“Come ‘ere babies, who’s gonna come visit?” Patty Johnson calls out as we climb the fence into the field at Pannill’s Gate farm near Culpeper, Virginia. The cows regard her carefully, presumably weighing their chances of getting food or a scratch on the head. Every day, Patty is out in the fields, checking on her entirely grass-fed herd of Red Angus and Murray Grey cattle. For her, the practice of rotational grazing, or moving the cows to a new strip of pasture daily, “re-establishes that relationship- why I am here and why I do this.”

Mark Gresge is a self proclaimed food nerd. He loves food. He loves researching food history, learning about why people eat what they eat, what foods pertain to particular regions — he can't get enough. We all know that food nerds are not a rarity in Charlottesville. Yet, it's the path that Mark's passion led him down that's rare. Mark went from being an engineer who loved to cook, to owning and operating the Main St. restaurant L'etoile with his wife, Vickie Gresge.

At Croftburn Farm, flocks of sheep and herds of cattle graze in wide green pastures on either side of Route 3, just outside of the Town of Culpeper—so the farm offers local residents both pastoral views and healthy, quality meats.