Our story
The Nelson farm, and where this is headed
The back place. Grandma Janet's family took it on when she was a teenager. She is 93 now.
The back place belonged to Alex's grandma Janet. Her family took it on when she was a teenager, and she is ninety three now, which puts it somewhere close to eighty years in the family. Not quite a Century Farm. A heritage farm by any reasonable definition.
If the front place is where this business currently stands, the Nelson farm is where it is going. That distinction matters enough that the two farms get their own pages instead of being folded into one story about land.
Almost nothing described on this page exists yet. We are laying out the plan rather than the inventory, and we would rather be plain about which is which than let a website imply we are further along than we are.
What the back place is meant to become
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Water that does not come from a meter
Rain capture off the roofs, stored and used. On a farm the water bill is not the point. Being able to keep growing through a dry stretch without asking anyone's permission is the point, and in southwest Iowa dry stretches are not hypothetical.
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Somewhere to put a harvest
Canning storage, a proper cold room, shelves that hold a season. A farm without storage sells everything the week it comes ripe at whatever price that week offers. Storage is what turns a harvest into something you control.
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Heat that works when the power does not
A wood stove for backup heat. Rural Iowa loses power, usually in the exact weather where losing it matters most. This is not preparedness as a hobby, it is the same reasoning as the water and the storage.
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A smokehouse
Curing and smoking is how a farm keeps meat without a freezer full of electricity, and it is also simply a better product. It is on the list because Alex wants it on the list, and we would rather tell you that honestly.
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Room for the operation to actually grow
The front place works for the scale we are at. The back place is where more ground, more beds and a real production floral operation could go without crowding a family home that was never meant to be a business.
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A way of living, not a facility
Read the list again and it is not a business plan. It is water, storage, heat and food, arranged so a household is not entirely dependent on things it does not control. That is the actual project. The farm is how it pays for itself.
How this happens, in order
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1
Prove the small version first
Broiler chickens, floral design work and a couple of farmers markets. Small, real, and paid for by customers rather than by optimism. If this stage does not work, none of the rest of the page is worth building.
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2
Move the operation to the back place
The move is targeted at fall of 2027. That date is a plan and not a promise. Farms run on seasons and seasons do not care about anyone's timeline, so treat it as the direction rather than the schedule.
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3
Build the infrastructure in the order it pays
Water and storage come before a smokehouse, because water and storage change what is possible and a smokehouse changes what is pleasant. Each piece gets built when the season before it justified the cost.
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4
Open it up, eventually
The version of this farm that people drive out to visit is ten to twenty years away and depends on everything above going right. It is on the site because it is genuinely where we are pointed, not because it is close.
Why we are telling you about a farm that is not built
Most farm websites show you the finished thing. We are six months into a business and the finished thing does not exist, so we had two options. Write a site that implies more than is true, or show you the actual shape of the plan and let you decide what to make of it.
The reason it is worth showing is that where a farm is headed tells you more about the food than where it currently stands. Anybody can raise one good batch of chickens. What we are trying to build is a place where doing it the careful way is the cheap way, because the water, the storage and the ground are all set up for it.
The other reason is grandma Janet. Eighty years is her whole life on that ground, and taking it forward rather than letting it go is not a business decision that spreadsheets produce. If you want to know why two people with a young family would take this on, that is most of the answer.
None of this obligates you to care. If you just want good chicken from someone nearby, the chicken page is the one you want and this page is optional reading.
Questions people ask
Is the Nelson farm a Century Farm too?
Not quite. Grandma Janet's family took it on when she was a teenager and she is ninety three now, so it is somewhere close to eighty years. That makes it a heritage farm rather than a Century Farm, which is a specific hundred year designation.
Is anything on this page happening now?
Almost none of it. The rain capture, canning storage, wood stove and smokehouse are all planned rather than built. The current operation runs on the front place. We would rather say that plainly than let the page imply otherwise.
When does the move happen?
Fall of 2027 is the target. It is a direction rather than a commitment, because farm timelines move for weather, for money and for whatever the season decides. We will say so on this page when it actually happens.
Can I visit the back place?
No, not yet. It is a family home and it is not set up for visitors in any way. The version of this farm that people come out to see is years off and it is one of the things we are working toward.
Will the flowers be grown here?
That is the intent. A real production field for cut flowers needs more room and better water than the current setup allows, and the back place is where both of those are possible. For now the floral side sources what it cannot grow.
Why does the water matter so much?
Because everything else depends on it. Vegetables, cut flowers and livestock all fail the same way in a dry August, and a farm that can only grow when the weather cooperates is not really a farm you can plan a business around.
Elsewhere on the farm
Follow this as it gets built
The list is where the real updates go, including the ones where a plan on this page turns into something standing in a field. No obligation and no sales pitch.
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