[Ag-eq] new Member

[Susan Roe]

Hi Everyone, 

My name is Susan Roe and my family lives on a 60 acre farm just outside Richmond, Virginia.  It has been in my family since about 1912 and my grandfather and his sons had a truck farm business.  My father then went from large scale farming to only about 5 acres in market gardens and the rest was left to feed fields, pastures for horses and a few cattle and the whole 60 acres was ringed with woods that dated around the time of the Civil War.

Through the intervening years, grandparents and parents passing, myself and my husband living 1-1/2 miles away in Virginia Beach while he was in the navy, landscapes change and memories of old fade away....

That is until we both decided it was time to come home and make Dogwood Farm the heritage farm we always dreamed of.

Now, we have a two-story western red cedar log home, which looks out over vegetable gardens, a 20tree fruit orchard (newly planted), an expanding herbgarden, an experimental vegetable garden, a two part shrub garden (newly planted) for this years nursery cuttings, a rememberence garden, and marked off sections for future expantion.  

We also have 3 flocks of brown egg laying hens, housed in 3 coops with their own 12 foot square enclosed outdoor runs.  I sell eggs to local customers, but several of those customers take them to friends as far off as West Virginia.  I am hoping to get a fourth flock this spring and move my older flock to two chicken tractors.

My husband is almost finished with the new barn where we plan on having two dairy goats and several sheep.  We are looking into either a lama or a small burro as a pasture guard for the sheep and goats.  There are far too many hunting dogs that roam through the place for my liking.  We have never had a problem,and I don't plan on having one either.

I am totally blind and have been so for 31 years.  I am extremely fortunate that my husband feels the same way I do about the farm and don't mind starting off with building a local customer base, one product/produce/craft at a time.  

I am really looking forward to being a member of this group and love to share successes along with failures.  We do learn by both.

Looking forward to meeting all of you.

Susan 
dogwoodfarm at verizon.net