Faith-Based Farm Offers College Students A Taste Of Rural Life
The moment I stepped out of my car, I heard the screams.
With each step down the dirt and gravel path, they grew louder. Behind a fence of wooden poles and chicken wire, a prone mocha-colored alpaca was tied down on all four limbs like a cartoon character bound to train tracks. The alpaca’s name was Nutmeg, and it was time for her yearly shearing.
Two men with dirty blond beards and cargo pants caked with dirt and alpaca hair were using Milwaukee-branded electric shears to sever Nutmeg from her fiber. While retirees and homeschool families pressed their hands upon the fence to watch the shearing, Nutmeg’s moans only grew louder.
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Standing behind a mountain of trash bags full of alpaca fiber was Christa Kelley, co-owner of Milk and Honey Farms. Kelley was wearing a pair of worn clogs, once bright red, now brown and a trucker hat that secured her sunbleached blond hair; while her scratched up forearms filled bags with fiber that was to soon be processed at a mill into yarn and dryer balls. Her cheekbones were raised high with an unwavering grin.
I was observing another day at Land of Milk and Honey Farms in Deep Gap, North Carolina, nestled in a mountainous region called the High Country and not far from Appalachian State University.
Owning a farm was never the plan for Kelley and her husband, Brad. Early in their marriage, they had a few chickens and honeybees, but being farmers was entirely out of the picture. In 2020, they bought a dairy cow, put up some fencing, and it all “snowballed from there,” she said.
Now the couple offers a slew of farm-based fun, including Alpaca walks, farm tours, overnight stays on the property and “Farmer for a Day” events where visitors can join the team during their morning chores at $50 for two visitors.
The farm’s name was inspired by a Bible passage in which God promises his people “a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” Kelley said she’s thankful for the opportunity to tell of God and his faithfulness when people ask about the name’s origin. “There’s not enough glory that we could bring to Him.”
Kelly said that there have been many guests who arrive at the farm, shocked by its stillness. She said that this gives them the chance to show them what makes it different compared to other environments, and she views the business also as a ministry.
“When you find yourself in the midst of hardship and at the bottom of the barrel, all you can do is look up,” she wrote on the farm’s website. “Step by step, as we drew closer to God, He turned our lives right side up, set us on solid ground, and equipped us to live not only in peace but more established in Him as well as each other and our family.”
Kelly said that living out their faith and caring for others takes precedence over profits.
The farm has a small wooden shop that looks like a rural witch’s hut. Its splinter-ridden shelves are stocked with sheep and goat soap, alpaca yarn and sourdough communion-kits. Stored in the hut’s corner, the Kellys offer free, pocket-sized books, containing Psalms, Proverbs and the New Testament.
Under them was a slip, warning takers that despite being free, they’re “living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword.”
“I don’t want to not talk about the goodness of God in order to gain money, because what is money?” Kelly said. “It’s just money. It’s going to flee away in no time. If I can be a witness to His goodness, that could save a person’s soul.”
Carrying three crates of eggs, stacked upon each other like a Jenga tower, into the farm’s shop was farmhand Jordan Blair. She has seen firsthand the transformative power of farmlife.
“Once I started working here, it changed my life,” said Blair, a student who has worked for the Kelleys for more than a year. “It felt like it just took my life, uprooted it and pointed it in a different direction.”
Blair, a senior at Appalachian State, majoring in communication, originally started at the farm as an intern in charge of social media, who occasionally led tours. But her role has since expanded into feeding and medicating animals, gardening, maintaining the grounds and leading events such as farm tours or lamb cuddles. “I’m always doing something new,” she said, while brushing her dark brown braids off her shoulder.
“It was hard when I started,” she said. “I didn’t have any experience in anything agriculturally … so I just had to learn really quick and it was really hard, but it was so worth it. The highlight of my day is coming here every morning, feeding everyone. Having that responsibility means so much to me. And the animals, they trust me. You know, I can tell that I’m making a difference every day. It’s very important to me.”
She said she loves communications, but her time on the farm has her second-guessing her decision, now considering going back to school for agricultural studies. She said this job is nothing like her past work experiences — Dick’s Sporting Goods, and a children’s trampoline park for birthdays.
“I’m actually doing something really important and something that’s really good for my mental health,” she said, unfazed by the rain that began to fall. “This is primitive, this is what we’re meant to do; not work behind the cash register. No shame. I love Dick Sporting Goods, it was a fun job, but it’s different.”
Blair said her favorite part of the job is the farm tours, because they allow her to educate people about the land and show them something that’s special to her.
She said the hardest part is the constant confrontation of death. She remembers one day vividly; it was after the first baby of the lamb season had been born. Everyone was ecstatic, celebrating the farm’s newest member. Then she went to do her daily task of feeding the pigs. She arrived, only to find that one had died. “It was really sad, but you know, that’s just how it is,” Blair said.
This circle of life is a constant on the farm, and the farmhands and students who work there say they’ve learned to redirect any grief over a lost animal into caring for the remaining ones.
AJ Bott, a senior at Appalachian State majoring in what she calls “Triple E Bio” — the three E’s being environmental, evolutionary, and ecological — has been working at the farm for over three years. She said that the Kelleys don’t solely direct their love and care towards the animals.
“My bosses are very religious, and I think that the biggest part of that is how openly they love everyone,” she said. They’ll help anyone with anything ever; they’re just incredible people.”
“My first day working here, they were like, ‘if you ever just have just a rough day or whatever, just come out and just come pet some baby animals,” she said. “They really welcomed me in and completely transformed my college experience. Especially being so far away from home, I didn’t have a place to go.”
Ethan Atwood is a writer and student at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina.