Christian and Vince (2013) – photo by BrassPenny Photography
10th ANNIVERSARY: All year we are reflecting on ten years of big dreams and big change at Half Hill Farm. A lot can happen in ten years, but one thing is true: life has a way of showing you the path forward in every challenge if your heart and mind are open to it.
We moved to Woodbury from Murfreesboro to build and open Short Mountain Distillery for the Kaufman brothers after helping change county law in 2010 by referendum to allow it. I had just quit my job producing evening news for a local television station in search of something with more meaning and purpose and found way more than I could have imagined.
It took 16 months to build the distillery but not nearly that long to be inspired enough by the community and country living to want to slightly change direction again to start our own farm.
It almost didn’t happen. We looked for months when we saw a “for sale by owner” sign on what appeared to be a heavily wooded property. When we drove up the first part of the driveway, we stopped and looked at each other and said we should leave before seeing anything more. Something about the entrance kept us away for months until we saw a listing that showed what we had missed. Luckily, it was still on the market, and we bought it!
When we moved to our new farm in 2012, a good friend opened our eyes to nature’s possibilities with a surprise find of a giant 9 lbs Maitake mushroom growing at the base of an old oak tree. It moved us toward growing mushrooms, but not nearly as seriously as life had in store.
We started our farm with selling our organic vegetables at our local farmers market, but everything changed when Vince’s mother was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. The farming side waned as we focused more on mushrooms and what they could do for her.
While her quality of life was dramatically improved, stage four eventually proved too difficult a challenge for Sandy. Her passing was hard, and we almost decided to stop farming when friends who needed our mushroom extracts encouraged us to keep going.
Over time, the word-of-mouth growth in demand for the mushroom extracts we made required us to move to a larger commercial kitchen we invited another new business to share. Very soon after, our new gut healthy beverage took off and we brought on a partner to get bigger space that has grown us into three retail stores.
Despite the growth, we are still based in our small hometown of Woodbury, TN. We are here because of help from a lot of friends and neighbors who believe in our vision. We still make our mushroom extracts with all organic ingredients and a monkish reverence in service to customers who need it. Because of stories of healing and personal transformation from our customers, we personally take the products every single day and will for life.
In the past ten years, we have gone from making our liquid mushroom dual extracts because no one else was to seeing a whole industry grow around what these mushrooms can do for people. We see what some get wrong and what some get right. We see companies making the most of it and companies with the same level of passion for better health & well being.
It’s exciting to see customers’ mushroom consciousness grow no matter how it happens. However you come to use mushrooms in your life, know that the roots of our dedication to better health & well being with mushrooms runs deep and is personal. Thank you for continuing to trust what we do and for choosing our farm’s products!
Shop our mushroom extracts and other products online, or visit our retail stores:
- Wellness Emporium of Woodbury Tuesday -Friday 10am – 6pm and Saturday – Monday 10am – 4pm CT: 110 W High Street, Woodbury, TN 37190
- Wellness Emporium of Bell Buckle Friday, Saturday 10am – 4pm, Sunday 12pm – 4pm, Monday 10am – 4pm, closed Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 13 Webb Rd. E Bell Buckle, TN 37020
- Wellness Emporium of Murfreesboro Monday – Saturday 10am – 6pm, Sundays 10am – 4pm: 2136 Middle Tennessee BLVD Mufreesboro, TN 37130
