Meet Renee Ellsworth | Lavender Farm Co-Owner

We had the good fortune of connecting with Renee Ellsworth and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Renee, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
Our farm dreams actually began with a blurry vision about 10-years ago. We had very big city careers, lived in suburbia with our two kids, dogs, backyard chickens and a pair of pet mini-pigs and small gardens. We commuted several hours a day, hustled and bustled as most families do, moving through the stress-filled work day then home to manage kids, activities, practice, homework, dinner, more homework – rinse and repeat. All of our living was reserved for the weekend – but that’s also when we needed to grocery shop, do chores, carve out quality time and if possible, relax a little. We began to have goal-oriented conversations about what we find fulfilling, what life we’d like to role model to our kids, the value of time available for joyful activities, each other, our kids and our parents. Once we had a clear picture of what an intentional life by design would look like, we became laser focused on making it a reality. We planned and budgeted and calculated just how much is enough to get there. How much do we spend on essentials and what we enjoy, and how much do we spend on this busy lifestyle we’d like to move away from. We were determined to design our intentional lifestyle.

The idea of Our Legacy Fields Lavender Farm began around 2017. Initially it started as a goal to discover financial independence and retire from our big city jobs.  We were able to achieve this lifestyle due to a series of fortunate events. First, the opportunity to purchase my grandparent’s farm presented in 2017. We didn’t have lavender farming in mind when we bought the farm, we just knew it had to be a part of our joy in retirement whenever that came.  The vision for the business evolved into clarity once we visited Sequim, WA for the annual Lavender Festival in 2019. We toured farms, met some fantastic farmers and friends and that’s when we knew.  This is what we should do.

The old farm needed major repairs ahead of moving our family in, and the farm was hours away from where we lived, worked and enrolled our children in school. When COVID-19 struck the world and the family snapped into quarantine, remote work and schooling, the opportunity to advance on our goal went full steam and we moved to Stanwood, WA.  We rolled up our sleeves and got busy.

Our Legacy Fields was named after my grandfather’s favorite race horse that was raised on the farm. Our Legacy raced at Long Acres in the mid-1980’s when I was a young child. She was a determined winner. Many photographs of the family in the winner’s circle with Our Legacy conjures up incredible history and happy memories of family life on the farm in Stanwood. With the mission to recenter life around what matters most, the name Our Legacy Fields represents something new. A hope for a new legacy that instills simple, meaningful and heartfelt living that’s closely connected to purpose and brings joy while realizing life is short and our time should be spent wisely.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
We are a lavender farm located in Stanwood, WA – just one hour north of Seattle and one hour south of the US-Canadian border. We are open to the public in July and August and welcome visitors to stroll our fields, rest, picnic, play yard games, let their children run, relax in our barn, enjoy a lavender ice cream treat and browse the gift shop.

Our farm represents everything we hoped for ourselves and gives a little piece of that to our community and farm visitors in the summertime. We grow over 3,000 lavender plants in our fields.  There are 14 different cultivars – white lavender, pink, blues, purples, culinary varieties, long stem, short stem, varieties best for crafting or for drying.  It’s a beautiful and colorful experience to visit the farm.  We also craft many different lavender products from scratch.  Our essential oils are distilled right here and bottled up immediately to sell straight to our customers. It’s pretty magical what can be made with this magnificent plant.

We enjoy every element of what we created: the social interaction with happy people who enjoy beauty and locally made products, the relaxing atmosphere out in our flower fields, the crafting and creating that occurs here on the farm with our care and pride, but most importantly, the quality of a simpler life.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?

Our most favorite people deserve time on this farm to unwind, pick lavender in our u-pick field, throw down a picnic blanket and read a book in the sun or have a nap under a shady tree. They deserve to watch the bees work the flowers and commute back to the hives to do their magic of making lavender honey. They deserve one of our lavender ice-cream sandwiches or sorbets as they relax in one of our rocking chairs.

Once we’ve allowed time for batteries to be recharged, we would take our friends around to enjoy all the things we love about our area.  We would visit the Stanwood Farmers Market to meet some of our market vendor friends and community gems. We’d buy fresh produce from our friends at Island Harvest Farm or Ananda Farm. We may even schedule a visit to their farms out on our neighboring Camano Island to patron their farm stands and see where their goodness grows. A home-cooked meal made from locally grown produce is our love-language. We might even go pick out a bottle of wine from our friends at Bertelsen’s Winery. If live music is playing there – chances are we’re not leaving.

We’d partake in some of our favorite local hikes or stroll around the two state parks out on Camano Island. One town north of us is Mount Vernon where our favorite hiking trails twist and turn up and down Little Mountain. Anyone would enjoy the views from the top of Little Mountain. There’s a covered lookout of our beloved Skagit Valley below – and depending on our friends’ mobility, we’d either enjoy a hike up and down, or drive them to the top viewpoint where parking and path-walking is made easy.

We might go out to eat at some of our favorite places in downtown Stanwood, such as Jimmy’s Pizza and Pasta, Mammoth Burger, Ixtapa or Cookie Mill. We’d stroll our two little historic retail districts and pop in to see our friends at some of our favorite Stanwood shops like Flora & Fauna, Uff Da Shoppe and the Picnic Pantry.

No visit to our area is complete without a gorgeous scenic drive out to Snow Goose Produce Market in Mount Vernon for some ice cream followed by a stroll through the adorable town of La Conner and dinner at COA Mexican eatery & tequileria. Notice I put ice-cream before dinner… because we love life out here.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Leigh Fiedler – my partner in life and co-owner of this farm.  There’s honestly no better person on the planet to have entered into this adventure with. If either one of us came to each other with “hey, I have really crazy cool idea that is a wildly ambitious dream but I think it would enrich our lives beyond our best imagination…” it’s almost guaranteed to be met with “…that sounds crazy, I’m in.”  Also, I need to shout-out to our teenage kids who don’t have agro-outdoor adventurist hearts [yet] but whom we hope are watching us and learning that they can accomplish big life-altering dreams if they believe they can, believe they deserve it, try hard and don’t give up.

Website: www.ourlegacyfields.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ourlegacyfields/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ourlegacyfieldslavender/

Other: We offer an airbnb campground on the lavender farm – we advertise that here! https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/542770785006830739?source_impression_id=p3_1671648066_tJtjszlU%2BI94osDt

Image Credits
Renee Ellsworth