The Solace Farm Homestead Story

In 2007, we bought 90 acres of abandoned coal strip-mine property in rural TN. It looked pretty worthless, but we saw its potential. In 2009 we built a small home, doing the work ourselves (and adding on 3 times since), and began our homestead. We brought chickens, ducks, turkeys, and a few goats with us, and quickly added our first 3 Scottish Highland cattle. Over the next few years, we continued to both expand the existing flocks and herds, and add new facets to the farm - geese, alpacas, bees, a hoop-house for winter vegetables, gardens, and more gardens, etc. In 2010, 2013 and 2016 we also added boys, the second actually born here on Solace Farm but all 3 using midwives (and a never-forgotten stillborn daughter in 2009). Our primary goal is self-sufficiency (we are off-grid with solar power and rain water), but we try to provide quality meat, produce, and other farm products to the surrounding community (a food desert in several respects) by participating in several year-round farmer's markets and a food hub serving local restaurants and grocery stores. We also want to return this abused property to a healthy, vibrant oasis of diverse life.

We rotationally and intensively graze Scottish Highland cattle, rare Hog Island and Tunis sheep, goats, and alpacas. We also have ducks, geese, turkeys, and honeybees. Our cattle herd is 30-40 head, and the sheep vary between 40-75 and the goats 25-70, both depending on the winter “mama” herd or the summer “with babies” herd. The alpacas number 10-15, and I sell as much of the wool raw for spinners (along with sheep wool) as possible and also spin yarn, knit, and crochet, for personal use.

We sell duck eggs and garden produce locally, especially garlic - as our lives have gotten busier, we have evolved to more shelf-stable products, such as cured garlic rather than lettuce and tomatoes! We have a 2100 sq ft unheated hoop-house that we use for herbs, figs, sweet potatoes, and of course garlic.

I, Amy, make the soaps, salves and everything else, spin wool, knit, milk sheep and goats, and make cheese (and too many other things!) in my "spare time" between raising and homeschooling 3 boys, gardening, local farmers markets, and general homesteading. Caleb manages the livestock, the homestead at large, and increasingly the gardens and boys as my soap and fiber businesses grow. In the last few years, we've almost entirely transitioned to full-time farming (or technically soaping to support our farming habit!) - Caleb only works off-farm 2-4 days a month as a PA at an urgent care clinic.

Our motto here is "by hand" because we truly appreciate the "old-fashioned" abilities that seem to be fading from our collective memories, such as hand-milking, cheesemaking, butchering, tanning hides, canning and dehydrating produce, soapmaking, papermaking, spinning and knitting wool, cutting and splitting firewood, using handtools such as scythes, and many, many more. We enjoy sharing what we've learned with others who are looking for that knowledge and experience, so we host interns such as WWOOFers (WWOOF-USA.org) and college students year-round. We always take interested, hard-working, reliable help, so get in touch if that happens to be you!