from the ground up
What 45 years on the land has taught me
A farmer ’ s journey from organic to regenerative farming
by Mark israel I photos by max taylor
It was 1977 when I moved to Query Mill hill and started Query Mill Farm . The hill is a razorback , or “ hogback ” in landform terms . The triangular-shaped rise has the longest of the three sides sloping to the west down to Muddy Branch . The hill sloping north ends at Query Mill Road and a wet-season creek . To the south the slope leads to an allseason creek with no known name . The nearest place with a name is Darnestown , an old town on old maps with very little of a town there today .
At that time , an elderly couple lived in a log cabin across the valley to the north . We became friends and I asked them the provenance of the name Query Mill . They said , “ Oh , that was John Query ’ s Mill down on Muddy Branch . His headstone is at the top of the hill over on Esworthy Road .” My son and I went searching through the brambles and sticker bushes , and indeed found a headstone , marked “ John Query , d . 1796 .” A vestige of the old mill leans against the huge red oak in front of my house : the metal ring that held the mill ’ s grindstones together .
Back then I started farming conventionally , naturally enough , because my father — and teacher — studied agriculture at Purdue University in the 19-teens and conventional farming was all that there was .
When all of the land here was under cultivation the total was about one acre made up of three separate fields with three different climates . The south sloping field has the climate of North Carolina . The west field , on the level top of the hill , has the local climate of