In a small, rural town there are a lot of family farms. Many of which might not look too different from the Hollow at a glance. In my opinion, there is one thing that makes us totally different – it’s me.

Running a farm with my husband is the last place that I thought I would end up. Even after I met Steven – I don’t think either of us thought we would be farmers one day!

I grew up in the suburbs and I’ve always been the ultimate girly girl. I wouldn’t go anywhere without my hair, makeup and nails done. I met Steven at a party and we were total opposites, he was into metal music and had a ponytail, but we somehow worked! After we got married we settled into the suburban life that I always expected for myself and I happily supported Steven and all of his wild ideas.

After having our second son, we decided it was time to move out of our suburban townhome and buy our first house.

 

When I say we looked everywhere, I mean it! Steven had always said he liked the idea of living in the country, so one day our realtor took us to see a few houses in Wilson – we fell in love. We saw a lot of nice homes in our search but when I saw the beautiful trees and charming house which are now part of the Hollow, we just couldn’t leave!

My family thought we were crazy, no one close to us had ever lived that far into the country before. We were nervous about how our diverse family would be accepted in a rural farm community. We did it anyway!

I like to face most of my uncertainties head-on, so when we moved in, I brought each of my neighbors a coffee cake. It took time for the generations of families to warm up their clueless suburban neighbors but they eventually came around. Good thing they did too because we really were very clueless!

We had never had any land before, and our property was all overgrown fields, so we went to Sears and bought a lawnmower. Luckily, we also bought the service plan. Steven tried to mow down all of the fields – we saw the Sears repairman every week! Once everything was cleared it was totally worth it, the property was beautiful!

At that point, we started to get involved with the community. We would go to brunch at the fire hall and I was involved at the boys school with the PTA, and Steven even joined the Firehall. We gradually went from the clueless suburban transplants to active and accepted members of the community. Of course, we were still clueless!

After uncovering the creek on the property, Steven decided to add the pond with some help from our neighbors.

 

We still didn’t think we would be farming here one day. We were busy with so many other projects! Steven has always been the type to try something new, from running a catering company, his restaurants, an e-commerce company, and everything in between. He’s always had an idea and as his wife, I have always supported him. I’ve been his secretary, manager, bookkeeper, delivery driver, and everything else under the sun. I view helping Steven with his businesses as just another way I can be a good wife and support my family – and I love to do it!

As the years went on we really grew to love the area, we became so close with our neighbors that one even left us a piece of his land when he passed away. We started to learn about our property’s history as an orchard and Steven on occasion mentioned that it would be fun to farm. Of course, we never did anything about it.

Until one day Steven told me that he wanted to start a farm on the property… I was not interested.

At this point, I was raising three boys which is enough of a job, plus working for Steven’s other company, and I had no interest in getting dirty and being a farmer’s wife. But of course, Steven took the idea and ran with it, and I let him.

I really didn’t want to be involved, until it came to picking the chickens. Still my girly self, I wanted to make sure we picked the cutest chickens. So Steven let me pick our egg-laying chickens, but I was very clear that they were his responsibility. But then I started to help, and I kind of enjoyed it! I liked getting to know the animals and caring for them, all of a sudden I took pride in keeping them happy and clean.

Since I started helping with the animals I have really found a love for working with them.

 

I walk the property every day and visit all of my animals and give them some TLC. In this unexpected adventure into farming, the best part is that I’m able to do it while still being me. I still have my nails and hair done and I do my makeup every morning. I have so much pride in the way we care for our animals and our property and I have loved my family’s journey to create it.

I think what makes Binksberry Hollow different than other family-run farms is that instead of learning from our family, we learned from our entire community.

While Steven does a lot of the talking in our family, we’ll both be sharing updates about the farm here. Rest assured anything you enjoy from our farm is raised with the highest standards of care.