Momma Doesn't Do What I Say

500 farm guests, bushels of pickled peaches, six pound cakes later

“I just don’t want Buck to get all those peaches,” said Gloria, my Momma, about Buck, my donkey.

She could definitely hear the eye rolling in my response, “Buck is only 4 feet tall, there’ll be plenty of peaches. Why don’t you pickle peaches next week and focus on your pound cake sale this week.” 

She’s in her 80s, sometimes, she needs good advice from her very organized son.  But that advice fell on deaf ears;

After pickling peaches, she started on pound cakes. They were for our final farm open day.

In the past two weeks, we’ve hosted almost 600 guests. Some of them, who come for luncheons get amazing food presented by our neighborhood chef, Susan. Things like this spectacular strawberry chocolate covered strawberry.

But for one unstructured event, Momma was serving slices of pound, plain or chocolate, and coffee. Six pound cakes, then sitting by the table all day is a lot of work. But she and her dedicated friend Pat made it happen. 

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She in fact made this whole farm experience and my business possible.  First by moving into a falling down house that hadn’t been updated at all since the 40s. . She says, “it was like camping, each room had one electrical outlet and one light bulb hanging in the middle from a cord.” There was no heat, no air conditioner, and the refrigerator was on the porch, a four minute walk from the kitchen. 

The entire backyard was a forest and when it rained, we could only get down the dirt road in a truck. “Almost every single person we knew said this was crazy,” Momma says. That was 1974. 

Today, Momma’s world charms he pants off of people. They come for flowers, for sitting in the shade, for lessons about organic plants. But mostly, they love stepping back in time; they love having a piece of pound cake on the picnic table and visiting, even if they have to talk loud or wait for Buck the donkey to finish his brays.

Happy visitors understand this is a working farm with weeds and wheelbarrows we didn’t have time to empty.

Three Generations; Gloria Farmer, daughter Louisa Gregory and granddaughter Caroline Gregory.

Young artists on the farm.

Jenks & Tom with Crinum ‘Aurora Glorialis’ All photos by our farm photographer, PaisaPhotography, Aiken, SC.

If you’d like to spend a day on the farm, keep watch here for our next events such as Carol Reese and in depth discussions on the native and invasive plant world.

Or gather a group of 15 or so and set up a private Lunch and Learn.