Our story

The Journey that brought
us here

Starting a farm has been the adventure of a lifetime. I’m just so grateful to have this unbelievable opportunity to live out my dreams. This is my first time doing anything like this…and as with every other adventure in my life, I’m just blissfully figuring it all out as I go.

I’m a first-generation Korean-American, born to immigrants who settled in the heart of the Midwest. I’m an Iowa girl, through and through. Even though I’m 100% Korean in nationality, Iowa is in my blood and in my bones. Although my family didn’t have a farm, I grew up in an area surrounded by farm country. Both of my parents had incredibly green thumbs, and we did grow a lot of our own food in our gardens for our large family of nine.

My siblings and I were immersed in the most amazingly beautiful mix of both Korean & American culture, home cooking, language, and blended traditions. I was the youngest of 6 kids, raised in a three-generation household where manners were kept, elders were respected, and you worked your ass off (surpassing child labor). My dad ran our family military-style with his heavy handed Drill Sargent tactics at the helm (picture a Korean version of Captain Von Trapp from The Sound of Music times 1,000 in intensity and strictness).

By growing our own fresh produce, we made the most of what little we had…and it also enabled and empowered my Mom (who was AMAZING in the kitchen) to cook with ingredients from her home country. My parents REALLY put all of us to work as children…which is why it’s not surprising that we all grew up to have insane work ethics. Every single one of my siblings is a talented entrepreneur, and I know we all have our parents to thank for that.

Fortunately for me (or unfortunately, depending on how you view it ;), with all of that entrepreneurial spirit comes a MILLION different things I’m passionate about. My husband and I always dreamed of having a farm someday…but in that hypothetical way that you casually joke and send each other cute pictures of animals “for our farm someday”.

When we first met, we were both working at an ad agency in Los Angeles. I was living in the most breathtaking (albeit TINY) artist studio apartment in Koreatown. It had gorgeous wood floors and windows that completely swung open out into the beautiful sun. That was my favorite apartment that I’ve ever lived in, and it’s also where I lived when I spent the BEST Summer of my life! However, it was so tiny at only about 500 sq. ft. So at that time, a farm didn’t really feel like an attainable dream.

Eventually when we started having kids, we moved to the suburbs. Right after we had our second child, we purchased a breathtaking home in a beautiful neighborhood filled with dozens of the most wonderful neighbors. Before we bought our big house, I had renovated and leased a commercial space for my business; but now we had two little toddlers running around. I quickly found that I wanted to create my own work space within the comfort of home.

Our gorgeous new house was large enough to be our forever home AND so much more. I converted the ridiculously massive master suite into my art studio for my thriving business. It was a dream come true, and we could certainly imagine ourselves staying here forever. However, there were a few things that kept nagging at me.

My sister Angela is my best friend, and after the death of one of our other sisters…we were desperately trying to live in the same city. After years and years of job and life opportunities that brought each of us this way and that…we just couldn’t quite seem to make it happen. After loving their life in San Francisco, she and her now husband eventually settled down in Asheville, NC (where he grew up). We were excited that this could maybe be the place we’d finally all end up together some day. When we visited the area for the first time for their wedding, we were definitely sold.

We really wanted to make this happen, but by now Jason had an unbelievable job with the most amazing tech company, and my business was taking off to new heights. Years pass and you get settled in more and more…it was starting to feel like we were home in Los Angeles. We kept telling ourselves, “If we don’t make the jump before Gavin (our oldest) starts Kindergarten…it’s probably not going to happen.” By then, you’ve laid some serious roots in your community and your children have so many tight-knit friends.

But then a few things happened.

Earlier, I mentioned a few things kept nagging at me. Two of them were fears: wildfires and earthquakes. Growing up in the Midwest, I was used to tornadoes being the natural disaster that you were hit with regularly. From a very young age, they drill and prep you for exactly what to do and where to go when a tornado hits. An earthquake, on the other hand, was just terrifying to me. Where do you go? What do you do? It’s different depending on where you are. Doorway? Under a desk? Go outside? How and why are there so many contrasting things that you should do in a crisis?! I just was not a fan, and the fear that we could have a BIG one when our children were at school away from us was a nightmare.

And then there are the wildfires. One downside to our beautiful home is that we were right in the middle of prime wildfire country outside of Los Angeles. Every year, we’d get hit with fires…and every year the fire season would last longer and longer. When the Sand Fire hit us in 2016, that was pretty much my last straw. That fire started less than 2 miles from our home, and it was a preview of what I knew would continue and accelerate. At that time, it was one of the largest fires in Southern California (while an even larger fire simultaneously raged in Northern California). While it hit our community hard, it was so awe-inspiring and heartwarming to see how we all banded together in crisis. I just knew I never wanted to experience that again. Sadly, in the time since we left California, the Sand Fire pales in comparison to the multitude of destructive fires that have pummeled the state and our old neighborhood since then.

The other thing that is absolutely untenable about Los Angeles is the traffic. My husband is a Los Angeles native. When you add it all up, he has spent an accumulation of entire MONTHS of his entire life sitting in bumper-to-bumper crazymaking traffic on the freeway. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back for him. He was managing a team of Sales Engineers throughout his district of Southern California. On average, his schedule required him to travel about 60-70% of the time. It was absolutely ridiculous that most of his meetings were less than 100 miles from our home, but that meant regularly driving 6-8 hours in standstill traffic in a single day.

In the end, the over-the-top factor in our decision to leave behind what was a pretty great life was a positive one. My mom has Alzheimer’s and she had been rapidly deteriorating over the last handful of years. With all of my family scattered throughout the country, my sister and I would really try hard and get together at least once every year or so, where we could both see our mom together. That meant trips back home to Iowa, or North Carolina, or out to visit us in California. The very last trip where we all got together and my mom had the last bit of recognition and remembrance for who we were was early November 2017. Since it was difficult for us to travel with little ones, this trip everyone came to us.

During that trip mom was the most lucid she had been in years! It was just such a pleasant surprise that for even hours at a time, she remembered we were her daughters…or that my kids were her grandchildren. Dementia / Alzheimer’s is such a nasty, ugly disease. My heart goes out to anyone who has endured this struggle themselves or in loved ones.

Of all of the things that it has stripped her of over the years, the most heartbreaking thing to see is that it robbed her of joy. The very essence of my mom is joy. She was always a very simple soul, but joy was always at her center. Even in her early, rapid mental decline, whether she was lucid or not…at least towards the beginning she still had joy. She might have been confused or forgetful, but she was joyful. As the disease progressed, that joy started disappearing. The confused happiness was slowly replaced with something much darker, and for that our hearts just broke. However, during this trip…for the first time in years, we got to see her enjoy food, family, and places we visited. That is something I will always treasure.

Family is the most important thing in this world to us. However, that trip made us realize that we didn’t have the time to let our busy lives pass us by. With us, we knew we’d ALWAYS be busy. On that same visit, watching my sister and her husband with our kids (who absolutely idolize them) gave my husband and I such warmth in our hearts. I think it was maybe a day or two after everyone had gone home, my husband approached me and said, “We have to make this happen. We have to move to be closer to your sister. Family is too important.”

I will never forget that moment. We had jobs and lives and obligations…but he assured me we’d just figure all of that out.

*sigh* Do I have the most incredible partner in life, or what? It was the best decision of our lives. At Thanksgiving, we announced to our families that we’d be moving to North Carolina (without jobs lined up or savings to pay for the move). We both agreed that we would do whatever it took to make it happen…and took a giant leap.

There is more to our story about the transition from North Carolina to California, which you can read a bit about here. OH what a big endeavor that was…but we did it! After that transition came the story on how we came to buy this stunning piece of land…which you can read about here.

As you can imagine, this was quite the endeavor. We closed on our property in the most uncertain of times. Our offer to buy this land was accepted in January 2020. The pandemic hit the world in March, and a couple weeks later…we officially owned a breathtaking piece of land with an abandoned house (which was unlivable as it stood).

Unbeknownst to us, Jason was about to get hit with a major pay cut (although we’re grateful he still had a job)…and my businesses were about to go into a pandemic free fall. And now we found ourselves with two mortgages smack dab in the middle of chaos. Our kids transitioned to virtual school at home as our lives shifted from our normal crazy hustle and bustle pace to quarantine.

Along with every other small business owner, my businesses were hit hard by the global pandemic. Since the plan to start this farm was already in motion before “COVID” was in anyone’s vocabulary…I did what I could to pause my existing businesses, put them on life support, and then forged ahead with developing the farm.

Despite the roller coaster of the year that followed, I successfully revived that abandoned old house in desperate need of TLC into our beautiful new farmhouse in about six months. We moved in to the new farmhouse the Sunday before Thanksgiving…with just enough time for me to prepare a giant feast for my absolute favorite day of the year.

Every day I wake up and look outside at our breathtaking view, my heart is filled with so much gratitude. I still have to pinch myself because I don’t feel like this could be real.

The realities of life hit you hard. I felt like 2020 put us on this constant trajectory loop: adjust, pivot, roll with the punches, repeat.

We’re neck deep in debt, I’m juggling multiple construction projects, and we find ourselves in the midst of the highest materials shortages and price increases in history. I’m still in the middle of my commercial build…and it’s been quite painful as I’m months behind and overbudget in the middle of the largest rise in construction material costs in modern history. We cashed out ALL of our savings and now live under the mountain of debt required to make this all happen…and struggle to keep up with the pandemic still wreaking havoc on the economy. But I know we will make it through this storm cloud.

While progress on the farm, at times, feels very slow; I just take a moment to breathe it all in and remain so grateful for everything we have.