Our Story
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We are Don and Tiffany, the owners of Red Belle Ridge Farm & Supply. We are a couple of ambitious (and slightly crazy) homesteaders and newfound Permaculture enthusiasts.
We have spent the last 10 years moving from farm to farm, finding what works and doesn't work for us. We started in 2015 in the swamps of South Florida (Labelle specifically, this is important information in a minute) on a 20 acre farm. The first night we visited the property after closing on it, the mosquitoes nearly carried us off to our car. In the 18 months we spent there, we tried a little bit of everything (goats, cows, horses, chickens, ducks, rabbits, etc.) and realized the swamp life was NOT for us.
After a short vacation to Ocala, FL we quickly switched gears and started looking for properties in Central Florida with the most important criteria being that the land was high and dry. After searching for a few months, we found a wonderful property in Reddick, just north of Ocala. We quickly sold our S Florida farm and proceeded to move our entire farm 4 hours north over the course of the next few weeks. We quickly settled in and loved the area, especially being horse lovers and being smack dab in the middle of Horse Country! After a few years of full-speed ahead on the farm, the loss of Diva (our first horse) to colic, and a massive home renovation, we found ourselves burnt out and over it all.
We started looking for a house in town and committed to selling all the livestock and simplifying. Since we had the 3 livestock guardian dogs that had been watching over the farm, we couldn't just find a condo or a house on a tiny lot, we needed space for 3 100+ lb dogs. We found a small 5 acre parcel just outside of Gainesville, FL and sold all the livestock other than Argo (horse), Nelly (mammoth donkey) and the 3 dogs. They had roughly 4 acres of pasture and we were 5 minutes from town, life was good. Or so we thought. Our property backed up to Payne's Prairie, so we were back to the swamp. The views were incredible and the privacy was amazing, but the mosquitoes ruled the land once again. We couldn't go outside without being swarmed with mosquitoes. When our realtor brought a beautiful, but distressed horse property to our attention, we thought we could just go take a peek and maybe dream a little. Instead, we fell in love with the property. Less than a year after moving to town, we were ready to go back to the country.
We picked up the farm and moved again, this time only about 10 miles down the road (literally the same road). We thought we had found our forever home! 20 acres of rolling pasture, a beautiful (slightly dated) home, barn, a pool house - literally a dream farm! We moved in during the height of COVID-19 (April 2020) and had our own private oasis to somewhat ignore the troubles of the outside world. Since we had a 4 stall barn, might as well fill it, right? Ok, we might've overshot that a bit and ended up with 9 equines at one point and a warmblood breeding operation. Another massive home renovation and the loss of Nelly, our mammoth donkey to the highway out in front of our farm, and we lost our drive to farm again. We were ready to escape the high maintenance farm that was honestly too fancy for our tastes. Mostly ready to escape the never-ending renovation of the house that was too large and echo-ey to ever feel comfortable in.
Our NC realtor shared a little farm in the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains and the rest is history, as they say. We are striving to avoid the burn-out again by finding solutions to make the farm as efficient as possible while immersing ourselves in the principles of permaculture to bring as much health to ourselves and our animals as possible. When possible, we are partnering with companies to bring those products to local homesteaders and farmers. Red Belle Ridge Farm & Supply is a dealer of New Country Organics feed, Timeless Fence products & Drinking Post Waterers in the foothills of North Carolina.
On our Western North Carolina 50 acre farm, we raise heritage breed livestock - American Guinea Hogs, Clun Forest Sheep, Foundation bred Morgan horses, Crème d'Argent & Silver Fox rabbits, and Buff Orpington Chickens. We rotationally graze the animals through our 50 acre farm and we are focusing on building the hardiest lines that need little to no human intervention into their health.
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P.S. Our farm name, Red Belle Ridge, is a nod to where we started (Labelle), where we've been (Reddick), and where we ended up (on the Ridge). The fact that the property came with a beautiful, century-old red barn, helped solidify our name choice!
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