The Farm, not “Old McDonald Farm,” just “the Farm. That’s what we called it; if it wasn’t “Hey, I’m headed to the Farm!” it was “Hey, I’m headed home.” Home, it was our slice of heaven, with gates that opened to the community, friends, family, employees (also referred to as family), or even friends of friends. We always found a reason to celebrate, to gather in the warmth of love and laughter. But it wasn’t always easy, there was always sacrifices, there were always long nights, there was always a cold can of stress in the fridge (next to the Coke), but there was something about seeing a smiling face set foot on our little chunk of sacred soil that made every can in the fridge a Coke, and every long night fade into memory.
It took eight generations, but there were finally a few rotten pumpkins in our patch…
Some people just don’t see gold the way we did, it’s not shiny, nor yellow, but red, and sticky. It was the clay beneath our feet. That’s where family falters, that’s what some lost sight of. They sought salvation in County Mayor Coppinger’s promises to care for the property with a “special interest in preserving the area's heritage and history.”
"With our promise in their pocket, the Hamilton County Commission then voted on a 'Special Resolution'- one that enabled them to hire a special private attorney who then did things off the record, off the books, out of our sight or the citizens knowledge….including ignoring the contractual requirement for the unanimous approval required for any sale ...so they just skipped my signature….went along with three instead of four. I didn’t matter, we don’t, the citizens don’t.
"In the end, Hamilton County didn't respect the sellers or the citizens at all. I don’t believe they care about heritage or history or conservation other than conserving and enriching themselves. Another dead giveaway for how the county did business was when the then-mayor pulled us aside after he took the commission up there and told us that we weren't to talk to the state folks about what he was doing relative to the sale, “to just keep it between ourselves.” That’s never good, usually signals abuse.
"Am I surprised that these same officials can't find their way, can’t see a future for the farm, cannot see the value in what they bought in such a strange and dark way?
"Am I surprised that they still don't have any good plans despite years of stumbling around and spending millions on 'studies'?
"No.
"But I'm still so disappointed and profoundly sad to see all the stumbling and waste, 'The Final Solution' or whatever they are calling their latest stab at a ‘plan.’ Sad.”
-Ellen Raoul
Some of us have poured hundreds to thousands of hours into seeing to the perseverance of the Farm, some of us continue to... The way forward has been in front of the county for some time, its agritourism and education, there is a reason that was the trajectory we were going down before it sold. We don’t want to see the county residents lose their slice of heaven to the same back-handed political game that took it from us.
The McDonald-Exum Family