How a young family returned to Dayton Ohio to follow their dreams of planting their own farmstead.

USDA statistics show that one third of farmers are aged 65 and older. Increasingly, we’ll need a cohort of young farmers to take to the land. Sam and Rich Wickham are among them. They founded Foxhole Farm in Brookville, OH, in April 2018, setting out to transform 27 conventionally cultivated acres into a sustainable farm growing vegetables, microgreens, herbs, and, eventually, sheep. They sell at Dayton-area markets in Centerville and Oakwood, and supply Dorothy Lane Market and a handful of nearby restaurants. We asked Sam to share the earliest part of their journey in this series of essays.