Opening this place to others was never something we imagined doing.
It’s land we farm that has always quietly whispered of something more.
We deeply love this piece of land we farm, and for years there was this lingering feeling that surely farming couldn’t be the only way we would enjoy it. Our life and home were elsewhere, but neither did it feel right to let something we loved this much simply pass through the seasons without finding another way to enjoy it.
Then came a wildly random idea
What if we shared it?
We had nothing to lose. Perhaps others would come and feel it too.
And if no one did, it would still be ours to love.
Turns out, you can open a gate and hope — and sometimes, they really do come.
And here we are, right in the middle of our first season.
They’re coming for quiet nights beneath the oaks and evenings spent wandering with a camera. They’re bringing their dogs, paddling the river, walking along the fields and watching the prairie change with both the rising and setting sun.
Photographers are returning with new stories to Capture. Stay guests are leaving feeling rested, reconnected and sometimes surprised by just how quickly they’re able to slow down here.
And perhaps the biggest surprise hasn’t been simply welcoming guests through the gate.
It’s how much they’ve embraced what we’re creating here.
There’s something about hearing someone else put words to a feeling we’ve carried about this place for so long. They tell us it feels peaceful. That it feels private. That they slowed down. That there’s simply something about being here that can be hard to explain.
In our first season, sharing it is bringing us more joy than imagined.
Where the support finds you
We’re learning something else too.
Support doesn’t always come from where you think it will, and sometimes it comes from places you never expected. We’ve felt both.
Rather than spend too much time wondering about the first, we’re choosing to put our energy into those who have shown up, encouraged us, returned, shared what we’re doing, and reminded us that this wildly random idea might just have been worth following.
A place holding so much of our story now holds pieces of others’ too.
We never imagined sharing it. Now we can’t imagine having not.
Just when we thought we couldn’t possibly love this place more, sharing it has given us a whole new reason to.
A story of our own
Captured here
And somewhere among all the stories being told here, ours continues.
I happened across Tarryn @the.ateliercreative.co several months ago, and I was immediately drawn to the quiet authenticity about her. After we began exchanging, that feeling only grew. I knew without question that if Bryan and I were going to step in front of a camera together, I wanted Tarryn behind it.
And somehow, she made the whole evening feel like there wasn’t a camera there at all.
No performing. No forced poses. No trying to be anything other than who we are.
Snoopie was with us, because Snoopie is always with us, and the three of us simply wandered our land together.
And Tarryn quietly followed along behind us, capturing little moments I didn’t even know were happening.
When the gallery arrived, there we were. Not a polished version, and not simply photographs that looked like us. They felt like us — the laughter, the comfort of all these years together, and the little moments between us we never could have posed.
Tarryn saw what was there when we weren’t even looking.
And after 33 years together, having this chapter of our lives captured so honestly feels like one of the greatest gifts we could have been given.
A Whole Lotta Life In Between
There are 33 years sitting quietly beneath these photographs.
This is the same land where our story began on a quiet spring evening in 1993.
A whole lot of real life has happened between that evening and this one. We’ve raised a family, worked, farmed, worried, laughed, made mistakes, changed course, figured things out as we went, and faced the same ordinary realities that everyone does.
And somehow, there we were again. Together on the same land where it all started.
Maybe that’s also why this first season has us thinking about what could come next.
Sharing the land has opened our eyes to possibilities we hadn’t considered before, and we still have plenty of heart left to pour into it. There are corners we’d love to open up, ideas we’re quietly dreaming about, and ways we hope this place can continue to grow without losing what made us love it in the first place.
Mostly, we hope good folk keep finding their way down our dirt road in the years ahead.
That they come to slow down, to Capture something worth remembering, to mark something meaningful, or simply to spend a little time here.
Because sharing this place hasn’t taken anything away from what it means to us.
It has added to it.
The same piece of land where our story began is now holding pieces of so many others, with more still waiting to unfold.
And through all of it, there’s still the two of us.
Not some polished version of ourselves. Just two very ordinary people living a very real life, still laughing together, still figuring things out as we go, and still deeply loving this land we farm.
Full circle, from one quiet spring evening in 1993.
Faye + Bryan Fossay
Perhaps your story finds its way here next
For us, sharing Down Home Farm began with a wildly random idea. In our first season, it’s becoming a place where others are slowing down, spending time together, and adding pieces of their own stories to land that holds so much of ours.
Quiet stays. Meaningful Captures. Good folk finding their way down our dirt road.
If this place feels like somewhere you’d like to be, Down Home Farm welcomes unique Stays and private Captures from June through October.