Good Neighbors
When tragedy strikes, a small community helps make life on the farm possible for a deserving couple.
After tragedy befalls a farmer and his wife, the community steps in to keep their dream alive.
Windberry Farm sits on a rocky slope tucked into the Ozark Mountains in Winslow, Arkansas. Downhill, many of the town’s 400 or so residents gather on Saturdays at the Coffee Klatch to enjoy a cup of coffee and conversation after visiting the farmers market.
Dan Dean and his wife, Laura Kelly, purchased the land for Windberry Farm in 2009. They built a few structures, including a greenhouse and a canning shed to get them started. Trained as architects, they both wanted to make sure they got their dream home right. They moved into the canning shed for one of the coldest Arkansas winters on record while they built their house.
Dan wanted peace and quiet; Laura wanted a small farm with a few animals and fruit trees. After saving for 15 years, it seemed everything had fallen into place.
“It’s really the fulfillment of our dreams,” Dan says of the farm the two built together. “I’m so happy on the farm,” Laura adds.
But in February 2015, their dream was put in jeopardy.
Laura describes Dan as a careful, deliberate, thoughtful and centered person. “He’s not the type to get on a roof on a cold, slippery, damp day,” she explains. “He only got up there because I couldn’t reach; I tried.” Laura had asked Dan for help screwing in a strap for the flue on the roof of their house. “Oh, how your life changes for want of asking for a ladder.”
Dan fell off the roof and injured his lower spinal cord, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down.
After that, life was a whirlwind. Dan was hospitalized and Laura was trying to take care of him and keep the farm going.
For Dan’s rehabilitation, Laura never imagined they would leave the state. But a friend suggested they look into Craig Hospital in Colorado. The problem: What would happen to their beloved farm while they were away?
“The community stepped up and said, ‘You’ve got to do what’s best,’” Laura says.
So while Dan and Laura headed to Colorado for rehab, neighbors and friends organized care hours to tend to the produce, chickens and the cat. Dan and Laura discussed whether or not returning to the farm was even feasible.
“We thought we might have to sell this place and move back to the city, where there are amenities that we don’t have around here. But we wanted to stay and continue to live our dream,” Dan says.
While in Colorado, the couple focused on what they needed to do and learn in order to return home with Dan in a wheelchair. He worried about the rocky terrain, the pathway and daily tasks.
“After the injury I wasn’t sure how much I would still be able to contribute,” Dan says. “Adaptive equipment for just getting around the farm was an issue.”
But back at home, friends and neighbors were already working on making the farm more accessible. They built a brick path and a ramp to the house for a wheelchair.
Once home, Dan faced new obstacles. He couldn’t do some of the farm chores he had done before, like scythe the field or harvest raspberries. “Coming back here, things were more or less the same—but I’m really different.”
Laura says Dan’s attitude is key to taking on the new challenges. “Without his habit of dismissing negative thoughts, there would be no potential. He does it really well.
“I think it’s OK to take time to adjust,” she adds. “It’s OK and normal to be sad. If you’re not sad, then there’s no contrast to happy. It’s good to have both.”
Thankfully, life on the farm is more happy than sad. There’s a new normal, but Dan and Laura’s dream is still very much alive. They harvest for the weekly farmers markets, Dan still takes on some architectural freelance work, and he and Laura play in monthly “squirrel jams” with neighbors.
“I can imagine it differently,” says Dan, “but I wouldn’t want it to be different.”