The benefits of country living. 

Living on a farm is not only more self-sustaining, but you can also learn a variety of skills that can be utilized for the rest of your life. Join us for CITY Magazine’s first farm tour as we visit East Lohman Acres and Avodah Farms to learn about the benefits of simple country living.

East Lohman Acres

Every morning and every evening, Brice and Brayden Ziegelbein, 12 and 10, go out to the “cluck wagon” they built with their father, Adam, to collect around 150 eggs produced by their 170 chickens. Every Thursday afternoon, they deliver the eggs to area restaurants and other egg subscribers. It’s a childhood similar to the one Adam experienced growing up on the same land in Lohman, located about 10 miles west of Jefferson City.

“We want to make sure we’re giving them a work ethic, and I want them to have the same life I did as a child and have the same experience of doing those things,” Adam says.

As the owners of East Lohman Acres, Adam and his wife, Cara, are now farming the 300 acres of land that his grandparents, Art and Del Ehrhardt, purchased in 1947.

“I pretty much grew up on the farm,” Adam says. “I lived on the farm every summer, and then we moved out here eventually. Grandpa taught me and my brother, Sam how to raise hogs and how to raise cattle, and this is a continuation of that.”

Today, East Lohman Acres is home to cows, pigs, and chickens, all of which the couple sells via pre-order on their website. They also sell their meat and eggs to local meal prep service Love2Nourish and to JC Health Foods.

“Our animals are not penned up like commercial farms would have them,” Adam says. “We keep them as healthy and happy as we can by treating them like pigs and chickens and letting them live happy chicken and pig lives. We raise them how God intended them to be raised.”

The Ziegelbeins practice regenerative agriculture, where all of the animals work together to care for the soil. When the chickens scratch through manure and eat larvae, it reduces flies around the cows. Then, the pigs agitate the ground, improving the soil. East Lohman Acres also repurposes fruit and veggie scraps from Love2Nourish to feed the chickens.

Though she had no farming experience prior to meeting Adam, Cara says she has fallen in love with the farm lifestyle. And while Adam spends his days working as a financial advisor, she focuses on running the farm and fulfilling orders.

“Farm life is the best,” Cara says. “People run away and go to the beach, but our hearts have been connected to the land, the animals, the sweat, the dirt, and the hard work.” 

After dreaming about living on the farm for many years and spending countless hours looking at photographs and plans, Adam and Cara finally built their forever home on the property in 2018. With Adam serving as the general contractor, the couple watched their house materialize over the course of eight months. The home features windows across the peak of the house, a feature that they had seen in photographs and couldn’t erase from their minds.

“It is a different design because no one else has a house like this,” Cara says. “After countless hours of designing, we both couldn’t get away from the windows. We have so much sunlight all the time that we never have to have the lights on upstairs.”

The five-bedroom house, with 720 square feet of space on the first floor and 720 square feet of space upstairs, has just enough space for the family to live comfortably. Brice and Brayden, as well as Brooks, 5, and Brynnlee, 3, each have their own rooms, but they often choose to play in the nine-foot stock tank that Adam anchored in concrete to serve as a swimming pool. Cara says they purposely chose to keep the home small so that once their children grow up and move away, it will still suit the couple perfectly.

The home’s outdoor space connects the family to the beautiful surroundings and provides plenty of space for hosting get-togethers. A large carport in the front of the home, a screened-in deck in the back of the house, and an outdoor kitchen that is in progress allow for outside living and entertaining.

‘We have gatherings out there, so even though the house is little, we can still have family and friends outside,” Cara says.

As they continue to grow East Lohman Acres, the Ziegelbeins say their goal is to create a sustainable business on the land that has been in the family for so long.

“Grandma and Grandpa want this farm to stay in the family for generations to come, so we are focused on how we can make sure it is successful so we can transfer it to the next generation,” Adam says.

The five-bedroom house, with 720 square feet of space on the first floor and 720 square feet of space upstairs, has just enough space for the family to live comfortably. Brice and Brayden, as well as Brooks, 5, and Brynnlee, 3, each have their own rooms, but they often choose to play in the nine-foot stock tank that Adam anchored in concrete to serve as a swimming pool. Cara says they purposely chose to keep the home small so that once their children grow up and move away, it will still suit the couple perfectly.
The home’s outdoor space connects the family to the beautiful surroundings and provides plenty of space for hosting get-togethers. A large carport in the front of the home, a screened-in deck in the back of the house, and an outdoor kitchen that is in progress allow for outside living and entertaining.
‘We have gatherings out there, so even though the house is little, we can still have family and friends outside,” Cara says.
As they continue to grow East Lohman Acres, the Ziegelbeins say their goal is to create a sustainable business on the land that has been in the family for so long.
“Grandma and Grandpa want this farm to stay in the family for generations to come, so we are focused on how we can make sure it is successful so we can transfer it to the next generation,” Adam says.

Avodah Farms

After watching a YouTube video, Ross and Taylor Cleveland successfully caught a swarm of wild bees from a neighbor’s mailbox. Ross has also harvested the meat from a deer that was hit by a car and ran into the woods on his property, and Taylor helped deliver four lambs that got stuck during birth, also thanks to guidance from YouTube.

It’s safe to say that farm life has been full of learning experiences for the owners of Avodah Farms, located just down the road from East Lohman Acres.

“When we first moved here, we had no idea what we wanted to do,” Taylor says. “We Googled and YouTubed everything.”

The land, known to many in the area as Doehla Farm, has been in Ross’s family for more than 100 years. The 145 acres of farmland had been abandoned for close to 15 years when Ross first moved to the farm in 2012 to begin slowly renovating the square craftsman-style house that his great grandfather built in 1925. Ross meticulously repaired the home’s original plaster walls, cleaned the clawfoot tub, and removed brown linoleum that was attached with tar to reveal original wood floors.

“I sat there and scraped all the tar off, then they got sanded and now they’re really pretty,” Ross says. “A lot of the wood in the house was milled from the farm.”

In addition to the home’s original elements, the historic property still houses pre-Civil War structures, including three limestone buildings with gun windows that were a stopover on a trail that led to the Santa Fe Trail during the Civil War.

“The farm was gifted to a widow of the Mexican American War, then my great grandparents bought the farm from her,” Ross said. “The original house was built in 1886. My great grandparents lived in that house until the ’20s, then they tore the house down and built this house in 1925.”

A stone fence with a horse stoop and the year 1886 carved into it still sits outside the home.

A wooden barn, built in 1919, also still stands on the property.

“My grandpa told us the whole town came together to help build that barn,” Ross says. “It was designed by a 16-year-old German architect who traveled through the area and designed everyone’s barn.”

Since revitalizing the farm, the couple began raising sheep; today, they’re focusing on 30 grass-fed and -finished Icelandic sheep. In the next year, they hope the number grows to 60. They’ve raised chickens, too, and are currently raising 30 chicks who live in a chicken coop built on a trailer bed.

“We rotationally graze all our animals, and we roll the chicken coop around the pasture behind the sheep to help fertilize our pastures,” Taylor says.

Because their property is half woods and half pasture, the couple decided to maximize their use of the land by growing medicinal mushrooms like lion’s mane, turkey tail, shiitake, and reishi.

“We took a course about growing mushrooms through the University of Missouri Extension and we thought it was really cool, but we weren’t interested in growing culinary mushrooms because they don’t stay fresh long,” Taylor says. “The idea of growing medicinal mushrooms came up because you harvest them and then you dry them. They are a very powerful and gentle herb to use, and they’re becoming really popular.”

As they sell their lamb, eggs, and medicinal mushrooms, the Clevelands have another vision for Avodah Farms — creating a respite for those who need time and space to get their lives back on track.

“Our heart and goal is to raise money to build tiny homes on the farm so that anyone who finds themselves in a difficult life situation can come and stay on our farm for free, help us a little bit, regroup, and figure out what they want to do with their lives,” Taylor says. “It started organically because we knew a few people who, for various reasons, needed a place to stay for a while, and we thought it would be so cool if we could always have spots available for people to come stay.”

As they continue to cut trees, repair fences, and tend to their farm — usually with son Judah, 2, in tow — the Clevelands continue to dream about new additions for the future, including a portable sawmill, greenhouse, and a wood and metal shop. It is their hope that within the next year, they will have raised the $10,000 necessary for Ross to begin construction on their first tiny home.