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Chez Nous Farm, her 25 acres on the west side of Piqua, has been in her family since 1948. As she showed off her friendly horses, Caroline explained how one of them is the great-grandson of the original mare her grandfather purchased over 50 years ago!

The business plan for her farm has been in the works for several years, as she took courses, studied established practices, and gained ideas from fellow farmers. Wanting to start small, her offerings this summer consisted of potted culinary herbs including basil, parsley, cilantro, and thyme, organically grown in the charming greenhouse built with help (from the best maintenance man in the universe). Finding a niche with low initial inputs allowed her to get her feet wet while building her business and her name.

Her home garden was meticulously neat, the pastures lush, and her woods showing evidence of how much she is committed to hard work – look one direction, the woods appeared as many of our area parks, roadsides, fields, and fence rows do – full of invasive honeysuckle, choking out our native plants and wildflowers. But most obvious was the other side of the path, where she and a friend began the tedious process of battling one of Ohio’s worst invasive species. The difference was staggering, and inspiring.

Caroline glowed when talking about her “big plans” in store for meat goats that she recently brought home to her farm. They’re lightening her load in tackling the honeysuckle, as she rotates them through the woods and uses their appetite to start the clearing process. Can’t you just see sheep and goats grazing along roadsides for the same purpose? I’d like to see the figures comparing the cost and benefit of fencing such an area, and stocking it with meat animals, instead of paying to maintain the same area that produces no food or saleable product. As Caroline talked about her goats, it made me think of the photographs I’ve seen where Ivy League schools at the turn of the 20th century (and earlier) used their large expanses of lawn to keep sheep and chickens that would then be used in the school kitchens. Oh the potential! But I digress ?

Last year, Caroline developed a conservation plan with the Natural Resource Conservation Service. One part of the plan includes some of the acreage to plant pollinator habitat, which also will support another of her new projects – honeybees!

She described how the house and outbuildings were added over the years, including what was once her father’s airplane hangar! Now a godsend for storage of equipment, she still calls it “the hangar”. Then when she explained how she came to own and care for the family farm, Caroline chuckled, saying “The Lord works in mysterious ways”. True, and always for the best – and whether for us to have access to another ecologically-minded grower, or for that 25 acres to be nurtured so mindfully by Caroline McColloch.