How The Farm Got Its Name

Believe it or not, at first we didn't set out to make this piece of land a market farm. We purchased the parcel at a foreclosure auction in the fall of 2009. It was completely covered with head-high weeds and lots of trash. There was an old farmhouse that we initially planned to rehab, but neglect and vacancy had taken their tolls on the structure, rendering it no longer safe. Our focus shifted to cleaning out that old house and the land, reclaiming as much as we possibly could. By the spring of 2010, after several consultations with engineering professionals, the old house was deemed structurally unsafe and we began construction on the new house. Fortunately, we reclaimed all of the wood trim from the original house to use in the new farmhouse. Trash Valley As we worked our way through the weeds, we discovered "trash valley", a low lying waterway in the field that a previous owner used as a dumping site. We spent the next several months hauling away tons of scrap metal, worn out carpeting and used appliances. We recycled enough scrap metal to buy a new gas powered weed trimmer! This Old Plow Among the piles of trash, we discovered an old Massey Ferguson 2-bottom plow. In spite of the layer of rust, it was in relatively decent shape. With just a little bit of greasing and coaxing we got the coulters to turn. We knew instantly that we had just discovered the inspiration piece for the farm's name. Unfortunately the plow didn't get to stay on our farm for very long after we discovered it. Once we had moved into our farmhouse, we had the plow sitting in a flower bed near the main road. We were awaiting the delivery of our farm signage to be placed near the plow. One morning we woke to discover that some time in the middle of the night, someone decided to steal the plow. Although we filed a report with the sheriff and called around to all of the local scrap metal recyclers, the plow was never located. And that's why you don't see a rusty plow anymore at Rusty Plow Farms.

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