OUR STORY
Welcome to Simple Earthy Farm! This farm has been an ever growing, morphing and stretching vision for many years. It began as a desire to simply connect with our food. We, like most American's did our grocery shopping at big box stores and maybe the occasional farmers market. We tried to eat "healthy" and shopped the organic section but still felt that we were missing something. We enjoyed growing small summer gardens and raising backyard chickens and found it to be a great way to connect with our food on a small scale. We decided we needed to get out of the city and on some property so we could start growing and raising our own food. We searched and searched for our land but just didn't feel peace about anything we saw.
In January 2017 God spoke to Eric and said that He was going to give us land. In 2018 we decided to sell our home and move our family into a fifth wheel so we could go and see everything. Along this journey our passion to homestead grew stronger and stronger. As we traveled we sought out farmers markets and small family farms and learned a lot about the diversity of farming styles. We were blessed to visit and tour 2 farms in particular of well known sustainable farming methods and found our vision growing beyond ourselves.
Our growing desire left us feeling like, "how in the world can we do something like this"? We were not raised on a farm. Only Eric has minimal experience working on a farm during the summers as a child. Farming was NEVER something we had a desire for and yet that is exactly where our desire was leading.
As we continued to question the "how" it's like God said, "hold on and watch this". God gave us a temporary opportunity to work for Polyface Farm in Swoope, VA raising pastured broilers. During that time we also got to help with pigs, laying hens, turkeys and goats. This is a farm we have visited, followed and learned so much from and this opportunity gave us enough knowledge, skill, training and confidence to step out and say, "yes". Our God is so good. He gave us the desire and has been providing every step of the way.
Our vision and desires for our farm are big and ever growing. We believe our next step is to turn this idea into a 501C3 non profit. This will give us the ability to operate on a donation and gift system. We will also train up teams to go out and duplicate what we are doing on other acquired Simple Earthy Farms properties. We have a mission of spreading the gospel message through regenerative farming and being good stewards of this beautiful land and all of God's creation.
We are so excited to invite you to be a part of this journey with us and to see where the Lord leads.
HEART OF THE FARM
Our family spent over 2 year traveling full time in an RV visiting all 48 contiguous states. Early on in our travels we visited the majestic Redwood Forest in Northern California. As our family hiked in awe of the massive trees and indescribable beauty I got lost in trying to capture everything with my camera. After realizing my family had gotten almost out of sight I decided to try to catch up. Being alone in the midst of such a massive forest caused me to think of how small we are in the grand scheme of existence. All of a sudden every creek and sway of the trees, call of the birds and other wildlife became magnified and fear started knocking. The familiar voice of the Holy Spirit spoke something to me that changed the way I viewed every adventure on the rest of our trip as well as my views on farming. He said, "that is the sound of my creation crying out in worship to Me." Instantly I was overcome with gratitude that as small and insignificant as I was in that forest I was given the opportunity to be in the midst of and take part in the greatest worship session I have ever experienced. From that moment on, every hike, nature walk, kayaking trip and moment in the great outdoors became an opportunity to join in the most beautiful worship.
This brought a whole new light to a scripture I had long been meditating on, Mark 16:15 which says, "Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." It was the "every creature" part that I couldn't understand. And that day in the Redwoods opened up a new understanding that would later lay the foundation of how we would operate our farm.
The gospel is the "good news" of Jesus Christ, the perfect son of God, coming as a man to offer a dying world salvation and redemption to everyone who chooses to believe on Him.
"Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us; for it is written, cursed is every one who hangs on a tree; that the blessing of Abraham might come on the gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." -Galatians 3:13-14
The "curse of the law" that we, who believe on Christ, are redeemed from is a curse of sickness and disease, plagues on our bodies, plagues on our children, and land, and livestock, land that produces no good thing but instead thorns and thistles, plants that are unfruitful and animals that cannot reproduce and be fruitful. It is a curse on our storehouse and all the work of our hands. Deuteronomy 28:15-68
In Deut. 30:19 God says, "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live."
On our farm we choose life and blessing! We share this good news with the microbes that make up our soil, the plants that produce fruits and vegetables and all the animals. Our land, animals, plants and everything we set our hands to are blessed because that is who we are in Christ. We believe that when we work along side all of God's creation we enter into a harmony and blessing that brings honor to our God! To care for His creation in a way that brings honor to the land, animals, plants, people and our God is an opportunity to cry out in worship together with all creation to the Creator. Romans 8:19-22 says, "For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God".
Whether you hold these same beliefs or not we invite you to come and witness for yourself the fruit of living according to these words. Our farm is a place of peace, healing and rejuvenation for all. If you have a prayer request, all of our family and staff are trained and blessed to pray with you!
"Beloved, I wish above all things that thou may prosper and be in health even as thy soul prospers." 3 John 1:2
-Amanda Lockman
Beyond Labels
Although you will not see the organic and non GMO labels on our farm you can be sure that we do everything in our power to operate our farm as sustainable and God honoring as we can (and we believe that is without all the garbage common in much of the foods we find in the stores). Our animals are free to roam and forage as they have been designed to do. Chickens forage for bugs and worms while feeding the microbes in the soil with their waste. The pigs dig and root turning up the soil and seed bank, feasting on everything their little hearts desire. Our goats graze with our pigs and work as co laborers in rejuvenating and fertilizing our forested areas. Together they make a great fire mitigation team. Our rabbits are moved daily to fresh green grass where they can rip and tear up the blades filling their bellies with the best nutrients and healthy microbes. In the winter we are sure to give all of our animals a comfortable shelter and outdoor access as much as they like. Diets are supplemented with non GMO, organic feed and of course delicious organic kitchen scraps.