our_story

Some years ago, John and I became "empty nesters" our three precious children had grown up and moved away from the family home. No longer did we need a large house to maintain as we had done in the past. So we decided to downsize and decided over a period of time, and after lots of discussions, that we were ready to move away from the city. This began a search that ended in a little rural community near Fayetteville, Tennessee where we purchased 29 acres, (which was formerly part of a dairy farm), and built our home.

We were born and raised in Western Kentucky, which abounds with rolling hills and farms. John's Mom, Georgia and his Dad, John, owned a large tobacco farm and always maintained a big vegetable garden for themselves. The family was a big family, and everyone worked at doing what needed doing on the farm. They preserved their harvests by canning and always had wonderful, big family meals with vegetables right out of the garden and onto the table. They also raised cattle in addition to tobacco.

As a young girl, I spent a lot of time at my grandparent's farm while growing up. My grandparents, Josie and Jim, raised cattle and pigs, cured their own meat, milked the cows, tended a large vegetable garden, and gathered eggs twice a day from their free range hens. Everything from the garden was either canned, placed in the root cellar, or cooked right then. They had no refrigeration and lived quite primitively, by today's standards. Some crops were fermented such as cabbage for Sauerkraut, and fresh churned butter was always on the table. They seemed to think that their hard work led to their longevity, both living well into their 90's.

We knew with our backgrounds that when we moved to the country we would want to do some farming. We also wanted to travel a bit. Once we started farming, somehow the travel took a backseat. Everyone that farms for a living, knows that you don't travel much when you have crops growing. Now that we grow year round and depend on our crops for our income, we hardly ever get away. Maybe to a conference once a year, and yes, it's usually a farming conference.

Several years ago, one of the conferences we attended was in Gainesville, Florida and it was an Organic conference. After that conference we knew that being a Certified Organic farm is what we ultimately wanted for our farm. From that day on, we moved our farm in that direction. Fortunately, it was not a difficult process, as our farm had not had crops grown on it where pesticides may have been used, only cattle grazed it. So, we applied to the Certifying agency in Florida (QCS) and after the necessary inspections were completed, our farm became Certified Organic.

One day, a few years back in conversation that we were having over breakfast, it was decided that we should give the farm a name. Most of the time when you look out any of our windows in the house, you can see a doe and several fawns roaming around. Not as many bucks as doe’s. In addition to that, when we were dating (now married 48 years), John took me to have dinner at this quaint little inn named Doe Run, in Kentucky. We loved this little place, so with it in mind, plus the resident herd of deer that live on the farm, we decided that the farm would be called Doe Run Farm.

The rest is history!