About the Farm: Chapter One

The story begins. Introduction and Chapter One

This is the serialized story of how an older landowner connected with young farmers to make everyone’s dreams come true. Please comment and share your own experiences, resources, anything you think might be helpful.

Pre reading apology - I am going to switch verb tenses on you a bit. Not within chapters, but sometimes between chapters. Just a heads up. —Eli

Introduction: The Beginning

I don’t remember how or when the dream was first born, but I do remember its infancy.

I was up in Maine during the summer with my Mom and Dad, attending a farm tour sponsored by Johnny’s Selected Seeds. As an avid beginner gardener, I was excited to be so close to the famed Johnny’s, the producer of what is arguably the most gorgeous full color seed catalog anywhere.

A group of about ten attendees was being led around a beautiful market vegetable farm and introduced to the many and varied things to overcome: potato beetles, invasive weeds, boggy spots. After the tour my parents and I chatted with one of the MOFGA (Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association) interns, Jason. A tall, lanky but strong looking 20 something, Jason’s dream was to move back south, nearer to Pennsylvania where he had grown up, and start a dairy farm. My parents happened to own land which had been a dairy farm at one time, in Virginia. When they were younger they spent weekends there, enjoying the beauty, fixing up the old house, growing potatoes and pine trees. These days they had let it go, growing mostly poison ivy and ticks. The conversation drifted to the new agricultural matchmaking: older land owners who lacked the energy to continue farming matching up with young farmers who had energy and passion, but no land.

A plan was made. Jason would come visit my parents at their Washington D.C. suburban home and I would drive them all out to the Virginia property. He would have a look around and he and my parents would discuss a possible match.

Jason arrived in the fall when the vegetable plots in Maine had been put to bed for the winter. It was still warm in Virginia and as I drove the four of us out Route 66, we chatted about possibilities. What would a lease arrangement look like? How many years would a commitment last? How could this be a win-win for everyone?

We spent a lovely day on the land, walking, looking and dreaming. The most important thing I learned from Jason that day was that if young farmers spend years improving soil and infrastructure on a piece of land, they need to know it won’t be sold out from under them. He showed us copies of various lease agreements so we could see the possibilities.

In the end, Jason decided he really wanted to be closer to Pennsylvania, and my parents decided they didn’t want to make any commitments. Even though the three of them were happy, I remember feeling bitterly disappointed. It seemed like such an excellent idea, this agricultural matchmaking. The seed had been planted. Someday, I wanted to be part of making such a match.

The dream stayed in the back of my mind for the next 20 years. To do my part I would need land. And to get some land I would need money, and since I did not have money I obviously couldn’t make any progress. I would also need to find the right piece of land, and then I’d need to find the right young people who wanted to farm. I contacted PASA – Pennsylvania Sustainable Agriculture. (https://pasafarming.org/about-us/) I hoped that their yearly conference could be my answer to finding the right farmers.

One year the beautiful piece of land across the road from us came for sale. A nice pre-fab house, big garage, barns, and forty acres. Perfect location (I’d get to watch the farm take shape!) and perfect size and layout. But. . . I still had no money.

I knew that money would eventually come to me. My parents were getting on in years, and they had wisely kept the Virginia property free from commitments so that my brothers and I would be able to sell it.

Every once in a while, I would talk to my husband about this dream of mine. He thought I was nuts. We don’t commingle our assets, so he could observe my financial decisions without worrying how it would affect him. But he had big doubts as to the practicality of it all. How could something like that ever come together, good land and farmers you can get along with? Think of all the work it would entail. Wouldn’t I rather be free to just enjoy my life? I had my own 1600 square foot garden, a prolific apple tree, pear and apricot trees and an entire fence row of black raspberries and blackberries. Wasn’t that enough to make me happy?

Still, the dream persisted . . . until it didn’t. After 20 years of wishing and hoping and thinking it would be a marvelous idea, I finally came to the conclusion that it would all be too hard. Seriously, where do you find farmers who want to farm in the exact place where you want to buy land? It seemed impossible. So I gave it up, and focused on the many wonderful things in my life, which by then included two spectacular grandchildren. I wanted my life to be simpler, to have a shorter list of things to do. People sometimes have misguided dreams, I told myself, and the healthiest thing to do is to realize when your dreams are impractical and move on.

Chapter One: The Meeting.

“Hey, you two should meet. He’s a rock climber,” Skip points to the young man screwing a binding onto a cross country ski. Skip, the proprietor of our local rustic ski touring center, is a connector, a people enthusiast, an incessant merry maker. He pokes a finger in my direction. “She’s a rock climber. You two should meet.”

And so Walker and I introduce ourselves, and also make introductions to my husband Jim, who is not a rock climber. We chat for a moment about our local crag, but the topic quickly moves on to skiing since that’s what is happening on this February day. Walker looks to be about thirty, with calm, rugged enthusiasm. As he continues working on the pair of skis, Jim asks him about himself and what brought him to this area. He and his fiancé, Lily, have come from out west. They have worked for the past few years on market vegetable farms in order to learn what they can. What they really want to do is buy land locally and start their own market vegetable farm. Jim and I admire their goals and we tell Walker we enjoyed meeting him. Then we head out to ski the powder that has been falling while we talked.

Several days go by and I don’t have a single thought about farms or vegetable growing or past, forgotten dreams. Then, it’s as if I’m being tapped on the shoulder. Pssst. Hey there, did you notice anything interesting about what that young guy Walker said? Does it ring a bell by any chance? Hmmmm?

I whisper back, It’s too hard, remember? Too much work, too complicated, too risky. And I’m too busy with the grandkids anyway. So, forget it.

But I can’t forget it. Something about Walker and Lily’s dream and my dream wanting to set up shop in the same county in the same state is intriguing. Maybe I should at least give Walker a call? I contact Skip and get his number. But I don’t call. Not yet.

This is late winter 2023 and we are enjoying a world gone back to normal without travel restrictions or mandates. I flew back and forth to California every few months all through the Covid years, picking up and dropping off our granddaughter so that she could spend time with us and her cousins, especially while schools were closed. But Jim has not flown anywhere since December 2019. It is high time for a Caribbean adventure.

We choose Exuma, land of crystal turquoise waters and swimming pigs. I remember my father saying he wanted to see that amazing color of water one more time before he died. But in the end, he never got the chance. In the past few years I’ve lost my Dad, one of my brothers, and my Mom. You just never know how much time you’ve got left on earth. I figure I’d better go to the Bahamas now rather than waiting.

We swim and kayak and boat through the saturated hues borne of sunlight reflecting off of white sand in shallow waters; shades of emerald green, brilliant turquoise, pale aqua, with flecks of yellow as Sergeant Major fish swim just below the surface. It is a feast for the eyes, and the quiet remote beaches with gently washing waves are a balm for the soul. But what do I focus on? The seaweed being raked up off the beach each morning.

Denisha, one of the workers at our resort, is out there every day with her rake and wheelbarrow. I need to know where that seaweed is headed. I befriend Denisha and talk to her about making good use of the seaweed. Where is she bringing it? Does the resort realize how much nutrition is in seaweed for building healthy soil? Is she using it in her garden? (yes, sometimes) What veggies is she growing? (Tomatoes and cucumbers) Besides convincing Denisha to use more of the seaweed in her garden, and probably getting the resort to start composting it and using it around their coconut palms, I also learn something important from our morning talks: my dream of a farm is back, dressed up and ready to go.

As soon as we return to the states, I call Walker. I tell him about my almost forgotten dream, and ask if he thinks it might fit in with what he and Lily want to do. We decide to get together so that I can meet Lily and discuss our ideas in person. They will be working on a farm a couple of hours away for the growing season. This will be our meeting place.

On a chilly April day, I drive out to meet with them. At the farm I am greeted by Walker and Lily and Mabel, their exuberant black lab. Lily is cheerful and gracious, dressed in work clothes with her caramel colored hair kept out of her way in a long braid. They introduce me to the owner of the farm, and I am treated to a tour of a neatly kept three acre market garden. There are hardy crops already in the ground, kale and tatsoi and spinach. There’s a greenhouse with wooden tables chock full of seedling flats of tomatoes, peppers and eggplant, waiting for warm weather and transplanting time. They have one crop ready: a beautiful multicolored salad green mix, and I buy a large bag.

Walker and Lily invite me into their apartment, the former carriage house newly renovated. I sit on the couch and pull out my notes. I am nervous. I barely know these folks, and I’m offering to begin a lifetime commitment to them. Do they think I’m crazy? Will they think this is a good idea once we get into the nitty gritty? Will I still think it’s a good idea?

Fortunately, Mabel acts as an ice breaker, laying her head on the couch next to me so I can pet her. I forge ahead. I read aloud my list of what I am hoping for, in both a piece of land and of our relationship. I’m hoping to share in the bounty of quality food being grown, to experience the satisfaction of helping a farm grow and serve the community, to see my money produce something of tangible value rather than just sit in CD’s in the bank. On the land I want a water feature, a creek or river, and for it to have both fields and woods and hopefully a nice house already. I want it to be close to my house, no more than thirty minutes away. I lay out ways we can make sure it is a win-win, that we would set it up legally so that land that they improve will remain under their, and their heirs, control. And I don’t want all of this to take up a lot of my time or add too many items to my list of things to do.

As we planned before the meeting, Walker and Lily have written their goals, too. Lily reads them and Walker adds details. This is a couple in sync. They have obviously put a lot of thought into this, and they are on the same page. They want to be farming on their own farm by a year from now. They have been shopping, looking for a house with at least three acres of flat, tillable land. They want to be off on a side road, away from the traffic noise of main roads. They would love to have some woods as well. Whatever we find and I buy, if all goes well they will want to eventually buy a portion of it from me so that they know it will remain in their family. And they need to be within an hour’s drive of at least one town that can support a farmer’s market.

We are satisfied that our goals all mesh with each other. I ask them what their price range has been as they’ve shopped. Then I pull the trigger on the starting pistol: Let’s triple that amount and shop together.

As I drive away, I’m filled with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. To let off some steam I put on my favorite rag-time band, turn up the volume, and tap the syncopated rhythms into the steering wheel. I’m not the kind of person who makes a commitment and then backs out of it. I’ve just committed to buying a farm.

Want to keep reading? Chapter Two