We are Sandy and Steve, the owners of Bald Eagle Farm. It has been a dream of ours, for some time, to own a small farm. Life and careers kept the dream impractical until six years ago. As we approached retirement from our initial careers we began to search, in earnest, for a small place to farm. We found our little piece of property on the hill overlooking Lake Lamoka. Having spent 25 plus years as a high school Science/Agriculture teacher, Steve could finally put to use what he had been teaching students all those years. As we began to think about the direction we wanted the farm to take, we knew from the start that we would use sustainable and regenerative practices where possible. Next we looked for things we could raise that fell in line with those goals. Our fields had very little topsoil left in them, but they did have plenty of rocks. Since farming rocks didn’t seem all the advantageous we decided our first crops had to be capable of growing in less than ideal conditions, so we chose lavender, rosemary and sage. Along with requiring less than perfect soil condition, these plants are deer resistant, another major consideration. We planted several different varieties of lavender the first year; Hidcote, Grosso, Munstead. This year we added Provence and Phenomenal. As we work to develop our soils we also decided to plant elderberries, garlic and French Grey shallots. We top dress these with organic compost, straw and wood chips helping to improve soil quality. We grow several different varieties of porcelain garlic. Most of our garlic and French Grey shallots are used to produce our gourmet garlic salt, gourmet shallot salt and our garlic/shallot salt blend. We use pink Himalayan salt in all of our salts and rubs.

The woods on the farm contain many different varieties of trees, but are dominated by shagbark hickory trees. These trees shed their bark naturally and produce a wonderfully sweet nut. On the farm we harvest the shed bark, wash it well and toast it. Once toasted we make a syrup from the bark. Shagbark hickory syrup has a delightful smokey flavor and tends to be less sweet than maple syrup.

In 2022 we added honey bees and pasture raised chicken to the farm. As we move forward we are going to add more flowers to provide pollen and nectar for our bees.