoor-outdoor year-round country market cooperative and the latter a sustainable hydroponic, pesticide free 1.5-acre greenhouse; Wil-Den Family Farms, which is a hog farm; Wolf Creek Stables, which is a horse boarding facility; and Buckley Dairy Farm.
Vincent United Methodist Church on Walnut Street in Jackson Center is the tour's designated food and rest room stop.
The tour is designed to give Mercer County's urban residents a chance to see what their counterparts in the rural areas of the county are doing.