‘My little piece of heaven’: Empty Bucket Farm preserves a way of life

HOWARD — The rolling hills and meandering stream of Empty Bucket Farm is home to a verdant forest, frolicking wildlife and lush flora.

For more than 47 years, Althea Dye and Chris Fletcher have called the property their home.

“I tell everybody this is my little piece of heaven,” Fletcher said.

For Fletcher and his wife, the roughly 160-acre Empty Bucket Farm in Howard is more than just a place to raise cattle, hay and crops.

“We wanted it to stay the way God made it. We’ve been here for 40-whatever years … it’s home, and we like it that way,” Dye said.

Fletcher’s family has farmed for generations. He is the fifth generation of his family to farm on another piece of ground nearby. The nephews and great-nephews that live there now represent the seventh generation.

“The other farm will always be home to me, but this is home,” he said.

Farming is a family business

Fletcher grew up surrounded by livestock and crops.

His family raised corn, wheat and hay, along with beef cattle, sheep and hogs. At one point, Fletcher said, the farm was feeding about 500 hogs each year.

His father worked away from home and dropped out of school in the eighth grade. He made his living hauling livestock to Cleveland.

“A round trip to Cleveland was $21,” Fletcher recalled. “He made $7. The truck made $7, and my grandfather that owned the truck made $7.”

Fletcher eventually carried that farming tradition into his own life. Today, Empty Bucket has hay, soybeans, one field of corn, cattle and a few chickens for eggs. Fletcher also occasionally sells beef and timber.

Dye came from a farming background of her own, although on a smaller scale.

Her family had what she described as a hobby farm, with chickens, a Jersey cow and several beef cattle.

Today, Dye chooses to work off-farm at the Knox Soil & Water Conservation District as an administrative assistant.

“I totally understand that in the world that we live in, farmers don’t get a break on a lot of things, one of them is insurance,” Dye said.

Her choice was based not just on offering a financial benefit for the farm, but also to insure her and her husband.

When Fletcher had to get a double knee replacement in 2021, he was able to rest without major financial concern.

The couple is also involved with a number of outside organizations, including the Knox County Pheasants Forever.

They boast nearly 40 years as members of the East Knox Lions Club, and many of those years were spent in office.

Working with the land

Life at Empty Bucket Farm comes with plenty of work, but Fletcher and Dye also see the land as a source of entertainment.

A small creek winds through the property and trees provide a flourishing habitat. The couple has watched turkeys, deer, wood ducks and squirrels run around their property, all from their front yard.

The wooden duck house, located beside the farm’s meandering stream, was built during the COVID-19 shutdown.

“There was a challenge from Pheasants Forever … if you could do something with one or two youngsters as a project,” Dye said.

The project came together with the help of friends and their children.

“We don’t need a television, we don’t need the internet, we don’t even need to read,” Dye said.

The farm’s timber is another part of its history.

Much of the forest was still young when the Fletchers bought the property in 1975. Some was harvested in 1978, and Fletcher later sold timber again, including about 350 trees roughly a decade ago.

Some trees, however, have remained untouched — A strand of white oaks have been growing for decades up the hill.

The couple’s house is also surrounded by fresh flowers grown by Dye. Her pollinator garden, planted in the last few months, attracts monarch butterflies to the milkweed.

Preserving the farm for the future

Empty Bucket Farm is Owl Creek Conservancy’s most recently completed Local Agricultural Easement Purchase Program project.

The easement allows Fletcher to continue farming the property while placing restrictions on future development.

However, the process was not without frustration. Fletcher said the application took years and a required resurvey cost him about $7,300. He remains critical of the delays involved with the Ohio Department of Agriculture process.

But he separates that frustration from his experience with Owl Creek Conservancy.

“Vicki and everybody at Owl Creek has been great to work with. If we asked questions and they didn’t have an answer, they didn’t stop until they got one,” Dye said.

The couple has also hosted a gathering for Owl Creek in a secluded area of the farm, where participants packed lunch and sat on straw bales to speak about the conservation process.

“It was a really cool question-and-answer period,” Dye said, “not just getting asked questions, but us asking (Owl Creek) things as well.”

The next generation

Jason, a young man who helps Fletcher on the farm, is set to become its owner after Fletcher’s death.

Fletcher once asked Jason what he would do if someone offered him a large amount of money for a piece of ground.

“‘Well, if it’s this farm,’ he said, ‘anybody that would get rid of it would be a damn fool,” Fletcher said.

That was all Fletcher needed to know to make Jason the farm’s successor.

For now, Fletcher and Dye are still here. They are still tending cattle, watching wildlife, planting flower, walking the timber and finding new ways to care for their little piece of heaven.