Norman White chasing cows through the field with his grocery getter!

Hello all,

My name is Lorin, I am Kara’s daughter, part of the fourth generation of White’s farm on this hill raising the fifth with my husband Benton. I will be doing a weekly blog to give update and insight into what farm life is like here on this farm. There are farms all over this country doing things like this farm is doing. While I am sure there is some similarities in daily chores and motivations, each one has a unique blueprint dictated by the farmers, the land and the animals they are stewarding, and the customers they serve. So, this will be a journal of our blueprint, our motivations, and our family story.

I suppose we could start anywhere but might as well start with the start of it all. A story of Stormin’ Norman in his station wagon. Anyone who has been to the farm has probably noticed this old car tangled up in a patch of sumac nearly hidden by grass as tall as it during the summer months. It is a bucket of rust, could be hauled to the junk yard, but lives on in its old spot where nothing else much would be. It serves as a reminder, for me daily, of the old man in his old car who chased cows, hay, and was chased by a line of cars every time he left this hill on the way to Hannaford.

About the only time he was stormin’ toward the end of his time here on earth was when he was on the tail end of a cow chase. I have a lot of great memories from inside that car, driving through the hayfields on grandpa’s lap, moving calves, playing with his bag phone, watching people work from the passenger seat. The car went from what he drove to get him to the tractor to what he drove to watch the tractors work as he no longer could. It is so peculiar when someone like that leaves the world, someone who maybe unknowingly started a legacy farm, the hole they leave behind but also the wholeness left behind.

A lot of families end up all over the country with nothing truly tying them together, and while this family isn’t without that entirely, the scattered pieces do carry with them memories and character that was built on this piece of rock. Through hard work, through tough love, through relationships, through the good and the bad, growing up in a place like this makes you who you are. None of it would be possible or have come to be without the determination of one man and his loving wife and those that came after him. It’s hard to know the exact desires of Grandpa Normans heart when he chose farming above all else in this world. One thing I can say is that the journey has not been without tumultuous times for family and wealth, not without sacrifice, and not without passion and love.

As we go on in gratefulness and gratitude, we attempt to fill the shoes of those that have come before us in the ways we can with our own shoes on, and with our own heart desires. This world looks a lot different now than it did when Grandpa Norman started out here so considering that changing landscape brings on new motivations and new ways of doing things. The same passion and love exists because without it there would be no reason to go on doing this. Farmers have to be among the most passionate people on earth and I am so grateful to come from a long line of them.

Stay with me as each week I share more of the current farm through photos and broken up journaling, in between wife-ing, mothering, daughtering, grand daughtering, and caring for our small brood of animals. Thanks for reading this, and thanks for investing a piece of your lives in the support of this family farm operation working to bring you high quality, clean food for you and your animals.

Be Blessed,

Lorin