Who is Hook Family Farm?

Thanks for checking out our very first blog post! The photo above might be from almost 4 years ago, but this is really the year our little farm started to take off. 

When thinking of writing our first blog, I kept reeling about where to start and I've finally settled on - from the beginning. Bare with me as this is my very first ever blog, so it's going to be a bit rough around the edges!

I, Sheena, am originally from Davidsonville, MD - across the pond as the locals say. I grew up with a garden in our backyard for as many years as I can remember - eating tomatoes right off the plants as Jaxson does today. I wanted to be a veterinarian for the longest time and planned to go to school to become one. I attended Salisbury University and received my BS in Biology with minors in Spanish & Psychology. Early on I decided that becoming a veterinarian was going to be too much school for me, for this reason, coupled with the fact that working in vet hospitals in high school and having to put down animals - I couldn't take the heart break. In the summer of 2004 I decided to work at the beach at Harpoon Hanna's in Fenwick Island, DE. This is where Randy and I met. We began dating very shortly after I started working there. 

Randy was born and raised in Clarksville, DE, so not too far from where we call home now. He too grew up with a garden as a child. He was a lifeguard at the Delaware beaches for 15ish years, worked at several local restaurants, and attended DelTech for a bit. After attending college for a few years and changing career paths from EMT to Environmental Science, he finally settled on being a DJ. We were living in Newark, DE for a couple years while he was at the University of Delaware and finally decided to move back to beach. 

We purchased our home in May 2007 - 1.15 acres with a cape cod home that was only a few years old at the time - it was absolutely perfect! We were young, 24 & 25, and rented our upstairs rooms for many years to lifeguards. In 2008, we started our first garden together. Each year we would make it larger and larger, always growing way more than we could ever eat ourselves. We were constantly giving away veggies to friends and family. 

We also started our then business Hook Productions. Randy was a DJ and I was the Production Coordinator and we worked mostly weddings, but all sorts of private events as well. We did this until just last year, 2020. Randy also DJ'ed at several bars and nightclubs over the years, most widely known is Fager's Island. 

I've always been a bit on the healthier side when it came to eating, but in 2012/2013 I really dove into clean eating and living clean in general. We begin to grow more and more organically (we were already doing some). In June 2013, we found out we were expecting Baby Hook and welcomed Jaxson Lyric into our arms and home in February 2014. Having a kid automatically puts all the research of all the things into over drive! I threw out almost everything we ate and used and started fresh with clean products. 

Somewhere along the line, the years get a bit blurry, we decided that we wanted to move away from weddings and Randy started to focus on the garden/farm and DJing only at Fager's while I worked as an Events & General Manager at a local restaurant. He grew the things, I sold the things. 

For anyone that knows us personally, they know Randy is on the quiet and reserved side, I, however, am not! Leading and sales come naturally to me when it is something I am passionate about. Randy is content working on the farm. 

In 2018, we started our first CSA with very very limited members - we wanted to start small and get our feet wet. We also added chickens to our farm that year. We increased our size a bit in 2019, and then again a bit in 2020. We also sold to a local restaurant in 2019 & 2020. When talking at the end of 2020 about what we were going to do for the 2021 season, we knew we really wanted to expand. We had the ability to grow enough food for many more than what we had previously had in our CSA. We also had the opportunity to expand our grow area by about double by using a portion of my parents property which is only about 1 mile from us. 

2021 is shaping up to be our biggest and best year yet. We have a goal of 50 CSA members, we also wanted to serve just a few local establishments, which we've secured and will be sharing in the coming months, and we also wanted for me to be able to commit full time to the farm. In March, I officially resigned from my full time management job and am committed (mostly) full time to heading up the herb & flower division of the farm, all the marketing and social media, as well as homeschooling Jaxson - and I couldn't be happier! 

Randy handles most of the day to day farm stuff, heads up the veggie division, builds me all the new coops for animals I bring home, and just generally kicks ass! We have a few helpers on the farm, one of which is now Randy's right had man and we are so grateful for Nick!

Plans for the future, some not so distant, include - Randy will continue to work on farm expansion, bio-intensive (sustainable, organic, eco-friendly) practices, maintaining a living soil (also called no till), and building all the things. We'd like to offer farm tours, education opportunities, field trips, and photo opportunities at some point. We are starting super small this year with selling starts to our friends and family. I am FINALLY, diving fully into my Herbal Immersion course I've been signed up for since 2016 so that I can offer another layer of expertise on the farm - from herbal remedies, apothecary creations made with plants from our farm, as well as wild foraging. We also have some other crazy and wild ideas that we are not quite ready to share - but stay tuned. 

Keep up with all we are doing and offering on the socials - mostly on Instagram which is linked to our Facebook. 

If you'd like more info about joining our CSA, you can find that here and sign up here. Feel free to shoot me an email if you have further questions. 

I truly look forward to sharing more with you about us, farming, plants, pollinators, medicinals, homeschooling, homesteading, and so much more!

'Til next time - enjoy some photos!