The Women's Homestead Society was started in October 2022 from a need and desire to cultivate community and help connect women in their local areas with mentors and supporters. The conference has grown from a small group of women meeting at a home farm to reaching a multitude of women who have joined this homesteading movement. We are so excited for you to join us this year for a time of inspiration, education, and fellowship with the community and meet some new friends.
The conference is to be a launching pad for you to expand your skills, learn from experienced homesteaders, and most importantly cultivate community and find someone to link arms with in your homesteading journey.
Join us in Dickson, TN (just 1 hour SW of Nashville Airport) for two days full of speakers who consist of women who speak nationwide, have written best-selling books, are entrepreneurs in the farming world, and are known to be leaders in the homesteading community.
Come hear from women like Beth Dougherty, Ann Accetta Scott, Paige Jackson from Grass Grazed, Ruthann Zimmerman, Jen Roberts from Farm Fresh Family, and more amazing women who are making an impact in their local communities. Enjoy a farm-fresh homemade breakfast with time to ask the speakers your questions (with a VIP ticket) and dinner under the stars (weather permitting) made from locally sourced, farm-to-table ingredients with time to connect with the women around you and grow your circle.
Come learn about topics like:
Time management | Rotational grazing | Building a platform with God at the center | Food preservation
Building a business | Micro Homesteading | Homesteading with kids | And so much more!
Foxcroft Farms
303 Fairview Rd
Dickson, TN 37055
Join us for two days full of fellowship and learning from the best homesteaders and teachers, with break-out sessions to connect with your local community. You'll have the opportunity to shop with vendors who cater to our way of life, and then enjoy two, local farm fresh, seasonal, homemade suppers.
9:30am Check-in
10:00am Conference Starts
Foxcroft Farms
303 Fairview Rd
Dickson, TN 37055
You of course get to join in on all the general admission fun, but you will also receive closer parking, a goody bag from our sponsors, VIP front-row seating, access to all video recordings after the conference, and an invite to two farm-to-table breakfasts with our speakers!
8:00am VIP Breakfast
Foxcroft Farms
303 Fairview Rd
Dickson, TN 37055
Shawn and Beth Dougherty have been farming together since the 1980's, for the last twenty years in eastern Ohio, where they manage 90 acres, much of it designated by the state as 'not suitable for agriculture'. Using intensive grazing as the primary source of food energy, they raise dairy and beef cows, sheep, farm-fed hogs, and a variety of poultry, producing most of the food, feed and fertility for humans and animals, on the farm. Concerned that farming is so often dependent upon multiple off-farm resources, from feed, fuel and fertilizer to water and electricity, their ongoing project is to identify and test the means by which farming was done for centuries with a minimum of off-farm inputs. Their research has led them to identify grass conversion, especially the daily conversion of grass into milk by dairy ruminants, as a key to whole-farm sustainability, combined with the integrated nutrient feed-backs that are possible with a community of diverse animal and plant species, domestic and native. They are the authors of The Independent Farmstead, Chelsea Green Press 2016.
Ann is a self-taught homesteader of 10 years, a wife to the most patient man ever, a mother to 7, and a grandmother to 5. She discovered her focus in her journey to achieve food freedom and live a simpler, traditional, sustainable lifestyle - to guide more families to this life.
Ann is the face behind the brand A Farm Girl in the Making and the author of The Farm Girl's Guide to Preserving the Harvest. Acorn Creek Farmstead is a family farm and a learning center for those who seek to learn to live freely and consume a clean food source. In addition to teaching others through hands-on workshops, the farm feeds the community by offering clean meat options, real milk and its byproducts, and soon a seasonal CSA.
Paige Jackson is a regenerative farm manager based in Durham County.
She and her husband Derrick, launched Grass Grazed Farm in 2019 while stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
Grass Grazed is a pasture-based regenerative farm, focusing on soil health and sustainable farming practices. The farm raises pork, chicken and cattle. They strive to offer transparency, from farm to table, for all of their customers.
Paige is a mama of 5. She enjoys reading and good facial when she has the time.
RuthAnn and her family live in North East Iowa, Her husband, Elvin, and her have 7 children and 1 son-in-law. Five of the children still live at home. RuthAnn and her husband have been homesteading on their 21-acre homestead since 2001. They seek to preserve the self-sufficient lifestyle of their Mennonite Heritage for the next generation by involving their children in every aspect of the homestead. From raising and harvesting the meat they consume, gardening and preserving to fill the family's larder, processing the dairy from the family milk cow plus the many other skills that develop the character and integrity of a family that desires to bring glory and honor to their Heavenly Father.
Jen Roberts is a city girl turned farmer who traded her home at the beach for a multigenerational homestead in North East Florida on a little over 10+ acres. Non paying members of the homestead include two kiddos, dairy cows, chickens, rabbits, puppies & kittens. She thrives on failing forward and figuring things out, knowing that through it all, God has her back. As someone living with (and activity healing from) an autoimmune disorder, when she's not sneaking new animals onto the farm, she's in the kitchen whipping up gluten free foods for her family that aren't loaded with inflammatory ingredients. Moving to the country didn't stop Jen and her family from living their best Florida beach life in the summer! She's passionate about sharing how you can break out of the stereotypical homesteader stigma of being tied to your homestead while sharing ways to adapt homesteading to fit your life while including the things that matter to you and your family. Want to keep up with her and her family's ever adventurous homesteading lifestyle - give her a follow over on Instagram @farmfreshfamily
Janelle Anderson and her family live on The Haven Farmstead in Middle Tennessee. Janelle grew up on a small family farm with every farm animal possible in Wisconsin and spent most of her adult life on a Beef Cattle Ranch in Western North Dakota. The ranch has been in her husband Ben's family for over 100 years. Things began to shift a few years ago when Janelle convinced her husband Ben that bringing chickens and a family milk cow to the ranch would benefit their family and neighbors in the unstable time the world continued to head towards.
In spring 2022, Ben and Janelle heeded God's call to leave their cow-calf operation in Western ND to start over on raw land in rural Northern Wayne County Tennessee. Over the next six months, the family sold all of their cattle, milk cow, chickens, and home while having a builder build the shell of their future home in TN. The Anderson family made their way to Tennessee in September 2022.
In the last year, they have been busy finishing their family home, setting up infrastructure for the farmstead, breaking ground and growing their first-ever garden, raising multiple rounds of meat birds to sell to their neighboring communities, and building a community to fill the gaps as well as barter and trade with.
The Andersons believe animal husbandry is more than feeding animals daily. It is putting the infrastructure in place before bringing home different animals, knowing the soil and helping it become a beautiful source of nutrients for the animals and, in turn, the family.
Janelle is passionate about people, building and cultivating community, and family milk cows while teaching and mentoring others about proper animal husbandry.
Kinzi is a homeschooling and homesteading mom of 5 in Franklin, TN. Growing up in Southern California, she had no experience with farming or homesteading of any kind but became more interested in it when she began seeking healthier food options for her children. She and her husband eventually moved their family to middle TN and got the notion that they should start raising their own meat chickens. She decided after reading Joel Salatin's “Pastured Poultry Profits” cover-to-cover that they were now ready and equipped to raise about 300 of them.
Lack of space wasn't going to stop her, so she knocked on the door of a couple who owned some land about a mile up the road from them, introduced herself, and asked if they could raise chickens on their property. And that's where her homesteading journey began. She has since learned that it doesn't take 100 acres to have a homestead. She no longer uses someone else's land, but on her own 1.5 acres, she now raises a mini-jersey cow for milk, keeps laying hens, and has a large garden. She has also learned to partner and barter with those in her community for the things she doesn't have space for. Although she dreams of acres and acres of land, she has realized that she can provide for her family and be a good steward of the land that God has blessed her family with, no matter the size. She has learned that there's a lot you can do with just a little bit of land!
Jenefer is a wife, mama, homesteader, family herbalist + forager. Driven by a passion to live with simplicity + intention going back to the days of old when food was grown or foraged to stock the larder. When meat was raised at home, bartered for, or hunted to fill bellies during the winter. A time when we went to our pantries or into the gardens for the ingredients needed to heal + mend our bodies they way God intended it. She loves teaching others how to prepare home apothecaries, use what they can grow or grows around them to nourish and take care of their bodies and their families. Taking everything back to the land, where it all began.
Drew DeFir-Mercer is the Founder and CEO of Luna Marketing Studio, a boutique marketing firm nestled in the hill country of Central Arkansas. She leads a team of collaborative and innovative creators ranging from content creators, designers and photographers who partner with business owners across the country to build their brand online. When's she not meeting with clients and leading her team, you'll find Drew on a softball field with her daughter, working in her backyard garden or finding every excuse under the sun to travel somewhere new.
