From the Milly Market newsletter, July 2024
For the month of July, the Farmer’s Hallmanac guest of honor is none other than… Communitowhee, my husband Stephen and I’s micro middle Georgia homestead. At long last, we share the who, what, why and how our farm came to be a part of the Milly Market family.
Me: Stephen… It’s lovely to finally meet you in person after all this time since we finished eating dinner three minutes ago.
You’re a dapper millennial who grew up in the mountains of Colorado drag racing and doing all the sports with an initial ambition to go to med school and study the human brain.
So, I must ask, how in the world did you end up living on a farm in Milledgeville, GA?
Stephen:
In the colonial period, this property was home to one of the largest Creek Indian civilizations. Following the forceful removal and displacement of the Native Americans, my family came here as tenement farmers in the early 19th century. 200 years later, what remains of the original tract is a 49-acre pine forest and 1-acre lot on which the one-room farmhouse my father grew up in has been renovated into the home he and I now share.
During the pandemic, I moved down here after graduating with a degree in data science from Northeastern University in Boston. I felt like the last place I wanted to be if the quarantine conditions of the pandemic worsened was in a big city.
Any remnants of the prior working farm had long since disappeared. But my father and I felt inspired to revive our family’s legacy of living off the land, and restore what remained of a modest, multi-generational fruit orchard.
Slowly, we conceived blueprints for raised garden beds, built from leftover barn wood and tin roof panels from the original farmhouse. From there, more DIY designs followed for composting bins, a bat house, water catchment barrels, underground irrigation systems, and by year 2, a 40-by-12-foot greenhouse.
Me:
Funny I should ask. Through a mystical matchmaking magician known as Bumble, I met Stephen who, in just a few short months and one interminable, tick-infested camping trip to Cumberland Island, swept me off my feet and invited me to move onto his farm with my two cats Poppycock and Jerry Hall.
How did you come up with the name Communitowhee?
Us:
One afternoon, we both spotted a beautiful little bird dancing under an oak tree, just shimmying a little bit forward, then sashaying a littlebit back. We were so amused by its little jig. We told Steve, Stephen’s dad (yes, it gets confusing) about it and, as an avid birder, he told us its name: an Eastern towhee, who do this dance to disrupt the soil below and uncover bugs beneath the dirt.
We were just a month or so into dating but had a shared vision of creating community, one that invites people to return to their playful, childlike selves while also participating in a larger purpose of ecological and social welfare.
We both thought the towhee was the perfect spirit animal for such a vision of community; so we joined the names and came up with Communitowhee.
What have been some of the most pleasant surprises from living on the farm?
Stephen:
Berry season! We discovered four or five Chickasaw plum trees on our property; the seeds were brought here by the Native Americans, prized for their rapid maturation rate. They produce these super tart, hot-pink plums that only fruit one month out of the year, for which we scurry out every morning to harvest before the birds and bugs get to them and turn into delicious jams and popsicles.
And blueberries! My dad said this has been a Mast year for our fruit – a period of great abundance. And it has been. We’ve harvested nearly 40 pounds of blueberries and plums, while getting mixed results with our peaches.
Me:
I think the best surprises have been the inspired ideas we come up with on the fly to solve everyday challenges, converting traditional rain-catching garden beds into self-irrigating wicking beds. Figuring out how to affix new tires onto a 40-year-old Radio Flyer wagon we named “Big Bertha.”
All the volunteer fruits and veggies that just pop up out of the compos tbins – watermelons, cantaloupes, squash, tomatoes. Unearthing antique parts from old farm equipment, hitches, tools, shovels; along with indigenous pottery shards and arrow heads in the same soil we’re now growing the food that goes onto our dinner table.
What have been some of the most challenging parts of the experience of living on the farm?
Stephen:
Having just come back from a run, I’d say the black flies! They’re really annoying and make it inhospitable to go down into the forest when it’s hot. You can stick these little dragonfly pins into the brim of a hat that waggle around when you walk or run that ward off the flies – so long as you’re in the sun. The bold ones, though, don’t care about my little tricks to keep them at bay.
And the inconsistent Wi-Fi can be annoying being so remote. But honestly, being able to go outside and pet the cats and walk around barefoot in the grass is really what makes me happy. I lived in Boston where there was a lot going on. But I found it was very expensive to go anywhere and do anything in the city. You were constantly bombarded with consumerism and, with the exception of finding a Pokémon-Go community, everything was far away, noisy, fast-paced, and apart from nature. So I very much like the change of pace and the change of scenery of living in a more rural area.
Me:
You prefer the sound of cicadas over car alarms. Me too. (Though I guess this year with the double brood they sounded quite similar!)
I agree the bugs have been a constant challenge. It’s like whack-a-mole, or whack-a-caterpillar moth. We plant something, watch it grow and thrive and green and fruit and then, wham! Some pest comes along and eats it up.
Remember your dad built the beer trap I named the Gastropod Pub? He heard that slugs are attracted to beer so he poured a bottle of imported beer into a Tupperware and left it in the greenhouse by the pepper plants. But for a week, not a single slug drowned in the beer pool and your dad was disappointingly out a really expensive bottle of some European ale while a bunch of drunk slugs slept it happily off in the grass.
Scooter, farm supervisor
Farm Harvest
What are these famous Crop Pop popsicles I’ve been hearing so much about?
Us:
So glad you mentioned them! They’re popsicles made from specialized recipes we come up with here on the farm, made from fruit, veggies, and spices we harvest off our own trees and plants, and supplemented with organic juice concentrates.
So they’re incredibly thirst-quenching, delicious, and nutritious.
Finally, Stephen, how on earth did you snag such a cool lady for a wife?
Stephen:
A dating app and mutual willingness to drive.
Me:
Move over Shakespeare, there’s a new love bard in town! : )