My Farming Journey

 

My father is originally from Indiana and comes from a long line of farmers. His grandfather had a diverse hog operation, keeping his hogs out in the fields and raising his own feed in a rotation that included wheat, soybeans, corn, and pasture.  When his grandfather passed away my Dad’s family moved out and took over operation of the Sanders farm. They raised corn and soybeans for market and had a few cows. However, it was hard to make money selling wholesale commodities, and my father grew up thinking that it was impossible to make a living farming unless you had expansive acreage and loads of debt. When my grandfather was killed in a car accident on the way to work in 1980, the farm was sold to a distant relative.

 

My mother also grew up out ‘in the country’ part of her childhood in central Georgia. There were always woods to play in and at times they had gardens and even some pigs. We love to hear stories of the squirrels and owls that were brought up by cats and became family pets. Even when I was little my grandparents had a flying squirrel that we used to get out and enjoy having it ‘fly’ from one person to another.

 

The memories that my parents had of growing up in the country created a desire to provide that for their own children. So when I was nine we moved from a neighborhood subdivision in town to a house with 11 acres and a 1/4 mile gravel driveway in a more rural area. There we were able to do things like plant a garden, have some chickens, make forts in the woods, remodel the existing horse barn to make a shop, make treehouses, etc. We kids loved it.

 

Our family was blessed with eight kids, of which I am the oldest. The Lord convicted my parents of their responsibility as the primary educators and disciplers of their children and they made great sacrifices to educate us at home. This allowed us to flourish and have time to pursue particular interests we had. I was able to start a blacksmithing business and made custom metalwork for people. I also learned to repair violins.

 

One spring weekend we went to an all-day BBQ hosted by a family we know. There I talked with the father of a young family who mentioned, in passing, that they had a garden and were trying to grow as much of their own food as they could.  For some reason, that comment stuck with me and the Lord used it to stir up a desire in me to try to do that for our family.  So that spring I took over our family’s small, neglected garden and was blessed to be able to grow some abundant crops of green beans, corn, squash, and okra. And I loved it! I loved working with the dirt, watching the plants grow, caring for them, and enjoying the fruits of my labor. It was satisfying to think of myself as a ‘farmer’.

 

Even though I enjoyed ‘farming’, because of my father’s experience with wholesale, commodity farming in Indiana it seemed impractical to pursue it as an occupation. “How do you make a small fortune farming? Start off with a large one!” is a joke I have heard many times. However, the Lord used a book lent to me by a gentleman (who turned out to be my future father-in-law) to introduce me to the small scale, retail marketing model of farming. The book was the classic You Can Farm by Joel Salatin. Mr. Salatin’s scalable and practical production models and retail marketing inspired me and gave me hope that my love of farming could turn into a viable business.

 

So I began to learn as much as I could about small scale farming. One of the main skills that we learned through our home-schooling was how to learn. I didn’t feel like I needed someone to spoon feed me. I just started collecting and reading as many books on farming and farming related subjects as possible, talking and working with farmers, and trying out different methods of production on our land. Our small farm became a experiment station of sorts.

 

At first, because I had very little experience, I tried to do all the things that were recommended by the ‘experts’. I used 13-13-13 chemical fertilizer in my garden, sprinkles Sevin dust on Japanese Beetles, treated my beehives with chemicals, and kept the chickens in a permanent yard. But as I grew more confident I began to realize that these methods were contrary to the natural design of God’s creation. So I began to try to do things that honored His design. I started building my soil like the Lord does in nature and the healthier plants weren’t bothered as much by pests. Most of the bees managed to survive without the chemicals, and the chickens were much healthier when they didn’t stay in one place! The more I tried to figure out and honor God’s way, the more I became convinced that it was waay better than man’s ways.

 

As a result of my desire to farm, and our family’s value of a country lifestyle, we bought 103 wooded acres and developed it into a farm over several years before we moved there. We took the production models I had learned at our old farm and expanded them for commercial production. I am the farm manager, but it is a family farm. Our startup enterprises were laying hens that we kept on pasture, meat broilers that were raised on pasture, and totally natural vegetables. In terms of markets for our products we have been blessed by the Lord way beyond what I could take credit for. We have almost always had more demand than we can supply. Our main markets have been an upscale farmers market, neighbors and individuals, restaurants, and organic stores. There has been lots of challenges and troubles along the way, but the Lord has been faithful and is teaching us to be better farmers.

 

In 2010 I started my own family when I married my lovely wife, Dorothy (pronounced Darthy down south). We live on the farm and enjoy the opportunity to spend time together since I don’t go somewhere else to work everyday. Last August we were blessed with the birth of our son Enoch. He is growing up fast and at the moment is attempting to type as he sits in my lap ‘helping’ me work. Sometimes he does chores with me while riding in a backpack carrier. As a family, we are working to minister to those around us by supplying healthy, quality food and by encouraging other born-again farmers to submit their farms to the Lord. We also want our daily lives to be a testimony to those around us of what Christ can do in the lives of sinners like us. One of our goals is to, as the Apostle Paul instructs in 1 Thessalonians 4:11,12 “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life my win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.”

A couple of years ago I began to develop a passion for having Biblically-founded agriculture, or ‘born-again dirt’. I decided to research the idea of glorifying God though the way I farmed, and the result has been this blog and my recent book, Born-Again Dirt.

 

I want to thank everyone who has been so encouraging and supportive of my writing. I prefer farming to writing, so the encouragement is much appreciated. My goal is to be faithful to share with others things the Lord has shown me. It has been exciting to see how God has used my imperfect efforts to bless others so far. And He continues to present opportunities to share. Tomorrow I hope to provide a link to an interview I did recently, and next week I am scheduled to be on a young entrepreneurs panel at the Family Economics Conference. Pray for me that I would keep my eyes fixed upon Christ, and allow Him to speak though me.