I was so pleased to be featured by this prominent business magazine. Here's the full digital version of the entire issue . So proud of my garden - along with my special gal Miss Vernal Equinox we made the contents page just because it's so danged pretty in there. Apparently thousands of hours and four years pays off when you have a plan and grit to stick with it and keep on improving every year.
Then we have the article itself: Acting Audaciously. Four women were featured in this issue and I was the outlier as the others were building their businesses, I was exiting corporate life and striking out in my own... exchanging Nordstroms shopping trips and Calvin Klein ensembles for Duluth Trading Co, Ridgecut workwear and muck boots. The edge case.
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Judith Horvath didn’t have a clear picture of her ultimate goal when she decided to move her family to a house on 19 acres in Lancaster in 2013 so they could grow organic produce 10 livestock, embracing life a world away from industrial food and long commutes. But she knew something had to change. A demanding career overseeing call center operations was no longer fulfilling, and it also meant she had less time to spend with her children than she wanted.
Suburban life became unpalatable when her homeowners association insisted that she get rid of the backyard chickens that she raised as part of her effort to combat her children’s food allergies. The family left Pickerington to cultivate a new life in Lancaster, but Horvath spent years after that between two worlds, driving an hour to work during the week while being a “weekend warrior and crunchy mom“ on the weekends. She was able to leave her job in 2022 for a full-time farm life and consulting business, Fair Hill Farm Regenerative Agriculture and Permaculture design.
These days, Horvath is a speaker And a podcast host focused on chemical free agriculture and is helping design a planned community with a farm at its center in the southern United States. (The location cannot yet be shared.) She is also involved in a project to create autonomous grocery stores stocked with local produce. The consulting plus her business selling personal care products she makes with goats milk, has made up for the loss of her corporate income.
Other women considering the leap into entrepreneurship should find mentors and create a plan, Horvath says. And they should expect to encounter failure. “In the world of farming, it’s very easy to make a $20,000 error, something that could set you back three or four years in your plans “she says. “Everyone fails but learn from that and move forward. “
And here's the text:
Judith knew the chickens would have to go, eventually. The homeowners association in her Pickerington neighborhood had been challenging her about keeping egg laying backyard pets for years and one day and 2013, the situation finally came to a head. She could not, per the bylaws, keep the chickens. So she changed her entire life. Since her children were young, Horvath had watched them suffer from allergies related to added ingredients and some of the processed food that pervades modern life. As she researched how to read food labels and consulted medical professionals, her concern grew. She decided to grow the food they ate in the backyard, creating an organic garden with fruit trees, and of course, the chickens.
Then the issue went on to drill down and focus on each woman who had been covered in the bigger article, Acting Audaciously. Never mind that the caption-writer looked at Astrid our ambassador sheep and called her a "goat" haha.... (tiny pic bottom right of photo of page below) It read:
These projects were carried out mostly on weekends, while Horvath worked as a corporate executive in the customer service realm. She built a successful career. “I found myself with his rising feeling of unfulfillment" Horvath says, "I felt like something was missing. I would come home at the end of the day was nothing to show for it.“ Horvath and her family decided organic farming “was not going to be just a phase in our lives.“ They bought a 19 acre farm in Lancaster that was badly in need of renovation. Both the house and the fields but full of beauty and potential. Fair Hill Farm now feeds the family, since Horvath exited her corporate career and started a consulting business. She’s a podcast host and has built a national network of like minded, agricultural entrepreneurs who share a vision of living close to the earth and the ways of the distant past. Horvath is working with a group to design a community around an organic farm in southern United States, and she’s part of a project to create locally source grocery stores. Meanwhile, her homestead has grown in complexity with goats, turkey, sheep and llama, and Fair Hill currently sells flowers, produce, eggs, meats, and more to customers. "It’s so fulfilling to bring this type of joy and lifestyle and nutrient dense food to people." she says.
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