Morgan Vicari is a wife, a firm believer in God, and a mother to three children. She works on her and her husband's farm and is a reserve police officer for the City of Lake Station.
“We are blessed to be parents to three beautiful children. Everything we are doing now we hope our kiddos will be able to benefit from and take to another level when we are older, but besides farming and being parents, my husband is a union laborer and I am a reserve police officer for the City of Lake Station and will be going back full time this year,” Vicari said.
Along with raising her three wonderful children, she has learned a valuable lesson about life.
“Having three kids will physically motivate anyone to get out of bed in the morning. What I have learned in life is that no one is going to show up and make it for me, my husband, or my family,” Vicari said. “If we don’t choose consecutively to do better, try harder, or learn from our mistakes, this world won’t be a better place and you won’t be where God is needing you to be to make an impact on the people and the community around you.”
Vicari and her husband run the farm, and both have other full-time jobs while maintaining the farm and raising their children. Vicari said her favorite part of her and her husband's farm is the honeybees and the sunflowers.
“My favorite part about Vicari Farms is my honeybees and my sunflowers. Keeping honeybees is what started my and my husband's ‘farming endeavors.’ Honeybees are truly the most fascinating little creatures on planet earth. A quick google search will tell you all the fun facts about bees,” Vicari said.
While growing the sunflowers was originally meant just for the bees to pollinate, it has unexpectedly blessed her farm and her life.
“My husband and I started planting sunflowers and other wildflowers for our bees. Once the sunflowers started taking over, I was approached by some local photographers to use my sunflower field to take pictures in,” Vicari said. “Every year since then, my husband and I have invested a little more into our equipment and how we would market our sunflowers. Then COVID hit, and our sweet little farm became the staple place to come to pick sunflowers, see some farm animals, and just have fun.”
Vicari shared how the sunflowers really took off last summer and it has been motivating her to use the beautiful flowers to help out more in the community.
“This past year I had a weird sunflower patch that bloomed during fair week, so I decided to start giving them away. I told people to pick them to people in need, who don’t have the means to come pick flowers themselves, or if you want them to just brighten someone's day,” said Vicari. “I was able to pick hundreds of sunflowers and donate them to all of our local nursing and assisted living homes. Then it dawned on me to start the ‘Free Flower Project’ still in the works and my husband and I dedicated part of our farm to grow flowers just to give away to people for free. We are optimistic and eager to see where that takes us.”
Vicari plans to retire on the farm and pass it on to their children and their children's children.
“We hope when we retire that our little hobby farm will be double or triple what it is now and we can solely put our time and effort into it,” Vicari said. “We have grown so much just in the last five years. Besides growing flowers, we just started raising Texas Longhorn cattle, for beef and breeding. We also grow sweet corn and pumpkins in the fall, then in the winter we hire Santa, set up a beautiful photo booth, and invite the public to take pictures with Santa all free of cost.”
Vicari said if you are looking for a place to escape, feel free to come to check out Vicari Farms to take in some fresh air and enjoy the scenery.
“Vicari Farms is nothing special besides a small plot of dirt with some flowers, farm animals, and an old rusty silo, but it's the people who come and I get to talk to for just a short while and hear about their life and their day and who they’re bringing flowers to that make it a beautiful place,” Vicari said. “Parents tell me that when they bring their kids out here it’s a breath of fresh air, they don’t feel any pressure for their kiddos to act or be any certain way and they can just let them run and be kids. My farm makes people happy, and to keep this going and growing, that’s truly what motivates us to get out of bed each and every morning.”