Let's Bee-gin at the Bee-ginning!

Happenings around Texoma Farms

People say I need to blog more about what I am doing at the farm. It sounds so romantic to come home after a productive bountiful harvest, pour a glass of sun steeped ice tea and nestle into my office to write about my day. Please. The reality is I am stinky, hot, overwhelmed, thrilled, excited, exhausted, scared and still have all my chores at home to get done, and I need a nap from the heat. I have let this go so long without chronicling my journey that it seems hard to go back and fill in the blanks. But, I am going to give it a try. SO, I will bee-gin at the bee-ginning.

This is the farm before we bought it.

We have been looking for roughly ten acres for three years. We saw a lot of properties, some were amazing but more money than we wanted to spend and some were just not right. We were beginning to feel like Goldilocks. So, we settled on 160 RIddle Road in Gordonville. It is 10 acres of a former peanut farm so the earth undulates slightly from the left over peanut mounds, and most recently horses and cows have grazed it causing lots of uneven ground. There is one sugar-berry tree in the middle and a tree line on the east side that runs a creek. It is a perfect rectangle, but not terribly attractive or interesting. On the west side is a working horse farm with reining horses in training. Turns out we are in the reining capital of the nation. The ground is nice and sandy and easily supports the athleticism of the horses that come sliding to a stop and protects them from getting hurt. I love to watch them train. There are 12 mares in the adjacent pasture that are all “in foal”, so the spring should be amazing with frolicking foals and their mamas! I CANNOT WAIT!

Fun Fact: Texas and Georgia are the two major peanut producing states. The closest city to us with a grocery store to us is Whitesboro (20 min), and they have a peanut festival every October. It’s on my bucket list to attend.

The first big question was what to name the farm? I am all about naming things and I wanted a cute name and chic logo. Rob wanted to name the farm “Grim Acres” , hardly cute and not chic. He was convinced that it would be hysterical. Yes, it would be, but that was not my goal. It always makes for an easy halloween party though!

Eventually, I convinced him that Texoma Farms was the name we needed. It conveys the location, and also that it is a working farm. The confusing part for some is why make it plural? Well, we needed to have a honeybee operation (apiary) in order to keep our agriculture exemption, allowing us to pay less than $10 in property tax…yes please and thank you. But, I also wanted a small flower farm (micro farm is the trending moniker on social. Although they are both under our LLC, we consider them separate. So…”Farms” it is. As for the logo, it was pretty easy to design, and our friend Tyler Woodward did an amazing job with the welding. However, I was dead set on a brass bee welded askew onto the signage. I thought it was just the punch of chic that it needed…boy did I lose that battle, at least for now. Let me quote my husband, “There is no way I am going to pull into my property in my big manly Ford truck to get on my bad ass tractor and have the gate swing open with a cheesy little bee on it. Nope, not happening. Pick your battles Jul!” Consequently there is no bee on the sign, BUT, there are two other signs on the property so all is not lost.

Fun Fact: Honey Bees are considered livestock. They produce a product (honey), and are bred as agricultural animals similar to pigs and cows…they are just harder to contain, and get a little feisty at times. It is a felony to steal them. But it happens a lot.

The gate is so awesome, I was having to get out and open and close it constantly and now it is remote operated and closes on its own. First world issues, I get it, but I am grateful for the little things, even if it would look so much classier with a brass bee accessory.

I have learned so much already at this farm. I cannot wait to share…definitely more failures than successes, but we are failing fast and learning fast!

We had two huge elm trees that were right out front on the fence line and were definitely dead. We needed to get them down. So begins the bleeding of money, or rather….”investment” in the future of Texoma farms! I called Joe’s tree service and they came the next week. Now, as it turns out, disposing of the tree is just as expensive as cutting it down. But what great firewood it would be right? So they cut the small branches into firewood and dropped it over the fence. The large trunks would make cool seats around a fire pit or table base so I asked they leave those as well. What about all the ground up branches? Wouldn’t that be great mulch? So they left that too. OMG! There was so much work to do with the piles and piles of logs! UGH! Remember, we have no tractor with a bucket to scoop or carry across the uneven field to line up along the creek. Nope, just a truck bed, and two pair of hands and bad backs. But the job had to be done and was an eye sore for our neighbors. Squat- lift, squat-lift, squat-lift …..for days. We tried our darnedest to just roll the big “seat” ones, but they wouldn’t even budge. Hmmm. What now?

The picture does not do it justice, it was so much work!

Charlie to the rescue. Charlie is our neighbor who is a farrier and a hay farmer. He used to cut hay on our property but we are gradually ruining that for him with our “developing”. He seems to be getting used to the idea that I want a cute farm, or at least he doesn’t roll his eyes in front of me! He is wonderful, has every tool known to man, and we think he hung the moon! He is kind, quiet and stoic in a sinewy farmers body, dressed in carharts with a lip full of tobacco and a heart full of goodness. He says it like it is, and always does the right thing, no matter what. So we called him about moving those giant wooden seats. DONE. Fifteen minutes of effort.

It’s all about the right tools, and he has them all. Rob has total skid-steer envy. It’s like a scrappy zero-turn tractor that can do anything with a million different attachments. Imagine the most amazing food processor with all the fancy attachments except it's for dirt or whatever! Charlie has a couple of them and they can do anything! He recently moved some dirt in a trade for some telephone poles we had so I gave him some flowers for his sweet wife Debbie. We just think he is the greatest! We had them over for dinner one night, and he told some great stories. I asked him what he thought of our property and my little micro flower farm. His response was…”You ain't gonna make no money, you don’t have enough flowers.” Although very accurate, I need to work on my elevator pitch with my vision of a future “creative retreat with floral inspiration”. He looked at me with a blank stare as if I told him I had a vision of fairies with floral crowns and magic carpets flying through the pasture. I definitely have a long way to go to get his approval of my vision coming to fruition, but when I do, I will know I have made it. And we will have so much laughter along the way! #wincharlieover

Growing Joy,

Julie Grim-Texoma Farms

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