They were two high school kids in the Midwest living 350 miles apart who had the same dream. They were a year apart in age doing different things and living different lives.
Emily Durbin and Kevin Houlihan wouldn’t meet until years later—a thousand miles away in the thin mountain air of Colorado at that. But they had this shared vision for what their life would be like someday.
A farm.
Not one of those iconic Midwest farms with horizon-filling silos full of corn or soybeans. It would be a farm full of edible delights they’d put on their table.
Carrots, kale, broccoli, lettuce, tomatoes, garlic, onions, beets, cauliflower, beans, sweet corn, pumpkins, rosemary, basil, yarrow and we could keep on going. Cheese and yogurt from goats they’d milk. Eggs from their chickens; some pigs. Maybe a milk cow or two.
You get the idea. A little homestead.
“Homesteading” at its core is self-sufficiency. Living off the land, sustainably. It’s simplicity. (Which is what Native Americans did here for millennia, for example.)
It’s growing your own fruits and veggies, and herbs. It’s free-range chickens and kids, milk cows and goats, composting and organic soil amendments, 100% non-GMO.
For some it’s a little square of organic food in their backyard. For others it’s their whole back yard. And front yard. And beds around the house.
Way before homesteading became a social media and millennial cultural craze, Emily and Kevin had a plan. It would take a while to get there, and they crossed the country to do it. But they’d have that little farm of their dreams.
“We’ve been wanting to do this a good 10, 15 years,” Kevin says.
And here they are in Onemo, Virginia, with their young son, Ollie, in a two-story house that dates to 1850 with original white pine floors and about 6 acres of cleared ground surrounded by piney woods. They raise their beds because their land is just 3 feet above sea level, as last fall’s king tides reminded them when Chesapeake Bay water 8 inches deep surged onto their property.
Kevin shrugs. It’s all good because while he’s a carpenter by trade, he’s living his dream and working just as hard—maybe harder—at home. Feeding their family off their land is just beginning.
The GianDonato Farmette
Twenty-six miles away from the Durbin homestead, Stephanie GianDonato rises at 4:30am every day to start the morning chores. This is not lifestyles of the influencer homesteading rich and famous you might see on TikTok or Instagram.
It’s not even close to glamsteading. It’s mud, varying combinations of animal manure and straw, forever caked to your boots.
It’s dirt under your fingernails, hands that are rough and calloused, hungry deer and coyotes in the woods, and an endless supply of caterpillars and bugs in the plants. And if something can go wrong, it will.
GianDonato is here for it. All of it.
Whether it’s bone-chilling cold or shirt-soaking hot and everything in between, she’s up in the dark to make her farm rounds. Milk the cows and feed and check on the rabbits, chickens, goats, pigs, turkeys, ducks, geese and peacocks, and change the shift of guard dogs—apologies if we missed anything in the GianDonato animal kingdom.
And that’s just before breakfast for her four school-age kids.
The GianDonato family is living their shared dream.
Better Living, Better Food
GianDonato is going on four years into her Gloucester homesteading journey. This past September, she left behind a solid career as a director testing software for the U.S. Air Force at Langley Air Force Base in Hampton to be full-time on her farmette.
The “GianDonato Farmette” is a homestead on several acres of cleared ground next to Petsworth Elementary School. She describes it on social media as “regenerative agriculture and sustainable living for us and our community. Real, natural food.”
You’ve probably seen her distinctive yellow house and barn on Route 17. Its little-known claim to fame is that it’s the highest point of land in Gloucester, at 90 feet above sea level.
The piece of land has been a farm going back at least 300 years, historically known as “Church Hill,” circa 1720. Owners patented the land in 1671 and used it as the Petsworth Parish glebe, or land owned and typically farmed by the church.
The homesteading life is hard but good. Or good but hard. Either way works.
“It’s better living, healthier food,” GianDonato says.
It’s part of what Frank Long, an extension agent in Middlesex, Mathews and Gloucester counties, calls the future of food production. “We have many folks wanting to wean themselves off gradually from corporate grocery store chains and have begun leaning on their neighbors for goods next door, as most neighbors will diversify their products in order not to grow one thing but many, according to their interest or convenience,” Long says.
In Mathews County, a group is building a local county growers co-op to be open 12 hours a day for five days a week. There’s also a community kitchen for businesses, members, residents and others.
“The goal is to build a self-sustaining, self-reliant food network with the county through multiple farm-to-table avenues,” said Long.
So, what motivates GianDonato? The sense of accomplishment. And butter.
“Like when you’re churning butter and 45 minutes later you get four to five pounds of butter,” she says.
And it’s so much more than butter. She estimates that last year 80% to 85% of their food came from their farmette.
They ate proteins from rabbits, pork, chicken and beef. They grow fruits and berries and make jams and jellies, including hot pepper jellies that slap. There’s zucchini flour, raw milk, canned broths, freeze-dried food, dehydrated sourdough starter, even old-school powdered milk.
She also sells to the public. She offers a subscription service, and folks can pick up their dairy from a fridge on the GianDonato porch.
But in many ways, it’s all about her kids.
“It’s for the kids,” GianDonato says. “I don’t want them to be city kids and stay inside all the time. They get bruises, climb trees and I love that they love to do stuff outside. To grow up the way you should grow up.”
“One Mo’ Farm”
It’s November 2023. The Durbins are in La Pine, Oregon, a rustic outpost where the piney forests stretch to the snow-capped Cascades peaks climbing the western horizon.
They’re assessing their “homesteading” chops at their friends’ 6-acre place. Taking care of the horses, chopping wood, the usual. During it they had the homesteading talk.
“I was just like, ‘We gotta go,’ ” Emily says. “It feels like it’s time.”
They got out a map and crossed out every state except one: Virginia. Eight months later they closed on their house in Onemo (“One Mo’ Farm” makes complete sense now, eh?). They arrived in October 2024. They have been working ever since.
The gardening is going well and ever-expanding. The logs Kevin inoculated with mushrooms look good. But there’s always more. They think they’re a few years away from more fully living off the land.
“Without livestock it feels like we’re aspiring,” Emily says. “That’s always the goal but it doesn’t happen overnight.”
Emily remembers a conversation on a porch with her dad when she was 20. She told him she was going to buy a farm someday. And now?
“Both of our parents are kind of like, ‘Holy crap. They’re both doing what they talked about as teenagers,’ ” she says.
Here’s the kicker, from Kevin: “We needed each other to make it happen.”
The GianDonato Farmette I 10744 George Washington Memorial Highway, Gloucester | tgf-llc.com I Follow @thegiandonatofarmette on Facebook and Instagram.
