As a Kentucky native, I met Tim while living in South Dakota as a Nurse’s aide for one of the major hospital systems. He was a lifelong South Dakotan working as a sales engineer for a regional, industrial electrical distributor. When we met people, to help people remember us, I started coining the phrase “Tim & Faith, just like country music”.
One evening I was over at his house and waiting for him to finish up clearing the latest snowfall. South Dakota gets way more snow than Kentucky and it doesn’t melt until spring. We had another 6” of wet, heavy snow dumped on us and we weren’t even close to the end of winter. The plows had gone by that day filling the driveways with deep, packed snow and ice. It was impossible without four wheel drive to even get in the driveway. Tim and his neighbor teamed up and were hustling to clear their driveways with a shovel and a snow blower before everything froze hard.
Tim parked in his driveway and the season’s pile of snow was easily larger than his truck. Finished, he stepped into the house to warm up., “You should see how big that pile of snow is now.” Tim paused.
“Your kid lives Kentucky, my kid is in college. Why do we live here again?”
“That trip to Florida was great. I’m sold. Let’s go!” I joked.
Shaking off the cold, he muttered “Definitely not as cold.”
“You know what, I’d strap the snow blower to the roof of my pickup. We’d just keep driving south until someone says, hey, what is that thing on your truck? Then we’d know we had arrived.”
No more snow
The conversation turned serious and the two of us decided that night this was our last winter with the snow and cold. After a short search, found a little stucco house on a postage stamp sized lot in Jacksonville. We bought it over the internet. Then flew down to meet the realtor we ran all over Jacksonville doing virtual tours, did the paperwork and returned to South Dakota to quit our jobs.
We spent our first two years living in Florida working the same job roles. During our time off, we explored the whole state of Florida and South Georgia too. St. Augustine has been a favorite spot for us and we still visit it regularly. We wandered every beach and state park we could. Thanksgiving, we spent in Key West and almost had it to ourselves. One thing we knew for sure, Florida is home!
We tied the knot
2020 was a rough year for everybody. We finished it on a high note by getting married and honeymooning in Destin. On the trip out to the west part of the state, we felt our calling. In our day trips and excursions, we discovered, how much we loved the quiet beauty of the emerald gulf shores and exploring the forgotten coast. The “Old South” in the deep woods with the old brick buildings under the tree canopied roads of the Florida pan handle really charmed both of us. Things moved slower here like where we grew up.
Jacksonville was amazing. In a short time, we developed a social life and had great jobs. But that experience had come to an end. We decided to rolled the dice again, bought a farm house outside of Tallahassee over the internet at the end of a dirt road. Quit our jobs. Once we were settled, started TnF Farms.
“God, Family, Liberty”
Tim and Faith
TnF Farms
