Today we’d like to introduce you to Jamie Cumming.
Hi Jamie, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
When I was about 12 I went to visit my great aunt and uncle’s farm and loved every second of it. That is when I first began to desire to have a farm, but then life happened. I grew up, got married, had 4 kids, adopted 2 more. We were living in Forney and began looking for land to buy as soon as our adoption finalized. We moved out to our land in August on 2017 just with a desire to have space for our kids to run, some chickens, and a big garden. One thing led to another and a bit of chicken math later, we have a full farm. We now have chickens, ducks, turkeys, peafowl, pigs, sheep, dairy goats, and dairy cows. We sell products at market and provide homestead education classes. One thing has led to another and now I also run the Kaufman County Farmer’s Market as well as work for a non profit called HOPE for Small Farm Sustainability that teaches farming and gardening for free, even providing land to grow on!
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Anyone that tells you farming is smooth sailing in lying! It is hard work to care for animals and keep them healthy. Sometimes even when you think you are doing everything right, you lose an animal. We have had some really hard loses. They are not only a huge emotional loss of an animal that you love and care for, but on a farm it is a financial hit as well since every animal on a farm has an important purpose.
It is also hard to market and sell products with the legal restrictions and regulations that have to be followed for food products and animals. I actually took over running the farmer’s market in Kaufman when the lady that previously did it retired. It is a lot of extra work and red tape that I have to take on in order to sell our products and help other farmers and creators do the same.
We’ve been impressed with Big Oaks Little Farm, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
As we have learned so much and will continue to be lifelong learners as homesteaders, we began to have the desire to share the things that we have learned. Through that desire we began doing classes here and there like chicken butchering or cheese making. Then I started Farm Camp where for a week in the summer where kids come everyday for a week and learn homestead skills from milking a goat to foraging and making salves. Farm Camp, then inspired me to open Homestead Academy in the fall of 2024. It is a 24 week course for homeschool students. They learn things like sourdough, goat milking, cheese making, goat milk soap, herbal medicine, foraging, gardening, caring for various animals and more.
Apart from education, we have a website where we sell freeze dried herbs, seasonings, and dip mixes grown on the farm. We also sell cocktail infusion kits, goat milk soap, and herbal salves. In person at the Kaufman County Farmer’s Market, we also sell, things like apple butter, jalapeno jelly, pickled items, salsa, and baked goods. Our best sellers are a seasoning mix called Farm Dust that customers use on everything from roasted veggies, to steak, to scrambled eggs! Our cocktail infusion kits are always a big hit especially around the holidays as well.
In October of 2024, I was also approached by a non-profit called HOPE for Small Farm Sustainability which led to me running their program in Kaufman. Through HOPE, I get to offer a free 20 x 20 garden plot to aspiring farmers/gardeners along with mentoring, education and free workshops that are open to the public.
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
I think that the most important thing to the success of a farm is a willingness to learn and change. If something doesn’t work, keep trying. Research, ask other farmers. The whole reason that we teach classes is not because we are experts that know everything. It is because if others had not been willing to teach us the things that they know, we would still be scrambling to figure things out on our own. We are always learning new things to add to what we teach, or to do things better. So i guess that the most important quality and characteristic is endurance and being willing to be a lifelong learner.
Pricing:
- Homestead Academy $120/semester
- Farm Camp $150
- Everything else is probably easier to look on the website www.bigoakslittlefarm.com
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.bigoakslittlefarm.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bigoakslittlefarm/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bigoakslittlefarm
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@bigoakslittlefarm2228
Image Credits
Micheala Bakondy https://mbakondyphotography.pixieset.com/
