We went over to the Gulley residence this afternoon, a/k/a the Bejosh Farm, home of the wildly popular Bejosh Farm Journal. We met with the Gulleys to talk about how we could help them plan their first Bejosh Farm Open House on Saturday, June 30 at their farm.

In addition to being long-time dairy farmers, Ed has become an artist, his farm sculptures have been selling all over the country, and Carol has become a writer, the two of them work on their blog daily, their stories are the authentic, funny, poignant and sometimes sad story of the American family farm, and it’s ups and downs.

The Gulleys’s are working on a book about life on their farm through four seasons, and they hope their open house will be a window into the real life of the family farm – they are vanishing all over America – and also a chance for people to see and buy Ed’s remarkable sculptures, all made of farm and tractor parts and implements.

Ed is a character right out of Wendell Berry’s poems and essays, you can see through him and Carol what makes the family farm so iconic and special, and what is being lost by the collapse of so many small and independent farmers, being bulldozed by giant corporate farms and government policy, which has long been to favor the bigger corporate farms over the small fairy farms, which the government says are not as efficient.

Ed has been changing his life, producing a beautiful and original line of sculptures and wind chimes. You can see his work on the Bejosh Farm Journal, and I’ll also be posting some of Ed’s art on my blog in advance of his Open House.

We have been having two Open Houses here at Bedlam Farm, but this year, we decided to only have one Open House, the one in October on our Open House weekend. And we want to support the Bejosh Open House in any way we can.

At the Bejosh Open House, Ed and Carol will also talk the remarkable turn in their lives, from dairy farmers to creatives. Ed says when his knees finally wear out – most of the dairy farmers I know have had replacement knees for years –  he opes to make his sculptures full time.

And Ed does what he says we will do, he and I are brothers from different mothers. The Gulleys’ are making a rare and remarkable turn in their lives with their art, blog and book. They will talk about all of these things, and you will meet calves and cows and goats and get a tour of the inner workings of a dairy farm.

Ed’s art will be displayed throughout the farm for people to look at,  and hopefully buy.

I’ve been photographing family farms for years here, and I have gained a sense of what will be lost if these farms disappear. A farmer like Ed Gulley loves and cares for the land and soil, he knows every animal on the farm and loves them all, he can rattle off the name of every cow, something you will never hear on a corporate farm with 2,000 cows.

As with everything else corporate, a corporate farm is,  by every account, all about money. Ed represents the very opposite of the new and huge kind of farming. His farm is a great place for an animal to be born or rescued, he will never make much money, the milk prices are the same as they were in 1970. He farms out of love.

Family farms are deeply rooted in the culture of rural America, and when they die, Main Street withers, community falters, small businesses flee, banks close.

As stewards of the land, they care for it and nurture it, something corporate farms do not do. In the large farms now producing most of the country’s milk, cows never get to set food outside, are euthanized the minute they get sick, even with minor injuries, and never know the sweet life of the dairy cows: – sitting outside in the pasture, taking in the sun, resting in shade and drinking fresh water.

When the farms die, a part of American life dies with them. In this country, the shelves in the supermarkets are full so most people pay little attention to where the food comes from. At Ed and Carol Gulley’s Open House, you’ll find out.

The farm is an amazing place, a maze and museum all at once.

And you will get to see a lot of animals, including pheasants, a rescued possum, and milk cows.

Deetails will be on the Bejosh Farm Journal blog. It will be a hoot, Ed does nothing halfway. They are the real deal.