Following Joel Salatin's Polyface Farm intensive grazing method, the Homestead currently raises beef, pork and poultry for the family and to sale to the community. Along with growing a family garden and a filling a greenhouse at the School. The children at the Homestead School also care for and raise chickens, goats, pigs, peacocks and turkeys in the big red School barn.
In the early 1800’s, Revolutionary War veteran James Hardison settled in Maury County and began a large and predigious family that generations later, many still reside in the area. His son Thomas began work on Hardison’s Mills in 1820 and Thomas’s son, Calvin took them over. 1870, Calvin built the Farmhouse, a Greek Revival ‘L” style, from Poplar cut on the property. They and their families lived and ran the family mills on the river until their death at the turn of the 19th century and are buried in the family cemetery on the Homestead. Orginally. 400+ acres all along the Duck River, by the 1930’s the Blalock family who were tenant farmers on the land, purchased the home and property and farmed there until nearly the summer of 1999, songwriter Rory Feek took the royalties from the first song he had recorded and bought the Homestead from brother and sister Harold & Reba Blalock for he and his daughter’s Heidi and Hopie. Rory married Joey Martin and added the garden, windmill and concert hall, and in time, the original 30 acres he purchased, has grown to 100 and now includes a school, gardens, a greenhouse, barns, a concert hall, and the original milkhouse. The farm now operates under the non-profit LOVE IS A GIFT.
Today
1999
The Farm at
The Homestead at Hardison Mill
In the summer of 1999, with the royalties from the first song he'd had recorded, songwriter Rory Feek bought the farmhouse and a few acres that came with a dilapidated barn or two. Over the next twenty years the house and farm would undergo major reconstruction and become what it is now.
Events
at The Homestead at Hardison Mill
There are a number of concerts and events being held at the Homestead in the coming year.
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The annual Homestead Festival will be this coming June 7th & 8th, 2024 and will have dozens of speakers and teachers, vendors, food trucks, music and much more. See the Festival page for tickets and info.
At Homestead Hall, you can hear some of your favorite singers, songwriters and bands, and it's also where Rory performs intimate evenings of stories and songs one Saturday each month. See below for a complete listing of concert dates.
*On Rory's concert nights, tours of the schoolhouse are given.
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Dalton Greenwood runs the animal program on the farm and integrates all the farm and animals into the School's daily program. The cows are SouthPoll breed that are very easy to handle, heat tolerant and can be raised and finished out entirely on grass. They are moved to a new paddock of fresh grass every day, and the about 60 hens follow behind in a portable chicken tractor surrounded by electric fencing. They are moved every three days.
The Garden
at The Homestead at Hardison Mill
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