This farm isn’t just land. It’s our story.

It’s where my grandfather Harold was raised, and where he returned in 1968 to raise his own children, four of them, alongside the love of his life, my grandmother Rose. It’s where my mother ran barefoot through the fields and where cousins laughed until the fireflies came out. It’s where summer afternoons smelled like fresh-cut hay and diesel, and where we learned that love looks a lot like hard work.

My grandfather passed away in 2023, at home, surrounded by family, the same way he lived: with quiet strength and deep roots. He wasn’t the kind of man who spoke loudly, but you felt him in everything he did. He woke up every day and took care of the land, of his family, of anyone who needed him.

And now, with my grandmother ready to pass the torch, we have the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to keep the farm in the family, to honor everything my grandmother and grandfather built and everything this land has meant to us.

We’re doing everything we can to make that happen. But we can’t do it alone.

This is our chance, maybe our only chance, to ensure this land stays in the hands of those who love it most. To preserve a place that has shaped four generations of our family, and carries the memory of the man who gave his whole life to it.

This land holds more than crops and fences, it holds memories, legacy, grief, and love. It has been our safe place in every storm, our backdrop for joy and sorrow, and our connection to something bigger than ourselves.

As was once said, “And on the eighth day, God looked down on His planned paradise and said, ‘I need a caretaker.’ So God made a farmer.”

That was my grandfather. That was Harold. And now we hope to be those caretakers.

We want our children, and their children, to stand where he stood, to know the feel of this land beneath their feet, to understand what it means to belong to something that remembers you.

This farm has stood in the village of Butternut for 103 years. It’s always been part of the heartbeat of the community. Quietly. Faithfully. Like my grandfather.

If this story moves you, if you’ve ever loved a place so deeply it hurt to imagine losing it, we hope you’ll help us hold on. Every dollar brings us closer to keeping this farm, and everything it represents, in the family where it belongs.

Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts.

Raymond and Kristie