"Roy" may be old at 14 years - ancient by rooster standards - but though ragged and blind in one eye,he's still the oldest hand on this 50-acre Medina County spread. Every few minutes he cuts loose with a shrill cock-a-doodle-doo, as if signalling to the farmers here to "get back to work!"
Today those farmers are 30-year-old Clevelander Jessica Levine, 12-year-old Elizabeth Schmidt and land owner Susan Schmidt, who only began farming five years ago.
SCHMIDT: I was looking for something where I could stay at home. I had all this equipment here, so it was like, 'We'll just make a big garden,' and that's how it got started.
Even cultivating just a few acres, Schmidt quickly learned what long-time farmers know all too well. The work is extremely hard, and not always productive.
SCHMIDT: Last summer I didn't clean my house. I didn't mow my grass. I was pretty much killing myself. Wasn't any fun at all. We didn't take a vacation. Elizabeth was yelling at me because when her friends would come over, I'd make them go pick tomatoes (laughs).
Schmidt's fields were productive, yielding more than a dozen varieties of vegetables which she and her daughter sold at Summit County farmer's markets. But the work overwhelmed her, and with Elizabeth in school most days, her main companions were 73 egg-laying chickens, their dog Joe, and some not-so-friendly ducks.
SCHMIDT: When you're out there by yourself all day - it's lonely. Now there's someone out there to talk to once in a while.
That someone is Jessica Levine, a Rocky River-born free spirit who returned home in 2005, after living on an organic farm in Oregon.
LEVINE: I have a passion for food.
She and her sister Emmy wanted to become urban farmers, and raised 'some' food in Cleveland's Tremont neighborhood. But not enough food. They needed land. And they needed a plan.
LEVINE: ...Started trying to figure out how we could start a farming enterprise that would include some educational component.
What they found was the FarmLink program.
Ohio is one of a small, but growing number of states linking the next generation of farmers to the current group; men and women, who like Schmidt, are in their 50s, can't afford to retire, and may have children who aren't necessarily keen on farming as a career choice.
A group called the International Farm Transition Network conferenced last week in Richmond, Virginia to teach how to match current farmers to potential successors. The concept is similar to a dating service, and it's how Schmidt and Levine found each other.
LEVINE: I started coming down here, sometimes I would just work with her, and we would talk, get to know each other. I had a good feeling - obviously she did too, or otherwise I wouldn't be here.
As we meander between rows of cabbage - Levine hoeing; me, just watching my feet - Levine says she and her sister now lease an acre of Schmidt's land, then sell their veggies in Tremont's market - certified organic vegetables; for an increasingly discriminatory clientele.
And with fewer demands on her time, Schmidt now has an additional product. She sells honey from a hive tower she's placed in a nearly abandoned barn.
Though still in the red, Levine and Schmidt now sell food together in some markets, and have decided that `education' about farming - should become a priority.
SCHMIDT: When you can look out and see where your food is raised, that is beautiful. I would love this to become an educational center. I would love to have kids come over and see what happens on a farm.
Right now, Levine doesn't know what the future holds - whether she'll eventually buy the place, or even if Schmidt will want to sell it. But she likes the work - even if it is a little 19th century.
LEVINE: I see myself here in the foreseeable future, but we want to continue growing food in the city, cause that's where we started, and I think there's a lot of interesting work going on in reclaiming space in Cleveland through those types of practices, and I want to continue to be a part of that community.
In Medina County, Rick Jackson, 90.3.
