Reconnecting

By Nancy Bryant

“Listen to the land,” Tony said.

Listen to the land? Yes, Tony Klees, of Earthwise, LLC, our farm land consultant, had told us just that in his report after spending the day walking the land, taking soil samples and talking with our family here at 3 Eagles Sanctuary about what our vision for the future might be. If we wanted to move away from the unsustainable row crop past, we had to listen to the land to learn what it wanted us to do going forward.

But to go back to the beginning. 

It was Thanksgiving of 2005, on our way back to our home in the center of Charlotte, North Carolina, after visiting family in Florida. I asked my husband, Ron, “What if we found 100 or 200 acres, whatever we could afford, put the land under a conservation easement to preserve it from development in perpetuity, and then went to live there?” We had spent the first 18 years of our marriage working together caring for God’s Creation through our environmental activism in the region and the state. He led the Catawba Lands Conservancy as its early president and was founding chair of the Catawba River Foundation. I founded Clean Air Carolina, as it is known today, and we worked in many other ways, including serving on the environmental committees of our church, locally and nationally, to live out what we understood to be the work that God was calling us to do. 

I was terribly troubled by what the scientists were saying about climate change. Where we might we be in the future? Not in the center of a big city, but somewhere where there would be water, clean air and good soils to grow our food. Now I believed God might be calling us to find land to preserve and steward.

Ron said yes to my question right away. We determined the geographical limitations, somewhere between Charlotte and Winston Salem, and thus began our year’s search for land. We prayed God would guide us and give us signs along the way to direct us to that special land. God did provide!

After many months of searching, we learned of a 170-acre farm on the Pee Dee River in Stanly County, due east of Charlotte. It seemed a little too far out in the boonies, but Ron said he thought the land was speaking to him after a visit with the realtor. I thought we should spend a day by ourselves walking the land, touching it, feeling it and smelling it. So we did, and while we were sitting at the river’s edge, one and then two and then three eagles flew by, up and down the river and down out of a tree - in the form of the cross some of us make during worship. The blessing! God was showing us the sign of his blessing! It was because of this sign we later named the farm 3 Eagles Sanctuary. 

That same day, Ron’s name appeared literally on the land, giving us further confirmation. His childhood name was Jeep, so when Ron found an old Jeep vehicle insignia in the sand at the river, he said, “Lord, I get it. You don’t need to hit me upside the head. This is the land!” We prayed and hoped and finally had our offer accepted, and after a year spent building our homestead, we moved from the middle of Charlotte to our rural country home in December, 2006.

Our search began in earnest on how to steward the land. At that time, 50 acres were in conventional row crops leased by some local farmers growing cotton that season. We learned enough to know that cotton, unless grown organically, is one of the most damaging crops to the soil, due to the need for high chemical inputs. We told the farmers no more cotton, so they continued with corn and soybeans for a couple of years as we were filling out the homestead gardens and learning the ways of country and farm life.

Then we realized conventional row crops in general could be destructive to the soil unless grown organically. The farmers had already begun no-till farming, and that was a positive move. They were not growing cover crops in the winter to help prevent erosion, however, and we cringed when, one season, a small plane dive-bombed our fields with sprays of chemicals. We had to run to cover our beehives from the cloud of pesticides. It was the final straw. Something had to change.

That is when we asked Tony and his partner from Earthwise to come help us discern what God was calling us to do with this land. But “listen to the land?” How does one listen to the land? Tony was actually telling us that if we wanted to connect with the land, to reconnect with the land that was calling for natural ways to use the soil, we had to observe the land, watch it for a couple of seasons, and see how nature was working. Now for city folks, even someone like me who had grown up talking about possibly living on a farm someday, that was a mystery. But once again, God gave us signs as we listened and researched, and we learned about Conservation Reserve Programs (CRP) from our local farm agency staff. CRPs are federally funded programs for farmers to set aside certain acreage for soil or water or wildlife conservation. Until we could decide how to grow food sustainably on our land, we decided to put most of it in several programs, beginning with a wildlife corridor to help bring back the likes of quail and to establish native grasses and wildflowers to replenish the soil.

We decided to set aside about 10 acres in cover crops, however, in case someone might want to come and farm here organically, to really reconnect with the soil’s biomass, to grow vegetables and small livestock for the surrounding markets. While we were waiting to learn what God might have in store for us on those 10 acres, Ron and I thought of establishing an incubator farm like the Lomax Incubator Farm (near Concord, NC) to serve the surrounding counties, bringing in people who wanted to learn how to farm organically and sustainably. After two years of gathering support, a group of us established the Upper Pee Dee Farm and Food Council in our three-county region. While the council was effective, we still had 10 acres without a farmer.

Meanwhile, Three Rivers Land Trust (formerly the LandTrust for Central NC, an organization we worked with and supported) knew we were looking for a farmer. One day we got an email from the director saying a young man had contacted them about needing some acreage to establish his organic small farm. His name was Holt Ackers-Campbell, and his farm partner was Hailey Sowden. They came down from Vermont where they were working on organic farms to put their hands in our soil and to get to know us. After several months of talks and negotiations, we signed a 102-year lease to establish his farm at 3 Eagles Sanctuary. He called his farm Lazy Heron Farm.

On the approximately 10 acres Holt began working with Hailey in November, 2016, they were able to establish a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) that served 40 families the first year and more than 60 families the second year. They worked the farmers markets in Albemarle and Charlotte in addition to several other endeavors. They were amazing to watch in the fields as they built their infrastructure from scratch, all the while putting in their crops and creating their vision of a sustainable world. The most amazing part for us was to watch them work the two draft horses, Sonny and Kate, they had brought down from Vermont to work the “natural way.” While not certified organic, Holt used no chemicals at all, only natural inputs of manure and lime and the like. He and Hailey refurbished, renewed and reconnected with the soil, and the soil brought forth life under their care. Holt provided untold amounts of produce for the local Community Table, so those folks had good, nutritious foods from Lazy Heron.

The Rt. Rev. Sam Rodman, in the “Reconnecting to the Land” priority of the diocese, reminds us of our responsibilities to the land on which we live, and the imperative we all must feel and answer to protect the earth and work to restore its declining health. Ron and I have lived here for 12 years now. We continue to re-evaluate our responsibilities and options for the use of the land, the woods, the rest of the CRPs, Holt’s acreage and the floodplain fields where we’ve planted 6,000 hardwood trees (because that’s what the floodplain fields “told” us they want). Unfortunately, after two years of backbreaking work, Holt had to move back home to be near his family to help with his father’s illness, so Lazy Heron Farm lies quietly waiting for whatever we discern God is calling for next. Hailey, on the other hand, is working the farm we bought for her and her fiancé, Mike, in southwest Virginia. She is working her dream of establishing her own sustainable farm and will lease from us until she and Mike buy it in a few years.

The Bible calls us to be good stewards of God’s Good Earth. God made us from the very soil of this earth, and everything on this earth is made from the same 92 elements. Everything is connected, but we humans in this modern world, in the first world countries at least, have broken our connections to the earth in so many ways, due to the old sins of power and greed and the loss of formerly sustainable ways.

Wendell Berry, poet and writer, reminds us that none of us can really own land. We can only hold it in trust to nourish. That is why Ron and I call ourselves stewards of 3 Eagles Sanctuary. We are listening, Lord, listening and watching for you and the land to tell us what is next, always ready to reconnect with you and your glorious Creation.