STILLWATER OKLAHOMA MAGAZINE / 41
Persimmon Hill
FARM & BAKERY TIMELINE
2002
• STARTED VEGETABLE GARDENS
• BEGAN GOING TO FARMER ’ S MARKET 2003
• BECAME KNOWN AS THE “ BREAD LADY ”
• FIRST KITCHEN 2004
• STARTED MAKING LAMINATED PRODUCTS BY HAND ( 27 LAYERS OF THIN DOUGH ) 2015
• BOUGHT LAMINATED DOUGH MACHINE , CUTTING DOWN ON PREP TIME 2019
• BUILT NEW KITCHEN 2022
• OPENED UP 1,000 SQ FT STOREFRONT ON MAIN STREET of 2021 .
“ Up north , it ’ s a little cooler temperature and the nectar flow will last a lot longer so the bees can produce a lot more ,” Bill said . “ They don ’ t have the heat and humidity .”
A typical year in the state of Oklahoma will produce beehives with four or five stacks , and the bees keep the temperature around 90 degrees during the winter .
Out here , Bill constructed five ponds , and there are two natural springs hidden in the woods .
The farm has five gardens and a dozen fruit orchards . He points out potatoes , sweet peas , okra , sweet corn , beans , squash , heirloom tomatoes , peppers . There are fig and sand plum trees .
We stop to examine a sand plum tree .
He hands me a few of the plums , small as cherries . “ Shonna makes a sand plum jelly out of it that people go crazy over ,” he said .
They built their own chicken “ tractor ” from an old stock trailer . The outside fenced-in area was an old baseball batter ’ s cage . Shonna cut off the top and replaced it with chicken wire to keep hawks away .
“ We just pull it around the pasture every one or two days ,” Bill said . “ It keeps them out on green ( grass ) and they ’ ve got plenty of food and water .”
He points out berry bushes and tomato plants . He talks about the Native American “ three sisters ” kind of planting – using corn , beans , and squash or pumpkins in one field .
Out in the corn patch , their dog Maddie lifts her head between the rows of corn .
“ A garden is analogous to the human body because when you see the plants – whether it ’ s the three sisters method ( or not ) – that dark green area that you see out in the center where some of those corn plants are three and four foot tall right now , they ’ re healthy , they ’ re green , they ’ ve got all the full nutrients they need ,” Bill said . “ You take care of the soil and the soil will take care of the plant . You take care of what food you put in your body and the food will take care of the human body .”
Bill was a secondary education teacher and cross-country coach for seven years , then worked at Precision Agriculture , a software company for 24 years . He traveled the world , wrote curriculum , and taught classes on global positioning systems and geographical information systems . The farm became his own personal test kitchen .
His philosophy is feed the soil , not the plant . He aims for living sustainably on the land with a balance in nature .
“ There has to be a synergy where everything we do complements the other things ,” Bill said .
Bill knows a little bit about building things from the ground up . During the Penn Square Bank collapse in the early 1980s , his father and grandfather lost everything but 30 acres and the house where they lived in Perry .
Now , he applies what he learned from them , going back to what the old farmers knew . “ It takes effort , time and patience ,” Bill said . But Bill and Shonna are finding their hard work is paying off . COVID-19 allowed people to ask questions . “( They asked ), ‘ Who is making my food ?’” Bill said . “ They wanted to develop a relationship with the people who make their food .”
They also wanted to come to a place where everything is homegrown , where they can see the ingredients that are in their food – and where they can throw their shoes off and enjoy the beauty of the land .
This summer , roads to the farm will be paved , Bill tells me . And he and Shonna are in negotiations for a new storefront property in Stillwater .
The sky is the limit for Persimmon Hill & Bakery . SwOk
STORY BY : Jessica Marshall Stillwater Oklahoma Magazine
PHOTOS Jessica Marshall
STILLWATER OKLAHOMA MAGAZINE / 41