Fickle Creek's Boomer takes his guard-dog job seriously
Want to spend a night, a weekend, or longer on a farm? My book will give you more than two dozen options in NC. In the meantime, you can read about five of them in the September issue of Southern Living magazine. Four of the farms are only in magazines sold in North Carolina, while one, Fickle Creek Farm near Chapel Hill and Hillsborough, is in the main magazine, which is circulated in 26 states, despite the “Southern” in the Living. Only the Fickle Creek entry is online, with pics.
My editors wanted a geographic mix, of course, and I also focused on farms that have animals, because that seems to excite travelers the most. My one non-animal farm was Boyd Mountain Log Cabins & Tree Farm, in the mountains outside of Waynesville.
Boyd Mountain's historic cabins are set among Fraser firs
Dan and Betsy Boyd grow Christmas Trees of the Fraser fir variety, and also rent out their renovated historic Appalachian cabins. I stayed there last summer and was very impressed.
My other western farms were Briar Rose Farm in Spring Creek, south of Hot Springs, and Cloud 9 Farm in Fletcher, south of Asheville. Briar Rose is a beautiful hobby farm with veggies, chickens, goats, and gorgeous Belted Galloway cows. At Cloud 9, former teacher Janet Peterson took over her parents’ property and has done a great job of instituting conversation practices as well as raising cows and chickens. She also keeps bees and operates the farm’s long-running U-pick blueberry farm. The interiors of her two rentals are stunning.
Cloud 9's Janet Peterson is a teacher turned farmer
In the Triangle, I wrote up Fickle Creek Farm, near Chapel Hill and Hillsborough. This is the only working farm of the bunch and it’s completely sustainable. It’s unusual to find lodging on a full-time farm and I think it’s great that owners Noah Ranells and Ben Bergmann go to the trouble. I stayed there last summer and toured the farm, helped collect eggs, and ate the last crumb of my delicious and nutritious all-local breakfast.
Speaking of breakfast, the country breakfast that Mary White served me at Springfield House Bed and Breakfast in Hertford, to the east, was equally amazing. She and her husband, Joe, did an amazing restoration job on his grandparents’ 1895 farm house.
If you check out any of these places, tell them I sent you!
Great article and blog post! I enjoyed reading them both. I always find it fascinating all the wonderful things the farms of NC are doing.