Our Story

Opening

Whitcomb Homestead is about building something that lasts.

For us, that means more than creating businesses or someday owning a farm. It means building a family enterprise rooted in stewardship, useful work, community, and the belief that what we create should leave something worthwhile for the people who come after us.

That idea of legacy reaches in two directions. It is about our own family—giving the next generation knowledge, opportunity, and something meaningful they can continue to build. But it is also about the place that shaped us: respecting the history, working traditions, and communities of the region we grew up in, and finding our own way to contribute to that story.

Whitcomb Homestead is still being built. Some pieces already exist, others remain plans, and the permanent farm is still ahead of us. This is the story of how those pieces began coming together.

Roots

The idea behind Whitcomb Homestead did not begin from scratch.

I grew up around the kind of everyday farm and homestead life that makes agriculture feel less like an abstract idea and more like part of how a family lives. There were cattle, chickens, horses, rabbits, a large garden, fruit trees, and the regular work that came with caring for animals, maintaining land, and producing some of what we needed ourselves.

Those experiences stayed with me, even as life moved in other directions.

What mattered most was not any one animal, crop, or task. It was the broader lesson that land, work, food, family, and responsibility could all be connected—and that a productive piece of property could become more than simply a place to live.

Years later, when our own family began keeping backyard chickens, those earlier experiences started connecting with a new set of ideas. The old familiarity was still there, but now it was being viewed through the lens of our children, our community, and what we might be able to build for the future.

It Started With Chickens

Backyard chickens became the point where all of those earlier experiences started coming back into focus.

Keeping our own flock was immediately rewarding. There were the obvious benefits—fresh eggs and the satisfaction of caring for productive animals—but there was also something simpler about it. Chickens gave our family a daily connection to food, responsibility, animals, and the rhythms of caring for something that depended on us.

Some of the strongest moments were watching our children experience it for themselves—especially the awe of seeing chicks hatch, watching life emerge from an egg, and realizing that something they had been waiting and caring for was suddenly alive in front of them.

Those moments made the experience feel bigger than simply keeping poultry. They became part of the reason we wanted other families to have access to that same sense of curiosity, connection, and discovery.

Then came what chicken keepers know as “chicken math.”

A few birds became more birds. Curiosity turned into research. We learned more about housing, feeding, flock health, predators, equipment, and all of the small decisions that can make backyard chicken keeping either frustrating or genuinely enjoyable.

That learning process also showed us how difficult it can be for new keepers to sort through conflicting advice and endless product choices.

We wanted to make that easier.

That became the foundation for C&K Roost Co.—a business built not simply to sell poultry supplies, but to help more people experience the enjoyment of backyard chicken keeping through practical products and straightforward education.

C&K Roost Co. became our first active venture, but the idea did not stop there.

Once we began asking what else could be built around the same ideas—animals, food, useful work, education, family involvement, and responsible stewardship—the picture started getting much larger.

From One Venture to a Larger Vision

C&K Roost Co. gave us a practical first step—and soon led us to a much bigger question.

If backyard chickens could create that much connection—to food, responsibility, learning, and family life—what would it look like to build a larger system around those same ideas?

That question pushed us to start learning more seriously about regenerative agriculture and livestock systems. We began studying farmers and educators such as Joel Salatin and Polyface Farm, Greg Judy, and others who were demonstrating practical ways to use livestock, grazing, soil health, and thoughtful management as parts of an integrated farm system.

Those ideas helped turn a general desire to someday have a farm into something much more specific: a vision for livestock moving across the land, different species supporting one another, soil improving over time, and farm businesses designed around both production and stewardship.

That learning led us toward regenerative livestock, local food production, direct sales, and a more intentional relationship with land.

Regenerative Livestock Farm began taking shape as the agricultural heart of that vision: a future farm built around livestock, healthy soil, thoughtful grazing, animal welfare, and responsible stewardship.

Cricket Hill Farmstand grew from the need for a local connection between that future production and the people around us—through farmers markets, pickup, subscriptions, seasonal availability, and eventually a broader direct-to-customer presence.

At the same time, Everly Jade Crafts continues as Erica’s independent creative venture, bringing a different kind of family enterprise into the wider picture.

Whitcomb Homestead became the umbrella that could connect those pieces without forcing them to become the same thing.

Each venture has its own purpose, audience, and identity. Together, they form parts of a larger family enterprise built around useful work, stewardship, resilience, and opportunity for the future.

Why We Are Building It

Whitcomb Homestead is ultimately about creating something that can outlast the people who started it.

We want our children to inherit more than memories or possessions. We want them to have access to useful knowledge, productive assets, practical skills, family businesses, and opportunities they can choose to build on if they are willing to take responsibility for them.

That does not mean every child has to work in the same business, follow the same path, or remain tied to the homestead. The goal is to create options—not obligations.

It also means building the ventures themselves differently.

We do not want Whitcomb Homestead to depend forever on one person knowing everything, making every decision, or doing every job. The long-term goal is to create organizations that are documented, teachable, well-managed, and resilient enough to continue under capable family members or other trusted people.

For our family, success is not simply growth for its own sake. It is creating a system that can provide stability, meaningful work, useful products and food, and the freedom for the next generation to improve what we began rather than having to start from zero.

If we build it well, Whitcomb Homestead should become something our family can inherit, strengthen, adapt, or even hand forward again.

Legacy, Place & Community

For us, legacy is not only about what stays within our family.

It is also about remembering where we came from and respecting the people, traditions, and communities that shaped the region we grew up in.

Cape Ann and the surrounding area have long been shaped by working people, small businesses, agriculture, fishing, trades, family enterprises, and communities built around people making, growing, catching, repairing, and providing useful things for one another.

We do not see Whitcomb Homestead as separate from that history, or as something that replaces it. We want to find a responsible place within the continuing story of the region.

That can mean producing local food, caring well for land, supporting other local producers and businesses, preserving agricultural and community knowledge, sharing the stories of people whose experiences might otherwise be lost, and creating useful relationships between the homestead and the people around it.

It also means understanding that stewardship applies to more than property. Places have histories, communities have memories, and the things we build today eventually become part of what the next generation inherits.

If Whitcomb Homestead succeeds, we hope its value will be measured not only by what our family retains, but also by whether we contributed something worthwhile to the place that helped shape us.

Service and Responsibility

My time as a Marine shaped the way I think about responsibility, preparation, and service.

Some of the lessons are simple: do the work that needs to be done, take care of the people who depend on you, prepare before problems become emergencies, and leave the next person in a better position than you found them.

Those ideas carry directly into what we are trying to build with Whitcomb Homestead.

A farm, a business, or a family enterprise cannot depend only on good intentions. It needs clear responsibilities, useful systems, people who are prepared to step into their roles, and a culture where doing the job well matters even when nobody is watching.

Service also matters in a broader sense.

We want the things we build to be useful—to our family, to customers, to neighbors, to other producers, and to the community around us. That does not mean trying to be everything to everyone. It means approaching the work with the belief that a business or farm should contribute something of real value beyond itself.

For me, that mindset is one of the threads connecting my past with the future we are trying to build here.

Family History

Family history adds another layer to the idea of legacy.

On my father’s side, our family line reaches back in America to Mayflower passengers John Tilley and his daughter Elizabeth Tilley.

That connection does not make Whitcomb Homestead an old family farm, and it does not mean generations of our family followed the same agricultural path. What it does provide is a longer sense of continuity—the reminder that families move through very different circumstances over time, carrying pieces of identity, experience, responsibility, and memory forward with them.

For me, that makes the idea of building something durable today feel more personal.

There is also something meaningful in the thought that the people who came before us might recognize what we are trying to do here. I would like to think that some of our ancestors would be proud—and maybe even a little impressed—to see their descendants still trying to build something useful with land, animals, work, family, and community at the center of it.

Whitcomb Homestead is not an attempt to recreate the past. It is our effort to take the experiences, values, and opportunities available to our generation and build something worthwhile that the generations after us can inherit, reshape, and continue in their own way.

Where We Are Today

Whitcomb Homestead is still in the building stage.

C&K Roost Co. is operating today, Everly Jade Crafts continues to develop, and the planning behind Regenerative Livestock Farm, Cricket Hill Farmstand, and the broader homestead is becoming increasingly detailed.

The permanent farm property is still ahead of us.

That means many of the things described throughout this website are not finished projects or claims about what already exists. They are the plans, systems, relationships, and ventures we are actively working to turn into reality.

We are pursuing land, learning from experienced farmers and agricultural organizations, developing the business and operating systems that will support the farm, building relationships within the agricultural community, and taking the practical steps that can be taken before the right property is in place.

Some progress happens quickly. Other parts take patience, money, education, partnerships, or simply the right opportunity appearing at the right time.

We would rather be transparent about that process than present Whitcomb Homestead as something it has not yet become.

The goal of this site is to let people see the journey as it happens—from plan, to project, to reality.

The Road Ahead

The next chapters will be written through the land we find, the animals we raise, the ventures we grow, the people we learn from, the relationships we build, and the opportunities we may not even know to look for yet.

We expect the vision to change as experience replaces assumptions and plans become real work. That is part of the journey.

What matters is continuing to move forward deliberately—and building something our family, our community, and the people who come after us can look back on and say was worth creating.

If that journey interests you, we invite you to follow along.