By Amalie Lipstreu, The
Farming is an occupation with many challenges. Every day, more farmland at the metropolitan edge is covered with blacktop and big box stores - making the land that is left more expensive and pushing it out of reach for new farmers. Older farmers leave the business as even the most industrious ones can’t work the land forever.
Despite these challenges, many smaller scale, sustainable farmers are keeping farming alive, caring for nature and protecting our food supply. They are people like David and Donna Divoky.
David and Donna are silent stewards of the land. They posses an intimate knowledge of the land that comes from many hours, and often many generations, of interaction with it. David grew up on land that was part of a rural legacy of maple sugaring. His grandparents began working the small piece of
The couple began farming six years ago when David met Mr. Yoder, an Amish farmer who wanted to sell hydroponic tomatoes at the farmers’ market on Shaker Square. David had maple syrup he could sell. “One thing led to another and even after Mr. Yoder dropped out I expanded my operation and kept going,” David says.
Today, they sell 15 varieties of vegetables and fruits, in addition to eggs and chickens. The couple are also starting a lambing business with a handful of breeder sheep.
Braveheart is always the first sheep to approach (hence her name). She is followed by Snow White and the others who nudge at pant legs and huddle close by. The Suffolk-Hampshire mix and
Their black faces and gentle bleating engender maternal affection. Donna’s firm hand and gentle patting comfort them as they leave to roll in piles of lime or wander the farm looking for something they shouldn’t eat. Donna is a city girl who learned to love farming and caring for their sheep and her 30,000 garlic plants.
What makes someone want to start this time honored career when most people say that you can’t make a living farming?
“To prove all these naysayers wrong,” David says. His love of the land is the main reason he is a farmer.
“There’s something about working with the land…It just becomes part of you. Give me a day in the woods stringing tubing, working with the maple trees or cutting wood; I just get lost. It’s beautiful.” he adds.
David has a deep connection to the woods where he hangs maple sugar buckets (2,400 of them). It started when he was a boy working with his father. Any thought of a different career ended when he started sugaring again.
Farming carries a lot of risk and no guarantees, and David and Donna had their share of hardship.
Last year’s heavy spring snow weighed too heavy on his old historic barn and it collapsed. Getting it cleaned up would have been quick and easy if he had called someone to demolish the remnants and clear the debris or if he let the fire department burn the remaining wood. But, David wanted to salvage the old timber for a new post & beam building.
The desire, or perhaps necessity, of using everything that has a use and not wasting resources is a trademark of many farmers. David spent many days taking the collapsed barn apart, piece by piece. Piles of sun bleached wood stand stacked, ready for a new use. Farm equipment is scattered around the vegetable fields. A chicken coup and small hoop house stand at the front of the farm. Their new sugar house can be seen just at the far end of the field.
After building the sugar house in 1993, the Divokys no longer collected the 2,400 maple sugar buckets. Now strands of tubing move from tree to tree creating a low hanging, purposeful web and pumping sweet nectar to the sugar house. Aside from the time and labor savings of maple sugar tubing, the network reduces the negative impact of truck and tractor incursions into the woods. Unfortunately for the Divokys, an unscrupulous manufacturer sold them tubing that did not withstand exposure to the elements. As David gently squeezes the blue tube it shatters between his fingers.
A third blow came when the Divokys received a frantic call from their neighbor. “Come to the woods right away,” said his friend. A recent storm alerted David to the possibility of some downed trees, but he was not prepared for what he saw. A tornado had torn through the maple stand. “I looked around with tears in my eyes,” recalls David.
The forest is resilient and so are David and Donna. Younger trees quickly replace those lost, and the Divokys will replace the broken lines that bring maple syrup into the sugar house. In time, a post and beam building will bring new life to the historic barn that once stood in its place.
With folks like the Divokys' working farms, local foods will also be resilient and remain part of the patchwork landscape of cities, countryside and all that lies in between.
You can meet Donna & David Divoky at the Geauga Fresh Market which is open Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. in South Russell Township (Route #306 & Bell Road). For more information on Northeast Ohio Farm Markets go here.
