We Bought a Farm

80 ACRES, 10 COWS, 6 KIDS, NO REAL FARMING EXPERIENCE. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?

BY CHRISTINA RIES; PHOTOS BY CARLI WINKELS FROM PINE & POPPI

When it’s time for my interview with Leah Darrow and her husband, Ricky, on a Thursday evening in the summer, she can’t reach him.

“He’s on the tractor right now and I think he forgot his phone,” Leah texts me. “He’s about 40 to 50 acres away.”

Suddenly the switch the Soldinie family made last summer from suburban living to farm life is very real. They’re off the grid now, measuring life in acres. “America’s Next Top Model” has become Grant Wood’s “American Gothic”—and the reality-TV contestant turned Catholic speaker couldn’t be happier.

The desire for change stirred in Leah and Ricky’s hearts early in the Covid pandemic when they set up a chicken coop and contemplated the unsettling possibility of a food shortage. At the same time, they were embracing the traditional Catholic liturgical life and exploring the virtue of ascetism, so sorely missing from modern culture. The intersection of those interests pointed to a new direction: farm life.

For the next year, Leah and Ricky searched for a place, touring dozens of rural properties. A friend suggested they pray a novena to St. Philomena, then another friend randomly sent them a St. Philomena relic.

They started praying.

One day Leah and Ricky visited a big farmhouse nestled on 80 acres with peach and apple orchards, a creek winding through the woods and a classic red barn. Inside the home, a prayerbook on an end table lay open: a novena to St. Philomena.

They toured a second time with Leah’s parents, overwhelmed by the beauty of the property and the enormity of their decision. They decided to sleep on it and discuss the next morning.

When Leah awoke, she picked up her phone and was greeted by cheerful messages: Happy St. Philomena Feast Day!

“I woke up Ricky and said, ‘I think we should put an offer on the house!’”

Last July they moved into the farm outside Fordland, Mo. Leah, Ricky and their six children, ages 8 and under, manage 80 acres, along with 10 cows, six pigs, 10 chickens and a rooster, two dogs and a cat. They’ve named the property The Big Family Farm and are now opening it up to the public to pick pumpkins from their three-acre field of ripe orange gourds. (Details at thebigfamilyfarm.com.)

“I haven’t worked this hard since being on active duty in the army,” said Ricky, 44, who worked as a firefighter before becoming a farmer. “Long hours, long days— there’s no one who’s going to do it but you.”

“It has not been easy, financially,” said Leah, 43, who recently launched a personal development program called Power Made Perfect (leahdarrow.com). “But it’s worth it for the freedom it gives us.”

Farming is meaningful work, she said, and they’re living out the principles of St. John Paul II’s theology of the body like never before.

Leah, what did you think when Ricky first mentioned moving to a farm?

Leah: I’m not surprised he suggested it. Ricky has always been willing to question his currently held beliefs in search of something that’s better for us.

Ricky: We adjust things that aren’t optimal for growth. We’re always ready to learn. You have to have some openness.

Leah: You have to be open to be wrong. Ricky and I say this over and over - in small decisions and big decisions - from how do we do this busy day together with meals, to selling everything and moving to a farm: Is there a better way? That question seems to open up a conversation.

We started talking and asking, “Why can’t we give that [simpler life] to our kids?” It required a lot of sacrifice and effort. But we have the power to change our lives. God has this divine power and divine energy, and He allows us to share in his divine power to navigate our lives, to make these choices, to do difficult things.

It was a moment that God graced us with his own divine power to ask ourselves how we really want to live. It seemed really clear that we wanted to be in an environment that would connect us more with God’s nature—the created piece—and give our children space to be themselves with less of the outside and extra influences telling them who they should be.

Your experience with chickens got you hooked.

Ricky: I thought, “Why aren’t we doing this more? Can we raise anything else? Can I raise a pig here? Can I put a pumpkin patch in my neighbor’s piece of land sitting empty? Can I have a milk cow?”

Leah: We were trying to have a mini-farm on our oneacre property on the outskirts of St. Louis. The dreams were bigger than our yard could hold.

What has surprised you about farm life?

Ricky: How obsolete tennis shoes are. You need boots. Tennis shoes are a mucky mess.

Leah: I used to wear athleisure to run my errands. I was a cute suburban mom.

Ricky: That doesn’t work out here! Any kind of quick-dry clothing just gets snagged. We had really nice puffy jackets—

Leah: Patagonia. It really puts you out of your comfort zone. They were cute, but they weren’t functional.

You have to work the ground. You have to sow the seed and nurture it. There are so many parallels to the spiritual life.

—Ricky Soldinine

Any other surprises?

Ricky: People knock on your door here and pop in to say hello. Just passing by. I’ve met my neighbors not by calling them but by them showing up at my door. They just show up.

I’ve also been surprised at how good homemade food tastes. Pigs specifically—pork. It’s almost a different meat. Chicken too. It’s so much richer. When you raise your own meat, if you can do it, it’s a thousand times better. Every time the kids eat bacon or pork chops, they ask, “Are these our pigs, Dad?” And I say yes, and they’re happy. Violet, our 6-year-old, named her pig Popcorn. So any time we have pork, she says, “Ah, this tastes just like Popcorn.” That’s the joke.

Leah: We’ll never buy meat again from a grocery store. We know how our animal was treated, what we fed the animal; we know how it was killed and processed and how it was put into the freezer. Before we were so separated from the food chain and we didn’t even think about it. But by not thinking about it, we subjected ourselves to what somebody else wanted to give us, and they don’t love you. To them, it’s a business.

You’ve had quite a learning curve!

Leah: We watch YouTube at night in bed.

Have your kids picked up some new skills too?

Ricky: They can plant pumpkins. They help butcher chickens. Agnes, who is 8, can do part of the de-feathering. They know how to take care of pigs, chickens, cats, dogs. They can open cattle gates. Agnes moved cattle with me, and she can drive an ATV! People might think we’re crazy, but she’s tall enough to do it so I let her.

Leah: They’re learning the ability to learn. Ricky takes them on so many errands as we talk to other farmers. They’re listening to these conversations. The greatest skill is the fact that they’re realizing that life has so many things to teach you.

Ricky: They’ve also learned to deal with death and failure. We’ve failed on many things. They’ve learned a lack of attention will kill your animals

Leah: Like if you don’t close your chicken coop, raccoons will come and get them.

You’re winging it—figuring it out as you go, as a family. How does that feel?

Ricky: I spent so many hours getting the pumpkin fields ready. Several nights we were up till 1 am with flashlights—planting or weeding or fixing irrigation. It was a nightmare. But at the same time—my partner Jordan said one night, “It’s 1 am, we’re in the fields, bro. Do you feel alive?” I said, “Yeah, I’ve never felt more alive.” It’s reinvigorating. I wish I were about 10 years younger, but I’m doing it. And the reward, I’m hoping, is that I can make a living on this. If God is so gracious to us, this fall, and we do well enough to replace my [fireman] salary from where I was working before, then that’ll be the greatest success I’ve had in my working life. It’s the first time in my life I will have attempted to work for myself.

It’s not glamorous. It’s not the stuff of pretty little Instagram reels.

Leah: I try to show as much as I can on Instagram. What farming can do is help you in the spiritual life. If you want good works, you have to plant the seed.

Ricky: You have to work the ground. You have to sow the seed and nurture it. There are so many parallels to the spiritual life. There’s a reason Jesus used so many farmer parables. These parables are coming alive! I understand them now. The curse of Adam is on my mind as I’m pulling up weeds and thorns and ticks; I’m thinking about Genesis, the curse, the fall. We all have to deal with thorns and bristles.

Leah: I’ve had some beautiful theology lessons in the garden with the kids. As we would weed the gardens, we’d talk, “Where is the fruit or the vegetable? We don’t touch that. But where are the weeds? Why are we pulling them out?” It’s so easy to relate this to sin: this is what sin does. Do you know what sin can do to a really good virtue that you’ve been working hard at? It can just stifle it. Its roots can just take over.

Violet will look at the garden and she’ll say, “Look at all the sin!”

We homeschool our kids, and part of our homeschool is at the table—reading, phonics, math. But everything else is outside. We are allowing God to teach us through his creation, and there are so many lessons that I could not even find a book to teach us. I’m just trusting the process.

And when you planted all those pumpkin seeds, you trusted they would grow!

Ricky: We planted 4,000 seeds—three acres. It’s our first time doing pumpkins. We’ll have close to 15,000 or 20,000 pumpkins, depending on the yield.

Leah: It was definitely a “Field of Dreams.” I’ve never felt more connected to that movie. You’re just praying to God that they grow and nothing destroys them and that people will come. We’re trying to create a space that reflects on what inspired our move to the land—bringing families together, giving them an opportunity to be outside together, away fromscreens, and grab some pumpkins.

It seems that this new life allows both you and your children to focus on some different and more important lessons.

Ricky: Yes, the farm enhances that. But we have a new lesson we have learned. We lost a baby in February. We’ve always been very open to life. God’s been really good to us, and Leah’s been very healthy and fertile, and our children are healthy. We’ve been open and God’s been good. But the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, and that has a lot more meaning to us now.

We were fortunate to bury the baby on our land, on the hill in a private area, and our kids are able to go visit the baby. They were really impacted by this whole experience, especially the four older ones. So we talk a lot about being open and receptive to accepting gifts from God, like new life. We talk about all the fruits, but sometimes we don’t talk so much about the misses. All those apply to losing a baby as well, not just having one.

Leah: We found out she’s a baby girl. We named her Amelia. We learned she had Down Syndrome and Trisomy 16, which was a lethal combination for her. Losing her and burying her on the property and being here on the farm—I’m so thankful we were in the space that we’re at when this happened in our family. And Amelia is a huge part of the story.

There’s a beautiful story unfolding here. TOB teaches us that we are made in the image and likeness of a Trinitarian God as male or female, and that we live out this Trinitarian image when we give a total gift of ourself in love through the body that is life-giving/ fruitful. Of course Amelia is a huge part of that.

Leah: Yes! And I’ve come to see that TOB is so much more than a teaching on sexuality. It’s your entire way of life—to be free, total, faithful and fruitful in all kinds of ways. You’re missing the boat if you only apply it to sexuality.

Ricky: Yeah.

Leah: Are you free in your life? In your mission? Are you faithful in it? Where’s the fruit? How do we define that? We need to take those four words and apply them to our whole lives, instead of just the bedroom and just natural family planning.

It was hard to sell much of our stuff and pack the rest and move our kids three hours away. But there was a reason we did that: there was more fruit to be had. There’s a lot of peace on the pasture. There’s a lot of quiet, a lot of beauty. There’s a chance for imaginations to be ignited again— even for Ricky and me.

Amelia was a great lesson for us to realize that that pregnancy wasn’t fruitless. We had our seventh baby. We had our third girl. I’m a mama of seven. I’m raising six and I’ve got one in heaven who’s raising me. We definitely experienced a loss. We lost her, and we lost the chance to raise her, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t fruit and that she’s not part of our family. It’s just that fruit had a lot of suffering to it. No theology book is going to teach you that kind of suffering.

TOB calls us to make a gift of ourselves. How do you take care of yourself so you’re able to do that?

Leah: God wants our mind, body and soul to work in harmony—so our entire being is being cared for. We’re made with this beautiful physical body and this ability to move. Our minds are made with this amazing ability to move our thoughts through. Our soul is moved through the divine energy of God’s grace.

So what brings me energy and peace and calm? For me it’s not neglecting some prayer time. When I get a workout in, and I physically move this body God has given me, in a way that’s quick and easy for me and releases endorphins, I have clarity. My body feels good, and I have better mental clarity, so it helps with my mind. And I do a lot of mindset work. I have certain scripts I say in my mind throughout the day, like, “I’m gonna make it!” But I can’t leave out quiet time to talk to God. I love starting with Psalm 139: “I praise you, Lord, because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

Do you secretly dream of your kids raising their kids on the farm— and future generations?

Leah: We’ve told them outright, “We bought a farm so that you can have a portion of that one day.”

There’s a lot of peace on the pasture. There’s a lot of quiet, a lot of beauty. There’s a chance for imaginations to be ignited again.

—Leah Darrow

It’s like a giant playground for whatever passions they may want to pursue—farming, photography, writing, cooking.

Leah: And there are lots of trade schools out there. Ricky is going to welding school right now.

There are so many professions that keep our country running. The pandemic taught us how dependent we are on almost everyone else.

Leah, it seems like God couldn’t have carried you farther from those dark days of modeling in New York City to your joyful life now raising a big family on a Missouri farm.

Leah: It looks different, but the internal compass is the biggest difference.

I rarely spend time thinking about that. I don’t want it to entice me to think that I did something great. I was living a massively selfish, vain life, and I made one small step in the right direction with God’s grace and then another, and all those tiny steps eventually brought me here to the farm.

SIX STEPS TO CHASE THE DREAM

There’s a growing interest in simple living and homesteading— secular expressions of the virtue of asceticism that Leah and Ricky were seeking when they moved to the country. But not everyone can sell everything and purchase 80 acres.

“Don’t give up on the dream,” Leah said.

Here are six action items she shares in Power Made Perfect, her new personal development program available on leahdarrow.com.

1 WRITE IT DOWN

“Write out your dream. A whiteboard, a notebook, somewhere you can see it. What would you love to do? ‘I’ve always really wanted to have an acre or two where I can do homesteading.’ Maybe you live in an area where you could start supporting local farmers near you? Maybe you start getting your chicken or pork from a local farmer instead of going to the grocery store. Maybe you invest in an upright freezer so you can have half a cow and have your beef for a year.”

2 LET GOD IN

“Oftentimes our deepest desires and passions are from God. They still need to be cultivated and purified. God is patient, and He will work through that.”

3 THINK BIG

“Most of us are living out of limiting beliefs. ‘I’d love to have a farm, but I can’t, I don’t know how, or I don’t have enough money.’ But that doesn’t mean you can’t learn or you can’t save. It is possible! You don’t need to have 80 acres like us. You could do this on half an acre. You might not have hooved animals in your backyard, maybe you don’t even want that, but what you want is to cultivate and grow more peace in your life. Maybe you want to get back to nature. Maybe you want to spend less time with screens.”

4 WORK BACKWARDS

“Once you’ve written down your dream, reverse engineer it. Maybe you’re not in a place financially, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be. What might that look like? Where do you want to be? What baby steps will get you there?

5 SIMPLIFY

“To cultivate peace, we have to create simplicity in our lives. Simplicity does not just happen. You have to create it. It’s not just the lack of presence of things; it’s a fullness of peace. So simplify your life. Do a massive purge. If it gives you anxiety to actually donate things or give them away or sell them, then put them into totes and store them away for three months.

“Start with one corner of one room. If you say you’re going to tackle the whole kitchen, that’s too much. Just go through one cabinet. You don’t need that much Tupperware! Don’t tackle the kids’ room. Decide, ‘I’m just going to do shoes in the boys’ room.’ And that’s it!

“When you constantly have what you need, you’re not going to look for the things that your soul needs. It’s kind of like the person who’s never hungry. And think about our relationship with God, who wants to give us spiritual gifts. But then we shut down our need for spiritual gifts because material stuff is in the way.”

6 BE BRAVE

“Ask the hard questions. Is this how you want to live? Is there another way? If there is, don’t be scared to start living it out. What’s stopping you? If your answer is, ‘It’s just too hard,’ that’s not good enough. This is about our whole lives—we need to look for those ways we can lovingly give of ourselves in all kinds of ways that are life-giving and fruitful. I know that sounds big, but are we really in mission with the Lord? With the mission He wants us to live out? Have we given him a shot?”