PUTNAM COUNTY
It’s been a long time coming, but Andrea and Elliott Perkins are finally reaping the rewards of their effort at Unity Grove Farm, on Hwy. 212, near the Twin Bridges area of Lake Sinclair in southwest Putnam County.
After purchasing the ex-dairy farm in 2016, the couple spent nearly four years preparing the 120-acre property, making weekly trips from Atlanta, where both were employed in the school system, she as a nutrition assistant director in Forsyth and he as a bus driver in Gwinnett.
“Right as the pandemic hit was when we retired and decided to do this full time, and it needed our full-time energy,” Andrea Perkins said. “Now we work harder in retirement than we ever did when we were at our jobs, but it's a labor of love.”
Andrea was speaking on Oct. 1, the day her on-site store officially opened for business, selling Unity Grove’s own honey, jams, jellies, butter, beeswax-related beauty products, and a small assortment of handicrafts.
Once the farm’s pecan grove matures, nuts will become a store mainstay, along with fruits from a small orchard. Right now, the farm’s primary agricultural offering is hay cut from a 25-acre field on the north end of the property, available in both cube-like bales or large circular bundles.
The two-story farmhouse that anchors the property was built in 1836, Andrea said but was moved by a flatbed truck in 1963 about eight miles over dirt roads to its present location. A far cry from its antebellum roots, the house now sports solar panels, modern plumbing and electricity, and a couple of extra rooms.
Many of the Perkins’ neighbors have dropped by to marvel at the transformation of the property, previously owned and occupied by Pat and Gene Resseau, who served as Putnam County Sherriff from 1977 through 1995 while simultaneously operating the dairy farm.
“This was actually the room where they would bring in eight to 10 cows at a time and the cows would munch on hay while they were being milked,” Andrea explained as she gestured around her store. “The floors here used to be all concrete and sloped toward troughs to make clean-up easier, so we had to build a new floor and clean everything up. We tried to give a nod to the fact that it really was a dairy farm with kind of butter-colored walls and some cow-related things in here,” she continued. “But we also have beehives, so a lot of this has to do with bees and honey and really thinking about caring for nature because we’ve gotta’ care for those bees if we want to continue eating.”
In addition to the farm and store, the Perkins is operating $5 hayrides aboard a tractor-drawn trailer each Saturday and Sunday throughout October. In about 15-20 minutes the ride takes guests through woods and across open fields, where they see the live tree that served as the inspiration for Unity Farm’s logo, as well as a display of antique tractors and harvesting equipment from the past juxtaposed with the modern machinery that Elliott Perkins employs today.
“The challenge now is trying to find out how often to be open. We will be open every Saturday and Sunday in October while we're doing the hayrides, but after that, I have to figure out how much time I'm going to sit here because we still have a farm to keep up,” Andrea said. “We'll probably pick a day and be open in the afternoon. And then other than that, people can call us. If we're able to, we'll come down and open up. We want this to be a positive part of the community, to bring unity, where people can gather and work on the things that make it a better place.”