Wild and Rooted Blog

Category: Farm Journal

Day-to-day life on our farm — the seasons, the weather, the work, and the moments in between. These are personal reflections from the land, written as we live them.

  • How I came to Farming

    A couple sitting in the back of a blue pickup truck parked in a shallow creek surrounded by trees.

    My earliest memories of growing food began in the garden my father planted while we were being homeschooled. Digging through fuzzy recollections, I remember the corn we hung to dry, the giant zucchini plants that seemed to take over the beds, and the enormous weed we carefully nurtured because we were convinced it was a cauliflower.

    Even then, there was something grounding about growing food—about watching effort turn into something tangible, even when we didn’t fully understand what we were doing.

    Sometime in my late twenties, while living on Hollywood Boulevard in a large studio apartment, that early memory resurfaced as a craving to plant. At the time, I was researching indoor vertical gardens and ways to grow my own food naturally—small acts of grounding in a life that felt increasingly untethered.

    Fast forward to finishing my master’s degree and moving cross-country to Nashville, Tennessee, where I met and fell in love with my husband. His former career had been as a nursery owner, and his work now spans landscape design, installation, and construction. One of the first questions he charmed me with was, “What’s your favorite flower?”

    At the time, I didn’t have an answer. There were too many that I loved. The lotus flowers I’d seen in temples in Malaysia. Orchids in Singapore. The tulips my dad sent me when I was a child. The roses my husband courted me with.

    I still don’t have an answer to that question.

    Especially now, as my world has expanded into pollinator habitat design and growth. I’m excited about the blue globe thistle patch we’re adding this year. I love wildflowers and butterfly bushes for the abundance of winged creatures they attract. I love sunflowers because they become napping spots for bumblebees, and crimson clover for its brilliance in May. There is simply too much to love to choose just one flower. If it were up to me—and if funds were unlimited—I would plant them all. I love dressing up the land.

    Long before the farm existed in any formal sense, my husband found this property the way some places seem to want to be found. Wandering down a gated, grassy road nearly a decade ago, he followed the sound and movement of water and fell in love with the winding creeks that traverse the land. When we began carving out a home among the trees, we also began imagining a life together here—one shaped by attention, shared work, and the possibility of earning a humble living from the land.

    But that isn’t how I came to farming.

    I came to farming through an unusual pathway.

    My closest neighbors claim to be farmers. They’ve paired thirteen goats with a single livestock guardian each, created a junkyard at the corner of their property where they traffic in electrical supplies for commercial projects, and leave broken vehicles they have no interest in repairing. They’ve also extended their fence into a shared easement so their dogs can roam and howl twenty-four hours a day.

    Our disputes with the Building Commissioner—who consistently avoids confrontation due to their relationship with a county commissioner and their conduct at public meetings—forced me to look more closely at the definition of farming, Tennessee’s Right to Farm laws, and how easily the appearance of agriculture can be used as a shield—particularly in wooded areas where the impacts are assumed to be invisible and inconsequential.

    In proving what they were not, I found who I wanted to be.

    Around that time, I began looking at our wooded paradise differently. Learning about value-added products, cottage food laws, and which plants could produce offerings worth preserving led me down the path of formally registering our land with the USDA.

    I’ve always loved learning—perhaps a little too much. I took many courses that never resolved into a defined career, but instead opened my mind to creative thought and alternate perspectives. Farming, with its blend of book knowledge and hands-on application, has kept my active mind engaged. I exist now in a constant state of learning.

    And my world expanded.

    The farm is no longer limited by fence lines. It has grown into something like a small universe. Every day brings new questions—from weeds to insects to seeds, from soil health to the ways human intervention can both support and damage micro- and macro-ecological systems. Sometimes I don’t even realize how much knowledge I’ve absorbed until I give a farm tour and the words spill out—explaining why we choose to farm this way, why our orchards, flowers, and vineyards are organized as they are.

    Somewhere in the years leading up to formally establishing the farm, a shift occurred inside me.

    Anyone intent on producing food for consumption and community eventually reaches this fork. When you do, it begins to define who you are, what your purpose is, and how you approach food. To qualify for many USDA programs, grants, and insurance plans, a farm must make concessions—choices that sanitize the end product and, over time, damage the earth.

    The alternative is choosing sustainability: biodynamics, livestock integration, natural weed and pest control, and thoughtful water practices.

    I don’t believe one approach is inherently better than the other. Feeding billions of people requires multiple systems, just as holistic and modern medicine work best when they exist together rather than in opposition.

    But for me, on this small scale, thinking about legacy matters. The ripple effects I want to leave. The life I want to have lived. The experiences I want to internalize. Those things outweighed the potential gains of farming purely for profit.

    I’m willing to forgo perfect products in order to stay aligned with who I am—and who I’m becoming.

    That choice means diversifying crops and weathering short yields. It means exploring alternate pathways to sustainability through partnerships and community engagement. It means learning how to maximize minimal impact, working with nature through espaliered designs rather than carving against it, and shaping a humble living within an existing ecosystem.

    This is my farm.
    And this is my blog.

    I hope my journey encourages authenticity in your own food choices. Even if growing food yourself feels distant or impractical, I hope this connects you to local systems, introduces you to new friends and neighbors, and helps you imagine the world you want to live in.

  • Four Days Without Power

    Four Days Without Power

    We are now post–ice storm, and four days post losing power.

    The freezing rain brought with it a dependence on generators, which we expected in a storm of this magnitude. Days before the ice arrived, we filled the propane tank, stocked the pantry, made sure the cars had gas, put equipment on trickle chargers, and charged extra batteries. We did what we could to prepare so that the damages—whatever they might be—would be minimal.

    But preparation does not always account for everything.

    As the cold settled in, our carbon monoxide alarms began to beep, sending the dogs into a fearful tizzy. At first, we assumed a malfunction. We had already noticed that our electrician had not installed rechargeable batteries in the monitors, and it felt easier—safer—to believe it was just another inconvenience stacked onto the storm.

    But every time I went upstairs in our barndominium to rest, the deepest, most peaceful sleep would take hold of me and pull me under.

    It reminded me of Dorothy in the poppy fields on her way to Oz.

    The last time I let my eyes close and surrendered to that bliss, I heard my husband’s voice from somewhere far away, yelling for me to wake up. There was a piercing alarm, but I buried my head deeper into my pillows and pulled the blankets over me, trying to escape the cold.

    Instead, my husband dragged me from the bed.

    He told me I had to get up. That there was carbon monoxide in the house. That the high winds had kicked fumes from the generator back into our home.

    Like a drugged slug, I pulled on my Elmo onesie—ridiculous and incredibly warm—and with his help staggered down the stairs. I collapsed onto an ottoman and fell into a deep sleep so heavy that even the open windows and icy air couldn’t wake me.

    At some point, I felt my fat basset hound jump up beside me, burrow under the blankets, and press himself against me for warmth. I woke briefly, hugging mounds of fur and weight, before slipping under again.

    Morning came in fragments. From a distance, throughout the night, I heard my husband moving, checking on me, checking on the animals. When the icy air finally hit me like a bucket of cold water, the fog in my mind lifted.

    It wasn’t until I stepped outside that I understood what had been happening.

    My shallow breathing wasn’t anxiety or exhaustion. It was carbon monoxide poisoning.

    We’ve since moved out of the barndominium and into a smaller building while we figure out how to relocate the generator. Only after leaving did I realize how labored my breathing had been—how intoxicating and dangerous the inability to breathe fresh air truly is.

    Now we are on day four with no electricity.

    As much as I want to avoid politics—to stick my head in the sand like an ostrich and just live my life doing what I love, being of service to the land and my local community—I have to say something.

    Our local government has completely forgone us during this ice storm.

    They stopped plowing “their regular route” two county roads down and more than four miles from the farm. So I got on my soapbox and chewed a few ears—from the Roads Department all the way up to the two main contenders for state representation.

    It’s disgusting, really, when you pay equal taxes and don’t receive equal representation or benefit.

    We may live in the woods, but we—and our neighbors, sitting in the dark and cold—deserve access to emergency medical services. We deserve safe passage in and out of our county roads. It should not be political for local government to ensure roads are passable during a historic storm.

    Many of our neighbors are homesteaders. Some homeschool. Many are elderly. All are taxpayers. And all should be guaranteed access and safety during an emergency.

    Most of us are on well water. Without electricity, there is no water. And even propane trucks can’t reach us when county roads are left untouched.

    This may be a rant for another time.

    Because feeding people nutrient-dense food and caring for your community should not be political.

    But in the intensity of a historic ice storm—when the cold presses in, the power stays off, and the air itself becomes dangerous—the feelings are magnified.

    And sometimes, survival demands that we speak.

  • After the Ice

    After the Ice

    I want to say that I am facing this devastation with stoicism. But I think what I’m really experiencing is shock—shock that hasn’t yet found a way to express itself as a single, tangible emotion.

    Imagine the color spectrum with its seven colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. When you look at a sunset, you see all of them, plus everything in between. That’s the only way I can describe my emotional state right now. There are recognizable emotions—happy, sad, mad, hopeful, despair—but instead of landing in one, I feel like a blend of all of them at once.

    Snowmageddon hit us with an unexpected fury, almost as suddenly as the tornado of 2021.

    The days leading up to this ice storm were warm. And with Middle Tennessee weather being fickle at best—and local meteorologists hovering around fifty percent accuracy on any given day—I’m not sure what I expected. But it definitely wasn’t this.

    We prepared as we would for any normal winter storm.

    We ran the cars and machines to preserve the batteries. We stocked up and spread salt. We made plans for our ducks and geese. We completed routine winter chores throughout the vineyards and orchards—warming roots with extra soil and straw, checking that vines were lifted and secured to their wires, painting the bases of the fruit trees white to protect against freeze-thaw cycles and damage from field mice and other critters chewing on tender bark.

    I worried about my lavender. I had planted varieties that don’t tolerate temperatures below fifteen degrees Fahrenheit. But emotionally, I was prepared to lose them—to replant in the spring or redesign the space with more cold-hardy varieties. My expectations there were low. I didn’t carry any additional worry or stress about it into the storm.

    Maybe the first clue should have been the way people kept referring to it as Snowmageddon.

    When clients mentioned it while we were discussing schedules, it sounded funny—overly dramatic, even a little ridiculous. Northeastern states regularly endure temperatures in the negative thirties. Snow is simply part of life there. After an unseasonably warm winter, a little cold weather in January felt overblown.

    But I was wrong.

    And I think that is where the shock comes from.

    Around five in the morning, I heard the generator kick on. That isn’t unusual here, where poor infrastructure means strong winds, heavy rain, or the occasional drunk driver can take down an electric pole. My husband was already awake, caring for the dogs and livestock.

    When I looked out the window, I saw what I expected—gray, dismal skies and a blanket of powdery snow.

    It wasn’t until I went outside to help with the second round of letting our feathered flock stretch their wings—take bowl baths and make their usual lap around the inner yard—that my husband pointed out what was really happening.

    After the snow came freezing rain.

    And our trees were down.

    Hundreds of trees—many planted restoratively after the EF5 tornado of 2021—were lying on the ground, burdened by the relentless weight of ice. Everything was coated. The dormant roses looked like glass. I touched a magnolia leaf and watched it fall, shattering when it hit the ground.

    In that moment, I felt my heart break.

    We haven’t fully assessed the damage yet.

    Like so many across Middle Tennessee—and throughout the states in the path of this historic ice storm—we’ve been without power, focused on keeping our family, pets, and livestock safe and warm.

    What I have seen during short walks around the property has been nothing short of heartbreaking. After the tornado in 2022, my husband and I committed ourselves to rebuilding with intention—creating a pollinator sanctuary and food forest rooted in resilience and care. We poured countless hours into planning orchards and vineyards, removing dead and diseased trees, and revitalizing these woodlands with new life.

    So much time dreaming, planning, and planting has gone into this farm.

    Walking outside right now is absolutely crushing. Everything is frozen, bowed under the weight of ice. The sound of trees exploding—branches breaking and shattering—is devastating.

    I keep asking myself what more I could have done to prepare.

    Was there something else?

    Anything?

    I know we are not alone in this. So many are suffering right now. Please keep Middle Tennessee—and all the icy states affected—close in your thoughts and prayers.

    For now, we are moving slowly. Taking inventory where we can. Giving ourselves permission to grieve what has been lost before deciding what comes next.

    There will be time for rebuilding, for re-imagining, for planting again. But today, we are simply bearing witness—to the damage, to the quiet, and to the weight of this moment.