Little by little, over time, my husband and I, along with our 3 daughters, have built our little farm (micro farm, farmette, tiny ranch, whatever you want to call this little piece of real estate we own) into a place for community to connect.
Today over the lunch hour, some really nice ladies stopped by to pick up eggs. We talked for a long time about all kinds of things from caring for our parents through cancer to just general wellness during this pandemic. One of them said, “this is a little golden egg you’ve got here!”. She went on to say what a nice place we had, so close to town, where they could get farm-fresh goods and how much they enjoyed knowing we were here.
I liked that a lot. We aren’t a big farm by any means. As we say, we are small, but mighty. But we have the ability to feed our neighborhood and that is good enough for us. We raise lamb, chicken, eggs, fresh flowers, honey and soon to add many more products.
This week is the first of our inspections from the health department and the Ohio Department of Agriculture. We will soon have our license to operate as a farm market. That means we had to have our well water tested, our coolers inspected where we keep our lamb and chicken meat, along with our animals and their housing. This spring, we will have a micro-market (much bigger than our current little farmstand cabinet) open sun up to sun down, where our neighbors can shop for goods that we produce on-farm as well as lots of products from our farm friends around Ohio.
We will also be doing pop-up markets at our friend’s boutique in Canal Winchester, Georgie Emerson Vintage and we can’t wait! Emma and I are both vendors there already, where we sell some of our art goods. We will have special farm boxes exclusively curated for those events.
I reached out to family this last week to ask for some old photos that I could get printed to hang on the walls of our micro-farm market. This one is Lewis Webb, Ken’s grandfather. He ran a farm market his whole life. From selling apples on the corner to Christmas trees in the winter. You can read more about that here.
He strongly believed that everyone should have access to good affordable fresh foods. Even back then, around the time of the Depression and decades later, he recognized that food deserts existed and that there were lower-income neighborhoods that did not have the same access. He was almost exclusively the only vendor who would go into those neighborhoods to deliver food and bring fresh produce where it was not readily available. He was generous and helped families as much as he could.
Our daughter is now majoring in college in Community Leadership with a minor in Nutrition, focused on food equity and access issues.
Our own farm market operates heavily on a social entrepreneurship model. We use proceeds to fund our own philanthropy, supporting causes like the Canal Winchester food pantry, a scholarship at Ohio State, and youth development programs like 4-H.
I’d like to think Lewis Webb would approve of these endeavors our generation is carrying on. Writing our own chapter in the family history book, from our own little farm market here in Canal Winchester.