Welcome Friends!
Lydia and Scott here. We live on a 2.5-acre homestead in north central Ohio with our 4 kids, fields of lavender, sunflowers, gardens, and chickens.
We look forward to sharing more about the calming world of lavender with you in addition to healthy living tips. We are excited to have you follow along on our journey.
Read more about our story below…
Our Story…
Hey there! We are Lydia and Scott. We have 4 active kiddos and stay busy with growing lavender, raising chickens, and more here on our 2.5 acre homestead. Although we talk about lavender, homesteading, and healthy living, these are things that we do and it isn’t who we are.
Our days are filled with homeschooling, spending time together as a family, and enjoying the beautiful surrounding that God has provided. We truly are abundantly blessed.
Our life has been filled with ups and downs and we may eventually share some of that here. One of the biggest challenges we have faced is experiencing a house fire. We have desired to offer support and guidance to those who have experienced a house fire to pay it forward to the next person who experiences this struggle.
If you know someone who has experienced a house fire, we have created some FREE resources that may be helpful for them and for you.
Moving After The House Fire
Following our house fire in 2016, we prayed for God to open an opportunity for us to be in the country and eventually landed at our current home.
Since moving in, we had prayed for ways to better utilize our land. We started a garden, changed some landscaping, and dreamed of one day purchasing additional land. We had an additional 1.5 acres that was unoccupied and previously used as a hay field.
During our first year, Scott would mow it down periodically and we would dream of this area where our kids would run and play. But we continued to dream.
Chickens: The Gateway Animal
While at our previous home…the one with the house fire…we had a small flock of 6 birds. These birds never got to the laying stage before our fire, however, they were definitely a game changer as we could begin to see the possibility of farm fresh eggs at our home.
After moving to our current home, I continued to mention to Scott that we needed to get chickens. Well, I actually said some goats and a milk cow, but I don’t think we really had the right amount of space for either.
A little while later, after some light nudging, we had a small and growing flock of 12+ chickens. Since that initial flock here at our farm, we have seen the number ebb and flow. Nonetheless, chickens continue to be a staple on our property and one that brings much joy for our family.
The Start of Abundantly Blessed Farm
Scott and I had been considering various ways to utilize part of our land so that he wouldn’t need to mow as much and we could enjoy the space as a family. We considered raising additional animals or growing a specialty crop. The challenge we faced was that we enjoy going on vacation without the burden of additional animals and neither of us have a green thumb. And so the challenge continued.
In 2022, we took a family vacation to Michigan. During this time we discovered a lavender farm nearby and thought it would be interesting to check this place out.
We quickly fell in love with the possibility of growing this herb in Ohio and loved the idea of bringing lavender to our property. While we were driving back from Michigan, we reached out to several greenhouse growers in our area and soon we were the owners of 80+ English lavender (Munstead) plants. This was the start of our culinary lavender variety.
Unfortunately, our eyes were bigger than our skills as we had no place for these plants. However, we have been blessed by generous neighbors. One of our nearby neighbors, Gerry, was willing to come till a section of ground for us to get our plants in the ground. We are pretty sure that he thought we were crazy for growing something that wasn’t a garden, or corn, or soybeans. We are very thankful that we was willing to appease our request.
After getting those 80+ plants in the ground, we weren’t sure what the first year would bring or how the winter would fare. We were pleased that each of the plants survived their first growing season and only a few struggled to make it through the first winter. We continued to watch our baby plants take shape…and so did Gerry.
The Farm Continues to Grow
In 2023, we knew we wanted to expand the field again and Gerry was so kind to help us expand our lavender field. We expanded the space to accomodate for an additional 600 plants and this time we added in a few culinary lavender plants while we added our hybrid variety, Phenomenal Lavender. Although the majority of these plants have continued to do very well, crop loss is a reality in farming and one that we have experienced, too, leading to some plant loss.
2023 also led us to begin crafting items with our lavender. We were excited to have items available for retail here at our farm. With the help of our kiddos, Scott built a small self-serve roadside stand where we had our lavender products available for retail. We would take items out to our stand several days each week eagerly anticipating our first customers, though no one would come. Eventually, after, nearly a month of setting up, we made our first sale and we were ecstatic!
Since building that small roadside stand, we have since created and expanded our parking area, purchased and rehabbed a 14×20 building that is now our Farm Stand, and now have items available to purchase online.
Looking to launch or scale your farm stand? Check out our COMPLETE step-by-step Farm Stand Toolkit.
God Continues to Bless
We continue to be amazed by how God continues to bless our home and our farm. We are excited for the many faces that we get to meet through this work and we are excited to see what God has in store. From connecting with individuals during weekly dairy pickup to seeing the smiles on peoples faces walking through the lavender field, we are abundantly blessed with the opportunities God has provided us.
We thank you for your support of our family business and we look forward to sharing valuable tips, tricks, and ideas with you through this website.
If you have been positively impacted through the work here on our farm, we would love to hear from you in the comments below.
~ Lydia and Scott
“Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, “
– Ephesians 3:20 NKJV
