Sophomore communication disorders major Stephanie A. Herndon visits and receives a kiss from a llama at the Farm at Mollies Branch in Todd, N.C. Saturday. The owner of the farm, Diane Price, currently owns six llamas. Photo by Christy Bullins.

by MEGAN NORTHCOTE
Intern Lifestyles Reporter

“Come here Angel,” Diane Price calls to her small, white dog, dragging itself across the gravel driveway, struggling to keep up with its owner.

Paralyzed from the waist down, Angel is one of Price’s 194 rescue dogs which she found abandoned along the highway and decided to take home to her farm.

When Angel arrived on the farm, she was welcomed into a loving family of rescue dogs, chickens, ducks, goats, pigs, llamas and farm volunteers.

Growing up, Price spent many weeks at her aunt’s farm working with the animals and falling in love with nature’s simplicity. 

That’s when she knew one day she would have a farm of her own.

That day came in 1996 when she bought The Farm at Mollies Branch in Todd, N.C. and allowed the agriculturalist and stewardess of the land within her to emerge.

“There are just so many resources [on the farm], like abundant water, and I finally had sunshine and pasture land,” Price said. “[The farm was] a perfect opportunity to do so many things I wanted to do all my life.”

Price wasted no time in getting started.

One of her first projects on the farm was growing sorghum leaves to serve as an alternative to tobacco.

Beginning as a small-scale project with her daughter through the local 4-H club, Price’s first year growing sorghum proved so successful that she turned sorghum harvesting into a community wide event, holding annual cook-offs complete with banjo and guitar playing.

Since then, her focus has shifted to other areas, including shiitake mushroom harvesting.  Using a grant supplied by the 4-H club, each year Price invites volunteers of all ages to join her in preparing approximately 200 hardwood or oak logs for mushroom harvesting. 

Mushroom spawns are placed inside holes drilled into the logs, which are then covered with cheese wax, allowing the mushrooms to grow.

The logs are stacked in a cool, shady spot most suitable for growing and within nine to 12 months, the mushrooms are ready to be picked, eaten and sold at the Farmer’s Market.

“None of this would have been possible without a North Carolina [Agricultural and Technical State University] professor,” Price said, who continues to supply the farm with the mushroom spawns.

North Carolina A&T was also instrumental in providing a $15,000 grant for establishing the farm’s micro hydroelectric system which began a couple of years ago.

“Water runs down from the creek [a tributary of the New River], turns the turbine and powers half the house,” Price said.  

The turbine, located inside a small log house on the farm, also powers the entire barn and chicken coop.

Other innovations on the farm include her large pond which serves as an irrigation system for her crops.

Every year, Price tries to introduce a new crop on her farm and encourages volunteers to come help her tend the gardens.

“We use no pesticides and we really try to be earth friendly,” Price said.

This year, Price plans to create a medicine well filled with herbal plants.

“This is an agricultural community especially in the area we’re in,” Price said. “Children come [to the farm] from schools who’ve never been close to chickens or pigs and it’s really a shame. Part of the experience is just getting your hands dirty.”

Whether you’ve come to volunteer in the garden or to take a mushroom harvesting workshop, one of the biggest attractions on the farm, Price said, has to be the llamas.

Price received her first female rescue llama from a friend in Valle Crucis, who took llamas trekking over the Smoky Mountains where horses are not allowed.

Currently, Price owns six llamas, but has owned up to 10 or 11 llamas at one time.

Couzco, named after the llama in the Disney film “The Emperor’s New Groove,” is among one of the current barn residents.

“Llamas love to give kisses, but are also very aggressive protectors,” Price said.

Ever since she moved the chickens into the barn, the llamas have protected them from being attacked by other animals.

Price uses the llamas as a teaching tool, giving people the opportunity to shear the llamas and take them on walks around the farm.

“I just feel like the opportunities are there and I can’t do it all myself,” Price said.

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