Remember the small business I highlighted a few weeks ago?  Meanwhile Back on the Farm?  If you missed that post, you can check it out HERE.

Well, the owner of the business, Heather, mentioned in a direct message that we should get together sometime when she’s visiting her mom in PA.  While her mom lives in a different state than I do, we’re only about 15 minutes apart.  Heather did something rare in this day and age and followed up on that offer just a few weeks after she extended it.  She would be visiting her mom in a few days and invited me to lunch at the farm where she grew up.  I’ll admit to having some hesitation in accepting the invitation this week.  I have a lot of work on my plate, the boys are still out of school and we still need to get our back-to-school shopping done, we also had a family birthday and I needed to make a cake, etc…  It felt like galivanting off to lunch might not be the best thing for my to-do list.  I suggested we try for a future visit, but Heather responded with the best kind of insistence.  “Would love to have you over! Please say yes! Mom makes the best chicken salad! And we have kombucha!”

It’s the kind of insistence that says, You don’t want to miss this.  This will most likely be more valuable than work and school shopping. Take a step back from your computer and say yes to the invitation. 

I said yes and we nailed down the time and place, although I didn’t have the heart to tell Heather that several people have tried to turn me on to kombucha and strange floating blobs in fermented tea is not a big draw for me!

Right when I pulled up to the farm, I was so glad I came.  I had no doubt the company and lunch would be wonderful, but just seeing that carriage house made the trip worth it alone.  The property, the old house, the babbling creek, and the outbuildings are all a little slice of heaven.  I snapped a picture of the carriage house as soon as I stepped out of my van.  Heather came out to greet me and I was so distracted by my surroundings I had to force myself to focus on our conversation.

Heather, her mother, and her sister had planned a beautiful lunch for us to enjoy in the sideyard of the historic home under the shade of some trees.  They made chicken salad, fresh-sliced marinated tomatoes with basil, Greek salad, and THIS Tomato Asparagus Tart. It was my favorite kind of lunch – a vegetable-forward assortment of healthy and delicious food.  I wish I could’ve taken a picture of my plate, but this wasn’t really a bring-your-phone-to-lunch sort of event.  The food was amazing, but the real treat, even more than the architecture and bucolic surroundings, was the conversation.

Heather started by telling me the story of Meanwhile Back on the Farm and pointed in the direction of buildings where the business was born.  Much like my business, hers was started out of necessity.  It started small, by selling heirloom vegetables and jarring jalapeno mustard, and took surprising turns along the way.  Heather, encouraged by her husband, went back to what she had done in her professional career for some of the biggest names in the industry – designing and making bags.  It was fascinating listening to her talk about leather and fabric and what gets her excited about her work and the creative process.  When she stepped out of the fast-paced professional world, she swore she was done with bags, you can tell that particular craft followed her around, insisting she continue doing it but on her own terms.

She shared about the seasons when it all seemed crazy, foolhardy, and like they were backing themselves into a desperate corner.  She shared about rocking her infant to sleep while the back of the chair bumped into jars of mustard and stacks of fabric because space was so tight.  She shared about the first market where she sold every bag and even the display her husband built.  And she shared about drawing a rooster by hand to make their logo, which they still use today because they needed one in a few hours.

While this story-telling was happening their kids were playing around the farm, having lunch at a picnic table, finding random objects to create imaginary worlds from, and jumping on the trampoline.  Heather and her siblings had grown up on this farm and I found myself wishing she could bottle a bit of the energy you felt here and sell it alongside her mustard.  In a way, this property and what it represents is a part of each of her products.  This is the farm referred to in Meanwhile Back on the Farm on each label.  Above the impromptu rooster graphic.

This was my kind of place and my kind of people.

I shared my story as homemade brownies were brought out to finish the leisurely lunch.  I even got to meet the maker of the kombucha Heather is such a proponent of and hear her story.  She worked almost two years testing and tasting in order to create a kombucha she thought tasted good that might even appeal to people like me, who were not enthusiastic about trying fermented black tea no matter how good it is for your digestion.  And she succeeded.  I didn’t spew it out and I didn’t hate it.  I even took several sips over lunch, knowing that you always need a little time to process new flavors and I would have it again.

As with most farms, there were a lot of comings and goings and I still have no idea how or even if everyone was related or if this is some creative commune where people go to start a successful business.  Maybe it’s a bit of both.  Family and a creative commune.  Either way, it was a great way to spend a lunch.

After we finished the food and the sun had shifted from behind the trees, I asked if I could take some pictures and Heather gave me a tour of the farm.

Her parents bought the property over 50 years ago and the entire family has lovingly restored and cared for it over the years.  Heather pointed out buildings that had been restored and ones that still needed work or needed to be torn down because they became structurally unsafe and were too expensive to repair.  She shared memories, pointed out the corn crib with a long harvest table where they host a wreath-making party each year, and opened the kitchen door of the “Cooper house” to reveal the lovely sound of the creek that was her soundtrack when she first started making mustard.  She pointed at the creek and said, That is where we lived our childhood.  In that creek.

You can see the Cooper house just off the porch of the main house.  This property was originally a whiskey distillery.  A cooper was a craftsman who made barrels and that was originally the house for the cooper of the business (hence the name.)

The main house has classic Pennsylvania architecture with two-level side porches, a slate roof, tansomes, and six-over-six windows.

Inside the buildings, there are still remnants of the old business…grain belts, cogs, wheels, gears, and rusted tools.

The old distillery is marked by a brick chimney and one last standing stone wall.  They are still in the process of cleaning up the old timber and figuring out the best way to repurpose the materials.

The carriage house really is the star of the show, though.  The original windows are so utterly charming.  It’s such a celebration of making a utilitarian building, a garage essentially, into a unique statement piece.

And, as we did our walking tour, we were greeted by the calico cat…

…and jellybean the chicken.

I drove away from the farm buzzing and already looking forward to the future tentative plans we made to get together again.

It’s so, so easy to say that we’re too busy, have too much work, and have too many other commitments to say yes to a lunch.  I do that far too often.  We trick ourselves into thinking the interaction we get online, the books we read, the little personal field trips, and creative projects are enough, but we also need to extend and accept hospitality.  We need to connect IRL (in real life) as my boys say.  We sometimes need to go to a farm that feels magical, hear and tell stories, eat tarts, and just enjoy being in the presence of kindred spirits.