In southern Rappahannock County, Belle Ridge Farm has returned to its roots as a family enterprise. Larry and Kathy Grove purchased the 165 acres in 2000, after searching for land near Kathy’s ancestral home (her family settled in Woodville in 1746) atop the Red Oak Mountain. Vacant for 40 years, the property required loving care to reclaim the old farmhouse, the pastures, and the trails. Over 100 acres remain in forest and offer visitors long hikes along streams or along the Bessie Bell Mountain ridge. Approximately 20 acres returned to pasture after lying unused for many decades. A large vegetable garden occupies the area that was once a kitchen garden, and an old log smokehouse took on new life as a chicken coop. The Groves fenced the pastures, protecting the streams from livestock, and dug wells to provide water for goats, pigs, chickens, calves, and sheep. All the animals feed on the clover and orchard grass planted in the cleared pastures in 2000 and range freely over the fenced acreage. The pastures are fertilized only with manure from Belle Ridge. Larry cares for the animals every day, checking on them mornings and evenings. Barns, large and small, provide shelter for the animals. Larry Grove cuts hay twice each summer on neighboring fields that are otherwise untouched to provide supplementary nourishment for the grazing animals during the winter. The Groves feed all the animals some supplementary commercial feed and use no hormones, vaccines, or antibiotics. Blue Ridge Meats, a small family-owned operation, certified as a humane kill and certified for kosher products, processes the animals.
Until their participation in the Rappahannock Cooperative, the Groves have only sold their eggs and meat directly to individual consumers who are thus able to order custom cuts. The Groves now offer through the Cooperative:
· Pork sausage in 1 pound packages (free-range Spotted Gloucestershire)
· Rose veal in selected cuts (pasture-fed free-range dairy calves)
· Chevon (Boer goats, bred and pasture-fed at Belle Ridge)
· Eggs (brown, blue, and green from free-range hens cross-bred and hatched at Belle Ridge)