Our last night in Tennessee was a special one. On Wednesday we drove from Nashville to Forest Gully Farms, which is just south of Nashville in Santa Fe. The girls didn’t know where we were headed - they tried hard to guess where we were staying after we told them it was neither camping nor a hotel. The drive to the farm was beautiful...rolling hills and farms everywhere. At one point when we were only a couple of kilometres from our destination the road disappeared under a creek and I (being shy about such things) insisted that we turn around and go another way. Our hosts later told us that crossing the creek was part of the experience, so I guess we didn’t get the full experience!
First Gully Farms is beautiful. The owners, Jon and Mandy, have been working on the land for several years. Jon gave us a tour of the farm and explained that he was working hard to populate the land with native plants that could thrive on the land with very little maintenance. We learned about some plants we had not been familiar with - for example, the Paw Paw (a tree that bears a large fruit) and the Goumi berry bush (whose roots fix nitrogen!) On the farm they use a variety of planting techniques to maximize sun exposure and beneficial plant partnerships.
Our accommodations on the farm were three gorgeous huts sunk into the hillside, reminiscent of Hobbit houses. Two of the huts were bedrooms and the third was a kitchen. A separate bathhouse contained two bathrooms as well as a laundry room. The girls were very surprised by the farm, and especially the accommodations. We hiked on the property along a creek with two little waterfalls. We enjoyed a lovely barbecue dinner followed by a cosy fire which included marshmallows.
This is a picture of two of the huts at night with the fire pit visible on the right.
The farm’s two resident dogs, names Jedi and Trooper, stayed close at our sides during our stay, and even escorted Lucy to the washroom in the middle of the night! The chickens were also very friendly, and we fed them clover and other greens to thank them for providing us with gorgeous eggs for breakfast. We harvested 9 eggs, two of them blue and the others a variety of lovely browns. We enjoyed the eggs with some wild onion and some leftover steak and potatoes from dinner the night before.
We were sad to leave the farm this morning, but are very thankful for the opportunity to spend some time in this magical place.
Super Cool! The Szerminski Hobbit Family Vacation!
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