And where were we during those Marches of our history?  Probably bent over planting potatoes.  Or onions, broccoli, lettuce, or some favorite greens.  

We may have been running the last bales of hay before spring grass growth comes to the pastures.  Maybe we were cleaning out the bedding in the henhouses.  Quite possibly, we were looking for a weather forecast to predict the next spring storms - so we could figure our next tractor time.

One of us was probably coming from the farm supply store or watching for the UPS man to get a part needed to repair a waterer or hay mower.  The other one was likely potting up transplants in the greenhouse or trying to pull the string on the tiller, mower, or weedwhacker.  

And when the sun set - we were having one last round of that game, Receipt Hide and Seek, before tax time.  

Honestly, its not that we are not interested.  Our teams are playing this weekend.  But probably all we will get is a text message telling us the final score - complements of some TV watching loved one.  

We will be wrapping up the feeding , right down to the tiniest biddies.

Just another day at the office.  (Go State!)  

Sometimes on the way to somewhere else, you get to see the best sites.  I think this gal beats all those milk mustache commercials!  Great momma cows make our work much simpler.

It's is this time of over-thinking that causes me to think about the value of land in general.  Some places in the world are so high-value that the real estate commands incredible prices.  These are the places where important decisions are made every day which affect millions of people. Places in these, usually urban settings, are recognized as the ultimate real estate purchase, a testimony to the owners' success.  

What does that have to do with a little mountain farm in Western North Carolina?  Only the word association game in my mind connects them.  High-value - best crops - best return - most nutrition per serving - grows well in our climate - heirloom variety... see where I go with this?  What is the best way to use our small acreage?  Why give animals so much room to walk around when we could pen them all up for cost and efficiency savings?  Why use organic treatments in our fields when we could use a cheaper and faster synthetic solution for bugs and disease?

Why even pursue a business with so much risk as to be heart-stopping?  Because of the high value of it all!  What farmers do daily seems pretty mundane, even unpleasant at times.  But when I think about the neighbors and families we serve, they strike me as being important - and the methods we use provide a different kind of produce and meat.  It reminds me how unique our opportunities are to keep the best and freshest and purest foods available in our own community.

So when I am checking my field maps and making plans and seed orders, it helps to recognize that even way out of the centers of power, where appraisers don't always see much than some bottomland, or hillsides, or timber, there might be something valuable.  In a way, it reminds me afresh of the entire feeling of doing the best with the role we have been given in this life.  Now that's a New Years ambition!  

Soli Deo Gloria!

1)       For film stars, the day begins with makeup and wardrobe!

Not here.  Our days begin with the regular chores.  In the dark, cold, or precipitation.  From the footage, it looks like Wardrobe staff has not shown up in the last couple of decades.  The reality of our lives is that farming tends to wear away at ones good clothes, or our standards are different.  Call that personal style.

My style is reminiscent of those great fashion icons – Ma Kettle and Aunt Bee.  Since I come from a long line of dress-wearing, apron-covered women, I have embraced that style as well. (It was my childhood experience that behind a serious apron was a woman of substance.)  And as for makeup?  It just isn’t the style of our guys.

2)       Movie stars are surrounded by great gourmet food.  This is literally TRUE!  We are among the fortunate who are surrounded by gorgeous vegetables, the freshest of everything.  Steaks if we want ‘em!  We are missing those personal chefs, though.  Around here, if you want it, you have to cook it.  From scratch.  After you are done with work.  It’s still good – just a different reality.

3)      The camera adds ten pounds.  That’s a tricky one.  It could be the camera, the apron, or the great food.  Could be more than ten. Whatever.  Either way, some of us looked awesome and others just too “reality”.  I couldn’t tell if any extra poundage showed up on the pigs or cows.  The bull looked a little heavy.  One of us seemed to look way younger than our years.  (But he’s taken.)

4)      There is lots of DRAMA when you work in the film industry.  I think we were under-average on that part.  I know that it makes a show more interesting, so we considered having a real knock-down drag-out over some fictional produce tension.  But it really isn’t us.  No one gets overwrought here very often, and what we actually do is pretty repetitive.  Feed, pick, load, unload.  No marriages came apart, no insults were hurled, and no tempers flared.  The closest we came was when Frank was trying to ask me something with his earplugs still in from being on the tractor.  We weren’t filming, though, and only one surprised farm visitor witnessed our high-volume exchange. 

We won’t see the finished project for a couple more weeks yet.  And with the completion of filming comes some relief.  No longer will we hear each other say the phrase which was oft repeated this fall – “Oops, sorry, were you filming that?”

Frank has been involved in the construction industry for many years.  He is a licensed general contractor in North Carolina for residential and commercial construction.  When he is off the farm, he is busy building things other than barns and henhouses.   You can find out what he is up to at our new facebook page for Wil-Serv Construction Inc.

In order to keep farming in these mountains, with varying amounts of level tillable land as well as mountainside pastures, and wooded mountain land - a farm works best if it is diversified in its enterprises.  

For us, that means we raise beef cattle, which are fine with the hillsides, and pastured chickens that make a great partner for the cattle operation.  We have rediscovered the beauty of pigs and the part they play in a diverse operation.  We put in a "market garden" - a few acres of all the vegetable you can dream of growing in our summer season. Finally, we include a few small fruit projects, which work around the other projects and literally sweeten our lives and bring joy. 

Coming from I-40 East, take exit 37.  Turn right.  Go straight through the traffic light.  Turn left at the stop sign, onto Old 19/23.  Turn right onto Hominy Valley Drive.

Visitors are welcome by appointment.  

Please contact us to request details for the program this coming year.  Email to    info@hominyvalleyfarms.com

New this year - payment may be made with credit or debit cards for your convenience!

We are excited to add pork to our offerings for 2012!

In the 1930's, the Plemmons family moved here to have more level land to put into crops.  The years that followed had them working hard to produce vegetables and livestock on the hillsides and bottom land near Hominy Creek in what are now thought to be "old-fashioned" ways.  Horses and mules were the power in front of any machinery and family were the ones weilding the hoes to battle the weeds.  Produce was delivered to customers in Asheville along with butter and eggs from our farm.

The mid to late 1900's were years when tobacco was a major crop for most farms here in North Carolina.  In the mountains, burley tobacco was the most common way to provide income from a piece of farmland.  Our family did our share, and continued the production of vegetables as well as feed (hay and corn) for our own livestock.  Tractors helped save lots of labor.  Most of the products were sold to buyers of wholesale produce and we had no contact with those who would eventually enjoy the fruit of our labors.

Now things have come to resemble those early days again!  Our conservation practices never changed, so our soil remains in good shape for a new generation to put in  production.  Cover crops were always essential to return nutrients to the land and protect from erosion.  Crop rotation was always practiced to make sure that no one crop took too much fertility out of the soil.  Livestock provide much needed soil fertility on a small diversified farm, and now that means we no longer look to synthetic fertilizers.  

Since we want to know what goes in our food, we use only non-synthetic products approved for organic production on our vegetable crops.  It is important that our family and those we serve are never harmed by toxic chemicals on our food.  That takes more hand labor, but we think it is worth it.  

Our farm animals have always been carefully and gently tended.  The cattle are grown on pasture and rotated through them to manage both the cattle and the pastures well.  Chickens "graze" in the pastures, living in chicken tractors which are moved each day to fresh grass.  Pigs greet us each day with dirt on their noses from doing what comes naturally.  

And since we now market once again to our neighbors, we enjoy the satisfaction of a real connection to the people who make our farm able to continue for the next generations.

We also raise chickens from day-old chicks until ready to be processed on the farm as "broilers".  Our chicks are never given any artificial medications and we feed them only an all-vegetable diet.   (Truthfully, the beauty of the chicken tractors allows them to dine on whatever would delight a chicken in the grass of our fields - and they don't always confess if they ate a few insects that day :) These chickens are usually limited to warmer months, since they are outdoors. 

Our laying hens rise early and have the freedom to go outside immediately to their section of our pastures or garden. They are vigorous heritage breed hens and they are anxious to get moving each day.  We feed and water early, and collect eggs during the morning hours.  They get themselves back to their roosts before dark and call it a day.  We use electric netting powered by a solar charger to keep them safe from the coyotes who pass through the fields almost every night right now.  

Our newest livestock, pastured pigs/hogs, are settled in nicely in a pen which is working its way through the garden this winter.  In the spring, they will have helped get a head start on some tilling and weed removal.  Our pigs are given feed with no animal byproducts and lots of produce or weeds (which they LOVE!).  These hogs will go to our favorite processing facility to provide our customers with delicious pork cuts and sausage beginning in the spring of 2012.