Who We Are

Our homestead was originally established in 1880. The Winfrey family acquired it in the 1950's when my grandfather purchased the land. Ancel Winfrey raised dairy cattle and hogs on this property, putting his 6 children through college as a farmer, despite having never graduated the 4th grade. 

Purchased by my parents in the 1970's, the 40 acres sat fallow for 40 years until I began to experiment with permaculture and various other agricultural techniques in 2006. Thus the property became known as Forgotten Forty Farm. After some trials and a big learning curve, we began supplying restaurants and farmer's markets in the area and garnered great reviews for our heirloom produce, specifically our rare tomato collection. 

We made the decision to put the farm on hold to allow my fiance and I to pursue our dream of setting up a retirement property in Hawai'i; a project that began in 2016. During that time, the farm would host a soapmaking company and go through a series of quiet manifestations by the time we were able to obtain the property from my parents, after my father's passing in 2019.

Fast forward to the present, and we have taken over the property in beautiful Southwest Michigan, right in the beautiful wine country of the Lake Michigan Appellation. This is when we decided to reflect our new direction with a rebrand of our farm, paying homage to the history of the place. Thus, we opened Black Briar 1880, LLC. Black Briar is a nod to the Black Locust trees and Dewberry Brambles that have lent their own wonderful flavors and benefits to the property over the years. 

We decided to get back into dairy goats (and into ADGA) in 2018, and slowly grew our herd from there. As of 2024, we aim to maintain a breeding herd of 12 does, and will be participating in some of the ADGA performance programs, such as Linear Appraisal and DHIR in the future. We are not a show herd, preferring to keep our herd at home, but we maintain very high quality and competitive lines of ADGA Saanens, Alpines and Experimentals. All of our foundation stock were chosen, and subsequent breedings made with conformation and milking capacity in mind, and with a future home in show herds on the horizon.

Raising homesteader hogs (our Kunekune/American Guinea Hog crosses) was a decision bourne as the byproduct of having so much whey and milk left over from our cheesemaking adventures (the reason we originally purchased goats was for a home milk supply, but it quickly became a value-added focus on creating cave aged cheeses and other fine dairy products for my own home and to feature in online content), and so we have been learning the art of charcuterie as well. Our sounder is unregistered, and we currently have no intentions of expanding into pork further.

We are continuing our journey back to the islands, developing our aina for organic tahitian vanilla production in Kurtistown. Please join us as we make this new transition and carry on developing our beautiful lives. I do hope you'll find our resources useful, our content entertaining, and our adventures inspiring. 

Big Farm Love,

A.Gerrit Bax