The owner’s family has always known that they were not the first to live on this land; it belonged to the Cherokee, Creek, and Yuchi; it was their hunting grounds. In recognition of their help during the Revolutionary War, America promised them sovereignty but then they were betrayed, and forced to leave their homeland. Traces of their lives can still be found in the woods, streams and in the soil when we turn it to sow seed.

We are conscious of America’s history of the enslavement of free Africans that resulted in our being on this land today; the owner’s ancestors were enslaved here. She grew up in this valley, bounded by the Appalachian Hills and the Oostanaula River, in Northwest Georgia. Her family lived in an all-Black enclave in the rural community of Curryville that she returned to when she retired to develop a flower farm. She sees her time here as a duty to be responsible for it, care for it and do it justice so that future generations who are fortunate enough to live here can enjoy this small, yet magnificent, sliver of earth.