From Upland to Lowcountry Living

Jerry and I just celebrated 34 years of marriage and we've been in our two story farmhouse where we thought we would live 'for the rest of our lives' for twenty years.  We moved in when our two older children were nine and seven and our youngest was an infant.  We not only grew our own hay but our tractor and hay barn evolved into a wedding and events venue.

In fact, as we carried the last load of our earthly belongings up the long driveway to our custom built 'forever' home, he told me, "Now, if you ever divorce me, I'm not moving out of the house." I said, "If you divorce me, I'm not either so I guess we'll have a wall built down the middle." But, 20 years later, our children have grown up and gained independence and we are growing older. While we get our high quality horse hay from a grower in Northern Kentucky by the tractor trailer load these days, we can't see ourselves still stacking hay, delivering it out of town and stacking it off in customers' barns five years from now into our early 60's.

And as much as we have enjoyed getting to be a peripheral part of so many fun and touching weddings, that, too, is a lot of work placing wooden church pews in the barn yard, cleaning and preparing the barn for events and being on hand the entire time.

When Jerry first seriously suggested that we leave our farm with its hardwoods, pastures, creeks and hills, I was a bit depressed at the idea.  The 70 acre farm had been his dream and we had built it from the original 20 acres he bought from his grandfather's estate to what it is now bringing back together the land still listed on the Spartanburg County deeds as Brown Dairy back when dairy cows roamed it and there was an old barn on the hill that burned down years ago. But, as a coworker said to him, the Bible says there is a time and a season for everything. "You've loved and enjoyed your season on the farm. Now it's time for a new season."

So, we'll be trading pastures, creeks, hills and occasional snow for sand and waves.