ABI Presents I Homesteads – Stoney Ridge Farmer

Transcript

I pick the things that make me happy and that’s what I do. I finish things. I don’t start it without finishing it.

This creek… Did you know this was back here when you bought this?

Yeah, but it wasn’t this wide. It was only about this wide before these rains came and washed everything out. So when we bought this, the place where we’re standing looked like that, we came in and cleared all that stuff out, piled it up. Now we’ve got a wood chipper that we can chip everything up. So, we’ll build a cabin directly behind said camera. Probably overlooking the waterfall some kind of way, maybe situated this way a little bit so you can see the waterfall and come down here and sit on the back porch and have glasses of… milk.

So I lived in downtown Greensboro, North Carolina. I had an apartment downtown. I grew up on a farm, but not a farm like this. When I grew up, my dad didn’t cut hay, my dad didn’t. We raised animals that we had ourselves and we had a you-pick-it kind of a garden. Then I got out of it because I want to be as far away from anything that remotely resembled a farm. I bought a lowrider and I was a city boy. That was it. Motorcycles and toys, and I never saw myself going back into anything agricultural until one day I decided I was going to plant a garden. Started taking classes, learning. Realized that there’s good info out there and some bad into out there. Well there might not be some good info, you know. So instead of fighting and struggling or letting other people fight and struggle, I just took care of providing my own information. All right, guys, so the next impliment we’re gonna use this called the TR3 and TR3 stands for tractor rake, three in one. But it’s simple. It’s much more simple than I thought. So I’m going to let Matt describe exactly how this thing works and what we’re gonna be doing today.

But one day I asked my wife for a video camera. I think it was for Christmas and it was more than 10 years ago because I wanted to shoot some videos about the honeybees because I was intrigued by the honeybees.

I put it away and then one day I went out to work on my tractor and I just thought to myself before I walked down like, you know, I’m going to grab the camera. I think people would want to know how I do this because it’s interesting.

Today at Stoney Ridge Farm, we’re gonna make a food plot. So I shot the video posted it. About 200 people watched it this way. Man, that’s cool. So did another video the next day. Chemical fertilizers, rad. I dedicate myself to what I do and what I care about. I think that’s something that I think it’s something that’s lacking in the world that we live in right now is that that dedication to starting something and finishing something.

It just happened. I think a passion for anything I put my hands on. And that’s just it. Anything and everything I put my hands on, I set my mind to and I’ve always believed that anyone can do anything they set their mind to. If they believe they can do it. If you don’t believe you can do it, then you’ll never get anywhere. The power of positive thinking, the power of positive living makes a huge difference.

I see beauty right here. Every day I come down here and ride down this little road right here and there is turkeys out in this field and deer coming across here. And I just I don’t know. I just see beauty in everything. I don’t care how ugly it is. It’s got a little bit of beauty to it. You know?

But as long as I can put my two feet on the ground and I can hold a camera and talk no matter what it’s about, I’ll be teaching and learning and growing and building. Just enjoying life. I’m not gonna stop.

To Stoney Ridge Farm.

Yeah. Cheers, Stoney Ridge Farm. Who knows where it goes.