Our home farm is the heart of Randall Glen. Our cove has been farmed for over two hundred years, and we continue that tradition. We welcome our guests to visit with our animals, to lend a hand around the farm, and to share our harvests with us.

• Our Animals
• Our Garden and Orchard
• The Seasons of Farming
• A Farm Album

Knowing that many of the old breeds and varieties are disappearing, wherever we can we raise traditional, heirloom animals and crops.

Our highland Shetland sheep are the same ancient breed long treasured in Scotland for their wool, and said to have been brought there by the Vikings. These beautiful, sturdy sheep have wonderful curved horns and bear wool in every color. In the spring you'll be delighted by the new lambs playing in the sheep meadow, and in summer you might see the annual shearing.

Our Sebastopol geese, with their orange beaks and brilliant white, fluffy feathers look as if they've been through a wind tunnel backwards. Ducks keep us company on the pond and you're likely to see parades of ducklings all summer. When the young ducks learn to fly, they delight in tap dancing on the tin roof of the barn! Every day you're welcome to help us gather eggs from our free range chickens. The feisty little Banties like to spend the day in the rhododendrons by the creek, and the red-gold Comets like to visit the horse barn and lay eggs in the feed boxes. The fluffy-legged Cochins and the shimmering gold Buff Orpingtons are always out and about looking for grasshoppers. You'll enjoy their eggs for breakfast, ranging from tiny, 2-inch Banty size to enormous speckled brown eggs.

Our Nubian goats bring perhaps the most smiles. They'll climb anything, and love to nap on rocks, logs, and even the picnic table in their pasture. They come in every sort of color and marking—Razzle Dazzle is black with white polka dots-and they're very friendly. They love to be petted, and happily join us on walks. The tiny spring kids might be the most adorable baby animals there are. Well into the summer we'll be hand feeding those that need it, and you're welcome to give a bottle to a baby.

Almost as many smiles come from our llamas. Black Shiloh is the dad llama, very kind and definitely buck-toothed. Sequoia the mama llama and her daughter Magnolia are both spotted. There's something inherently silly yet dignified about these preposterous-looking animals, and we love them. They don't always want to be petted, but if you stand quite still they're likely to come up and gently sniff your nose. Shiloh is always happy to be given a llama-chow treat, and he's very polite about it.

We have one cow, Mrs. Wilberforce. She’s a Jersey, the same as Elsie the Borden cow, and a breed famous for their beauty as much as their rich milk and cream. Mrs. Wilberforce is expecting a calf this winter and we look forward to milk, butter, cheese, and clotted cream to go with scones! Mrs. W. loves to be petted and she’s particularly fond of collard greens from the garden.

We have a large herd of horses both for work and for riding. Besides the saddle horses we have Sarah, our buggy mare, Mac, our huge spotted draft horse, and Pete & Jake, our team of Haflingers who pull the wagon. Guests are invited to ride with us at our stables or to give a hand with feeding or grooming the horses.

We couldn't get along without our guardian dogs. Not watchdogs and not herders, guardian dogs watch over the other animals and protect them from predators. The Smokies still have many animals that threaten livestock, including coyotes, bobcats, wild dogs, mountain lions, and bears. Guardian dogs are alert against them all. They stay with their flocks in all weather and work in pairs, with one dog going out to confront the predator and one staying close to the flock in case the predators circle back. Awake all night patrolling the property, during the day they also keep an eye out for buzzards and hawks because their European ancestors were bred to guard against eagles. To keep our livestock safe and the property free of dangerous predators, we have nine big guardian dogs. Most of them are Great Pyrenees, the gentle giants. Five are still puppies, not quite a year and a half old, but they already weigh over 120 pounds. Guardians need no training; at the age of three months these puppies instinctively knew their job, and at five months they took on a pack of coyotes all by themselves. These huge and valiant guardian dogs are unfailingly fierce with predators, willing even to tackle a bear, yet they're gentle and affectionate with people. Remarkably kind and laid back, their favorite occupation during the daytime is keeping our guests company, most especially young children. It’s common here to see a three or four year old child “walking” one of the guardians, reaching up to hold its collar, and the big dog taking baby steps to keep pace with his young friend.

Our two-acre garden yields vegetables nearly all year long. We grow over 60 varieties of fruits and vegetables, including a number of heirlooms that are hundreds of years old. With us you can enjoy Mr. Stripey and Mortgage Lifter tomatoes, old English sweet peas, and green beans, grown here in the cove for generations, that are found nowhere else. There’s also squash, cucumbers, okra, peppers, cabbage, lettuce, broccoli, greens, beets, onions, watermelon, cantaloupe, and all sorts more. When the sweet corn comes in we have a feast, roasting ears in their shucks over a wood fire, and all summer we have the pleasure of digging new potatoes fresh from the garden. We have spinach and a variety of greens all winter, even in the snow. Come Spring, there’s the glory of fresh asparagus.

We have a bounty of fruit, too. Early summer starts with strawberries and wild black raspberries, followed by blackberries, blueberries, and raspberries. The old apple trees start ripening in late summer, and in our young orchard we have a score of heirloom apples traditional to the Smokies, along with peaches, cherries, plums, apricots, pears, grapes, and figs. The fall brings wild grapes and a harvest of chestnuts and black walnuts to crack all winter.

There's a wonderful, gentle rhythm to the seasons of farming, and we'd love to have you join us through the year. In the spring there's plowing with the horses and planting the crops, and the arrival of lambs and kids, sometimes while it's still snowing. In summer we're tending the crops and harvesting vegetables most every day, picking fruits and wildflowers, shearing sheep, and welcoming new chicks and ducklings. In the fall we're turning the garden and planting greens, tying up cornshocks, gathering apples and nuts, and putting away the potato crop under beds of straw. All winter we're smoking bacon and hams. The orchard and garden sleep under the snow, which brings nutrients rich as any fertilizer. Before long the crocus and daffodils burst blooming out of the snow, and our spring rhythm begins again.

We love our farming life. As a 17th-century English verse describes it:

Self Sufficiency
We’re not large scale commercial farmers, and we’re not “back to the land, off the grid” folks. We’re just regular people who are lucky enough to live and work on a small mountain farm. Our goal is to be good stewards and to tend this land that has been farmed by so many generations of Southern Highlanders. In doing this we’ve learned a secret long known to farmers: If you take care of your land,it will indeed take care of you. Randall Cove Farm is a typical Southern Highland farm, where it seems like the fields have more rocks than dirt, and there’s virtually no level ground. But this rocky soil is incredibly fertile, and the seasons are mild with plenty of rain. Without really striving for it, we find ourselves pretty close to self sufficient here on our mountain farm. And we feel lucky every day.

In the freezer we have our own pork, duck, chicken, goat, and lamb, as well as a whole Black Angus beef raised by our trail guide, Donnie Buckner. The lamb is the best quality I’ve ever tasted. We’ve started a flock of Guineas this year, too; Guinea fowl is delicious, and mountain women claim that their eggs make the richest cakes. Whenever we like we can fry our own trout—Rainbow, Brown, and native Brookies—as well as bluegill, bream, and crappie. We shear the sheep and llamas and sell the wool. While we don’t yet spin it, we can felt it into ropes for braided rugs. Down from the ducks fills our pillows.

Our hens provide more than enough eggs, of wonderful color and flavor. From our goats’ milk we make yogurt and our own cheeses—chevre, fromage blanc, feta, queso blanco, ricotta, and mozzarella so far, and we’re working on brie and hard cheeses now. When the cow calves this winter we’ll have Jersey milk and cream, not to mention cow’s milk cheeses, crème fraiche, clotted cream, and butter. We make our own bread, too, to go with all that dairy wealth!

In the gardens we grow over 60 varieties of fruits and vegetables, more than enough for ourselves and for 50 guests when they stay in our cabins. There are white, red, and blue potatoes; onions, beets, and sweet and field corn; lettuce, cucumbers, and a dozen heirloom tomato breeds; heirloom green beans, “cornfield” beans that run up the cornstalks, butterbeans, and Greasy Cut Short beans; a bounty of asparagus; Sugar Snap and English peas; okra, eggplant, zucchini, and summer squash; red, green, yellow, and purple sweet peppers plus poblano, hot, and banana peppers; broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cabbage. There are cantaloupes, watermelon, pumpkin, and heirloom Candy Roaster squash. From Fall to Valentine’s there’s spinach, kale, and Swiss chard; collards, creasy, mustard, turnip greens—and turnip bottoms—and rape. The herb garden provides rosemary, half a dozen thymes, marjoram, several oreganos, parsley, cilantro, lemon balm, a variety of sages and basils, catnip, celery—tasting salsify, and nasturtiums for salad. All summer long the garden is graced with flowers for armloads of cutting. The sunflowers tower ten feet tall, and yield hundreds of heads for birdfeeders, livestock feed, and delicious snacks.

We freeze, can, pickle, and dry what we can’t eat right away. Cucumbers, cabbage, beets, peppers, and onions become sauerkraut, pickles and relishes. Beans are canned, dried whole as Leather Britches, and dried shelled for Navy Bean soup. Hundreds of Roma tomatoes are dried and put up in olive oil, and we put up our own salsa, too. Corn, greens, peppers, squash, and okra are frozen ready for dinner. We even make “capers” from nasturtium seeds.

We have apples, peaches, blueberries, strawberries, red currants, rhubarb, blackberries, and raspberries. Next year as the orchard matures, there will be three or four varieties each of cherries, plums, nectarines, apricots, figs, pears, and grapes. Several more varieties of peaches will begin bearing, as well as over twenty-five heirloom apple breeds. We put upjams and preserves from the fruits, and we freeze and can apples for pies and for the Southern Highlander favorite, apple stack cake. Thanks to neighbors we have local molasses and honey. We even have the occasional offer of “homemade spirits”—the traditional “white” which is prized for celebrations and for warding off colds, and “brown” which is aged in oak, smooth and mellow, and rivals the best Kentucky bourbon.

In the wild we harvest blackberries, black raspberries, wild strawberries, several mints, and wild grapes. We sauté morel mushrooms, branch lettuce, and wonderful garlic-onion ramps. Lamb’s quarter, dandelions, and wild chicory enliven our salads. In the winter we have a huge stock of sweet black walnuts to crack, and neighbors share their chestnuts.

We split our own Locusts for fence posts, and cut cord after cord of firewood. We saw our own poplar, walnut, and oak for lumber. We stack our own stone for walls. Every pasture flows with water from springs and creeks. Our well gives 54 gallons a minute of sweet water that needs no filter. And our earth yields rubies, sapphires, garnets, rose quartz, and smoky topaz, not to mention a bit of gold. We are truly rich in many ways, the least of which is gold.

Click here to view A Farm Album