The Long Way Round

The answer to all the inquiries about how we started Foxhole is that we took the long way. Like an epic road trip, we followed a course which wound its way from one foundational stop to another. Let's face it, we had no choice! Being fresh out of school, there was no pool of resources which would allow us to take a short cut to a piece of land to play with. Okay that's not entirely true, there was once that we attempted to force destiny's hand and start a veggie garden and business. Destiny knew better than us and a herd of cattle completely obliterated our spring plantings on the land we were borrowing. I'd liken that to getting a flat along the way. We hopped back into the car, euphoric about leaving it behind us to journey onward.
Those times when we've been stuck 'on the side of the road' are opportunities to turn around. Every time we have looked behind us to consider abandoning this trip we are on, our convictions have strengthened, we've thrown the pump up mix cd in the radio, reloaded on snacks and gotten back out there. And the more we experience en route, the more we are able to narrow in on where we want to go. Reflecting on that one time we spent all the little money we had saved up as apprentices on a farm to start our own wee business, we realized how green our horns were.

We had only a few years of livestock experience under our belts, with a side of novice home-gardening know-how. Destiny was right. If the cattle wouldn't have done us in, we would have done it ourselves. Thank you to our bovine friends for putting that project out of its misery before we invested any more of ourselves in it. The next stop on the way was Cornell University for me and joining the ranks of one of the Ithaca area's best and first organic vegetable farms for Rich. It would turn out that the amazing and amazingly expensive agricultural education offered by Cornell was another crux point in our journey. Though it satisfied the nerdy bones in my body, three years of time and resources spent there began to seem like a diversion from the course we were taking together. Although I could have subsidized our farming endeavors with another more academically-driven career, I realized that what I wanted most was to spend my energy on a farm with Rich, our creative energies dancing and sometimes wrestling with each other. And if I was also crossing fingers that I might have little babes, there was no way José that I was interested in holding down a farm, a family and an off-farm career simultaneously.
I hopped back in the passenger seat next to Rich after a semester at Cornell, feeding my soil science curiosity and delving into the atmosphere of institutional learning. And so after months of having been a bit envious of Rich's immersion in an awesome, long-standing family farm, the couple took me on their payroll too. We lived in a barn on their property, heated by a wood stove and donuts from Lou, the Papa of the farm, and said yes to jumping into projects, even on our days off. We poured ourselves into learning from these teachers for a couple of years and befriended other local farmers or artisans, volunteering to help with their projects: caring for a giant yard of log-grown shiitakes tucked in the gorges beside Cayuga Lake, learning to drive horses and mules on a sheep dairy, tapping maple trees to boil down into sweet sweet syrup to last us the year, and one of my favorite side-hustles of mine, working as a relief milker at a raw organic dairy, walking the cows in from the field and milking to their favorite classical music in the stanchions of a beautiful, old dairy barn.
This was a destination on our road trip where it felt like we inadvertently set root that could have had us retiring the road map. We were offered land a couple of times from people whom we had grown to trust. And what a community of fantastic growers, chefs, winemakers, inquisitive university minds, and citizens of the gorges of upstate New York we would have been a part of. We love it there so much. And just as in our few years as apprentices, we had spent our scheduled and unscheduled hours learning from others, observing the various philosophies of the farm. We attended grower conferences every winter and our questions grew more and more pointed. We were getting a sharper vision for what we wanted to call ours one day, and part of that involved being in town with at least some of our family.
That's when we got a note from my aunt in Michigan that a venture capitalist friend of theirs was seeking a farm manager to take on a project of his: a farm sitting on the shores of Lake Huron with an onsite restaurant and brewery, both in their infancy. And so we got back out onto the open road, this time with our latest addition and rescue Oyamel the Dog, and charted our way to a place where part of my heart lies, to the tip of Michigan's thumb, where generations of my family have played on its shores. Now this destination was one of fate's greatest gifts to us. For here, nestled back in my dear Midwest, Rich and I would be able to take on a project largely born of our own ideas and energy. And we would test that energy, building something in that sweet, little summer town and even establishing a foothold in Detroit down the way which proved to us that we could do it. We were also able to bank our precious pennies, living in the little cottage that our family has enjoyed in the summers, and not investing a single one in the project we were bringing to life. We were also able to immerse ourselves in co-managing, working through the growing pains of finding how we work best together.


And then our baby Marion Rose began to brew inside me and her impending arrival would encourage us to finish out the current season on Bird Creek Farm to set back out, onto the next leg of our trip. For me, I would be coming full circle in my personal voyage, back to my Dayton O. As it turns out, while we toiled over where we might want to set deeper roots, it was Rich, the non native who grew fonder of Dayton. In reality, his origin in Westchester County New York was financially unthinkable for our proposition of hunkering down on land and making a living on it from farming. And so once the 8 month game clock began to tick, we scoured the job opportunities back in my homeland. As it would turn out, Aullwood Audubon Farm was also scouring the internet for a new farm manager. AND it would turn out, they wouldn't mind that she was pregnant.
Back in the car (and moving truck with our accumulating furniture and worldly posessions) and Meldog, we headed down good old I-75 to the Gem Citay. For the second time in our time together, Rich and I were apart. He worked construction and searched for farmland, while I grew May and jumped into the non-profit setting at Aullwood, managing people and projects and personalities. It wasn't until May the Belle came hurtling into the world outside of belly and I was called back from maternity leave early that the fire under my rear end glowed brighter. Intentions to work off-farm (our dream farm) for 5, 10, maybe even 15 years to really get us a good nest egg, it wasn't long before they were retooled. Work was stressful, and it felt that my energy was best used with my baby and with bringing something else to life with Rich which would allow me to really contribute something of substance to the community.
And so, notice was given, and I had a date to hold onto on which I would be able to retire my breast pump, and give my babe what she needed: her mother. And all the while we were getting closer and closer to discovering a little plot of silty loam soil with a 100-year-old farmhouse sitting on it in Brookville, Ohio.

And that's where the wild ride we're on has landed us. And yes, we came to this place with way less resources than planned, with dog and baby girl in tow and depending on us. The four of us jumped out of the car, stretched our legs after a long time coming, and put a good amount informal and a little formal education on and off-farm to work building something we hope is great.

I've always enjoyed a good road adventure (okay maybe it was more fun before traveling with young children who don't get as much out of it as me at this young age). And this one I set off on with just Rich and our snacks 12 years ago, has turned into one for the books.
Thanks to the generous folks who paid to subscribe to our Foxhole Journal last year, we were able to fund this site for years to come. More importantly, you all encouraged me to expand on my writing, something which I have now learned to make time for and which I love to do. Going forward, we are making all publications available for free. No more pay wall! If you'd like to contribute still, you can fund my writing by 'buy(ing) me a coffee' any time you'd like. The button you see below will be at the end of each publication going forward. Thank you for reading :).