| Green Acres is
the place to be
by Doug Brown
for
Virginia Business
April 2003
Kerrs
Creek throbbed and thundered, a wild chaos of water
sloshing over its banks and taunting the white farmhouse
perched above.
John
and Sarah Burleson didn’t seem concerned. Sheep
were birthing lambs. Chickens were scratching in the
yard and laying warm eggs in their cold coops. And guests
had arrived at their 20-acre bed-and-breakfast farm
just outside Lexington. They had work to do.
Besides, the farmhouse had lorded above Kerrs Creek
for 200 years. It had seen bigger floods. The old snow
may have been sodden, the air raw and gray, the patches
of ground nothing but mud, but Lavender Hill Farm was
exactly what we wanted: a place in the country on a
working farm.
It
was February. Piles of snow and frigid air had kept
us housebound for weeks. I and my wife Annie were eager
for the peace of the Shenandoah Valley. Stella, 4, was
thrilled about the prospect of sheep and chickens for
a weekend, instead of board games and books. And Ruby,
nearly six months, was along for the ride.
Lavender
Hill Farm (www.lavhill.com) is one of the few places
in Virginia where people can wallow in farm life for
a few days. The farm is an example of something called
“agri-tourism,” a category that also includes
“pick your own” orchards, winery tours and
farms that offer pumpkin patches and hay rides in the
fall. All of it gives small farmers ways to boost the
bottom line and keeps their land under cultivation.
During Lavender Hill’s peak season from March through
November, room rates range from $75 a night for a room
for two to $145 for a suite.
Agri-tourism
is common in much of Europe, it’s huge in some
states like Vermont, and it’s growing in Virginia.
“We certainly promote it,” says Martha Steger,
public relations director for the Virginia Tour-ism
Corp. “We are aware there is a market for it.”
The
formula — pay us to muck around on our farm —
has worked for the Burlesons, who bought the B&B
in 1996 with no knowledge about farming or the bed-and-breakfast
business. The couple had been living in King George
County, dreaming of an escape to some rural place where
they could start their own business. “We saw a
place for sale,” John recalls. “It had been
a B&B for five years. We came here a couple of times
to look at it, and then we said, ‘Let’s go
for it. Let’s just do it.’”
They
learned seat-of-the-pants how to deal with the sheep,
and they’ve upped the herd every year since, selling
them for meat and shearing them for wool. Now they have
about 60 sheep and a border collie named Jess who likes
to herd them and who pretty much lives for guests willing
to throw sticks. The dog swoons, John says, when 10-year-old
boys show up for a weekend. There’s Oliver the
donkey who protects the sheep from coyotes, who have
killed several Burleson sheep and a few dozen of their
prized chickens, who pump out about 4,000 eggs a year.
Guests
can roam freely over the hilly and rocky farm. From
one craggy hill you can see both the Blue Ridge and
the Allegheny Mountains.
When
we visited, the sheep were busy bringing new lambs into
the world. Stella held a baby bottle and fed milk to
a lamb born hours before. She also gathered eggs for
breakfast. During her second round in the coop, she
grabbed a warm egg the moment it popped out of the hen.
The eggs were part of the superlative French toast she
devoured in the morning in a dining room with views
of the farm, including the bird feeders that attract
swarms of different birds.
We drove away reluctantly. Annie, who grew up deep in
the Missouri countryside, said she hadn’t felt
so relaxed in years. We too could do this, we said.
We got home, tapped into the Internet and searched for
farm B&Bs for sale in the area.
We’ve
since tiptoed away from the farm idea. We’ll stick
with Lavender Hill Farm instead.
Virginia
Business - April 2003
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