We’ve Arrived in Tennessee
It still feels surreal to type those words, but here we are: Tennessee. New ground under our boots, new mountains on the horizon, and a new chapter beginning whether we feel fully ready for it or not.
For those who’ve been with us a while, you know this journey didn’t start overnight. Back in 2013, when most people thought we’d lost our minds, we traded sidewalks and convenience for a dusty road and raw land in Zephyrhills, Florida. That decision set off a chain reaction we never could have predicted. One that reshaped what food meant to us, reformed our daily rhythms, and taught our girls (and us) more about life and death than any book ever could.
That land became our first classroom. Chickens, gardens, soil, failures, victories, compost piles that never heated up, and eggs that did. Fresh food on our table and a deeper appreciation for where it came from. We learned a lot out there on that piece of Florida sand.
But over time, we also felt a stirring. It was quiet at first, then louder. We wanted more room to stretch, more terrain to steward, more long-term potential for regenerative grazing, water capture, and careful land management. We wanted a place that could not just feed us, but feed others too. We wanted a place that our children might someday call home, not just a stepping stone.
And so, after ten years of sweat, hard work, and plenty of tears, we packed our lives into trailers, hugged goodbye to the place that raised us into farmers, and pointed our headlights north.
Forty acres of steep, wooded mountains waited for us here in northeast Tennessee. Our first sunrise looked like something from a postcard. Pink light across the ridges, fog sitting low like the land was exhaling. Beautiful… and intimidating. This ground is different. The work will be different. But so will the possibilities.
Right now it’s mostly trees, shale, and the kind of slopes that make you rethink what “flat” means. There’s a small barn that’s more of a shed, no fencing, no real farm infrastructure beyond what nature already designed. But that’s exactly what we love about it. It’s a blank slate, the start of something big and long-term. A chance to rebuild our farm slowly and intentionally.
As winter settles in around us and we adjust to the mountain cold, we’re looking forward to sharing this journey the same way we always have: honestly, imperfectly, and with all the lessons that come along.
We’ll share the land-clearing days, the experiments, the mistakes, the building projects, the successes, and the slow transformation of this wild hillside into a working landscape that honors the land and nourishes the people who stand on it.
Here’s to Tennessee.
Here’s to new beginnings.
Here’s to doing things our way.
— The Langley Family