The Purpose of a Farm

What is the purpose of a farm? Is it just for raising crops and animals?  In the early 1970's, the Roberts Family farmed about 250 acres in and around Layton. Our farm was homesteaded in the 1860’s by Levi Roberts.  He originally built a log cabin on the banks of the Kay’s Creek near the border of Layton and Kaysville.  In 1977, Welden Roberts – great grandson of Levi donated the cabin to the Pioneer Trail State Park (Later renamed to This Is the Place Heritage Park). The cabin was loaded on a trailer and moved to the park located in the mouth of Emigration Canyon. The historic cabin has been fully restored and furnished and is now on display at the park.

Brothers Deven and Tyson make the 6^th generation of Roberts’s to till the soil on the family farm.  For many years the farm was a typical farm of the area, with beef cattle, dairy cattle, horses, pigs, and alfalfa being among the farm enterprises. The Roberts Farm of today consists of various row crops grown and sold at local farmers markets. These crops include popcorn, sweet corn, potatoes, garlic and onions, various grain crops, and movie productions. That’s right, movie productions. Our farm has been the set of 4 feature films, ranging from a cute little family film to a horror movie complete with a murder in the barn. There have also been several episodes of Touched by an Angel filmed on the farm, as well as a few commercials. In addition, the LDS church filmed a small clip of the life of President Gordon B. Hinckley on the farm. The grandchildren thought it was neat to see their grandpa's farm being portrayed as Pres Hinkley's childhood home.  

The first major network TV production was the first time Touched by an Angel came to the farm. The episode was called “In the name of God,” and starred John Schneider and Dick Van Patten. That first episode was the beginning of a friendship between the matron of the family – Mary Roberts and two of the stars of the show, Roma Downey and Della Reese. Whenever a new episode started, the first thing Della would say as she came to the farm was “Where’s my Mary?”

The first movie to be filmed on our farm was produced by Feature Films for Families called “Split Infinity.” Not only was this the first production on the farm, it also paved the way for many other film projects by restoring the barn and making it more suitable for movie productions. Dix Roberts, father of Deven and Tyson had a cameo in the film driving an antique tractor in the background. In the storyline of Split Infinity, the main character falls from a loft in the barn.

Since our barn never had a loft, one was built for the set. The new loft provided a makeshift bedroom for the main character in another feature film entitled Breaking Free. Breaking Free was a feel-good movie about a troubled teen who loved horses. The Roberts farm was transformed into a mountain summer camp for blind children. We were all amazed how the production crew was able to make it appear like our barn was up in the mountains next to a lake.  Breaking free was another favorite production of mine because family members Ruth and Michelle were able to be extras in one of the scenes, or as they call it in show biz, background.  The next big movie to use the farm was Halloween 6, this was by far the worst experience we had with any film production.  They were on the set for 2 days, one day of prep and one day of actual filming.  After bringing several loads of pumpkins and corn stalks, they filmed a scene where a truck crashes into a fence followed by the driver running to the barn where she is murdered.  When they finished the filming, they simply walked away leaving the mess for us to deal with.  Needless to say, we were very upset. 

After the Halloween fiasco we were treated with another episode of Touched by an Angel entitled “Birthmarks,” this time featuring Kathy Lee Gifford. This was especially fun for the family because we were able to spend a few hours visiting with Kathy Lee and her husband Frank. 

The latest film to be produced on the farm was Baptists at our Barbeque. This time our entire family was able to be extras for the filming.

More recently, the Aquabats Super Show filmed an episode at the farm called "Bad Apple" (Season 2, episode 3) and brought in a very special guest star Mark Mothersbaugh, former lead singer from the band Devo. 

As a new growing season is upon us and we have this year's garlic and onion crops planted, we have many jobs and responsibilities on the farm to keep us busy, and we are looking forward to loosing ourselves in the work of producing a good crop, that is until we get another knock on our door from a location scout looking for that perfect setting for a production.