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Before we met and married, both Robert and I each had the dream to live
in a quiet, rural community. I was burned out from working 60-80
hours a week for a corporation that had a tantrum when I tried to cut back
to 40. As a journalist and public relations professional, I wanted
to return to the joy of creative writing as opposed to the dreary technical
and business subjects that had put food on the table for my dog and me. 
A
dream was to write for children, certainly the most critical audience.
And Robert, as an architect, wanted land where he could pursue his dreams
of experimental "dynamic" architecture. His concepts are so experimental
that I'm not sure I even want to see it in the early trials, not to consider
what the truly traditional folks on the Main Line where he was living would
have done to prevent him from developing these designs. So after
we married, together we began to create this ideal life. In this
contemplated utopia, we dreamt of pursuing lives in harmony with nature
and each other, inspired by Beatrix Potter and Helen and Scott Nearing.
First, we needed to find our new home. Not just any home, a historic
one. For I also had the romantic dream of bringing an antebellum
grande dame back to life. We just needed to find one that needed
resuscitating.
How do "knights in shining armor" find a "maiden" to rescue? And since the relationship is likely to be a very long and expensive one, how do you find just the right maiden? To find our maiden, we initiated a search. Taking an engineer's approach, Robert drew a circle around Philadelphia where he had lived for more than 20 years. This represented the distance we could easily drive within one day, a necessity since he still has active business ties there. Then, we began contacting Realtors and taking the newspapers of any potential areas. We researched areas and looked at properties all over our target area. Several months into this search, we received a call from a Realtor who read our ad in a local paper. It read, "Newlywed couple seeks old house and acreage. Call Catherine & Robert Bennett collect." She became our "Fairy Godmother." Our dream was instantly visualized with Melrose, an antebellum plantation in scenic Virginia set in it's own "summer camp" of fields and woods. Sheer heaven.
Unlike so many lovely historic homes we'd seen, this one had many of
its acres still intact. This was important to us because we wanted
our own land to farm, although neither of us had done more than spend a
tiny amount of time at a "farm." Robert's aunt had a cattle ranch
in Lolita, Texas and my great aunt had a plantation in Minter City, Mississippi.
So, off we go. On our first visit to Melrose, Robert, who holds degrees
from Columbia, Rice and Drexell Universities, remarks what a wonderful
crop the tenant farmer is having. Finally we 
contemplate
what crop this could be and the possibility that it may not be an intentional
one. Indeed, it was cockle burr, the self attaching weed that inspired
velcro. We've since tried to think about what markets there
could be for it since it is so plentiful, but haven't identified any yet.
Our first crops were hand planted. We spent weeks putting in the
beds and acres of sunflowers, vegetables, 
herbs,
flowers, broom corn, Indian corn, and even colored cotton, in addition
to white cotton. We attended conferences on horses and alternative
crops such as elephant garlic and cut flowers. We took weekend seminars
at Virginia Tech on sheep basics. We must have been the first farmers
to actually touch ground here in many, many years because our walking the
fields was unusual to many of our neighbors. In fact, I'm sure it
got a good laugh. But, we were happy. We collected fragments
of china (almost always cobalt blue and white), one small arrowhead and
one 1851 dollar gold piece that we guess had been the target of a great
hunt during the hard times after the war.
Eventually, we determined that the reason the farmers all do the same crops every year is that it becomes easy for them. Soybeans, corn and winter wheat year after year doesn't require much physical labor therefore one person can do hundreds of acres by themselves most of the time. And with the use of chemicals, the plants get the nitrogen, pest and weed control they need. Harvest usually requires some help, but it's nothing to the hand weeding we were doing. Our first summer here we couldn't turn on lights inside the house at night because it would draw so many thousand corn bugs, even though we weren't growing commercial type corns. It becomes a continuous process of spraying and more spraying. Since we live in the dead center of where we farm and drink and bathe with water from our own wells, spraying chemicals was not acceptable. Who knows what harm they actually do when they're pouring on your head in the shower or in your glass of water. And they're so expensive and need constant reapplication. (That's my Scottish side coming out.)
Finally, we decided on turning the workable land into pasture.
I thought it nearly killed our extension agent who kept encouraging us
to rent it out to someone who would know how to use "modern" practices
and get it in shape. Where's the fun for us in that? Robert asked.
Instead, he decided to plant orchard grass and 
clovers:
red and Ladino. We did it with his little red pick up truck that
had spent its entire life living on the "Main Line" outside Philadelphia.
Robert spread the seed from the truck bed as I, with our old city-dog Magnolia
riding "shotgun", bounced us along over the fields. Quite a site
and one that won't get repeated often since pasture will last for years
without replanting. Thank goodness. And, you can harvest several
times a year, and with the right combination, you don't have to add chemicals.
You do need some "implements of husbandry" which Robert has acquired.
(Implements of husbandry are things like a plow, disk, harrow, hay cutter,
baler, etc., not what you were probably thinking.) A 65 hp tractor
with cab and the basics for making hay. Then we started on the restoration
of the gardens. We bought boxwoods and antique roses for a formal
garden, and began propagating them both.
Interspersed with the restoration of Melrose, we've been buying homes in this area to fix up and rent out. We've finished three of these and have one more waiting in the wings. We need spring as an inspiration. Meanwhile, Melrose is a very lovely lady in waiting for her turn to reestablish herself as a beauty of the county. Do the cobbler's children having no shoes ring any bells?
This fall I helped Robert with a book that will help others follow their
dreams in retirement. And we're in our second year of selling antique
roses. This spring we hope to get started with beekeeping.
This past December we got our first sheep, refugees from Shirley Plantation
on the James River. We've just gotten a new center of attention,
an old english sheepdog, who is entertaining us like the puca as you'll
recall from the movie Harvey with Jimmy Stewart (who was also an architect).
Our best friend of many years, Magnolia, 
who
gave Melrose the rabbit chasing seal of approval, succumbed to cancer in
February 1998. We've named the field behind Melrose "Magnolia"
in her memory since that's where she's laid to rest near the original family's
cemetery.
And between it all, we're still enjoying the dreams that a Southern
Belle from Memphis, Tennessee and a tall Texan from Houston can realize
in Lancaster, Virginia.
home e-mail: Bennett@MelrosePlantation.com