Author: Nancy Sopher

This author has written 36 articles

It’s Time to Treat Stiltgrass

Stiltgrass A pernicious, non-native, invasive plant that is spreading like wildfire across our landscape. It’s time to treat stiltgrass, a pernicious, non-native, invasive plant that is spreading like wildfire across our landscape.  Vigorous patches of this invasive plant have been spotted growing along our roadsides, particularly along Farmview Road, creeping into our yards and lawns where it displaces desirable lawn grasses, and spreading into surrounding forests where it overwhelms and destroys biodiversity and natural habitat for animals, birds, and insects.Non-native plants become invasive when they put out huge amounts of seeds or send out large root networks and are hard to contain, usually because there are no natural controls like insects or disease.  Non-native plant species, like stiltgrass, are a leading cause of declines in native plant and animal…

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Farewell to Pickles!

Farewell, Pickles Live Long and Prosper! https://youtu.be/cpQgYpbNf3Y Farmcolony bids farewell to Pickles, a most delightful duck that members of the chicken committee came to know and love as they cared for her in the chicken coop.  Why is there a duck living in the chicken coop, you might wonder?  Two ducks came to live in the chicken coop several years ago with a group of chickens given to the farm through a private donation.  These two ducks had always lived with chickens and the chicken committee continued to care for the ducks as well as they could by building them a swimming pool and providing sleeping accommodations for them inside the coop.  The ducks in turn rewarded the chicken committee members with their utter cuteness as they waddled through…

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Five or Seven? The Choice Is Yours. Or Is It?

In 2020 immediately following a new board election, a member of the Farmcolony Board of Directors abruptly resigned from the board.  His reason for resigning, as he stated at the time, is to comply with our Declaration of Trust which set the initial number of board directors at five. The resignation from the board raised many questions, such as what is a Declaration of Trust and what role does it play in the governance of our association? It’s complicated.In 1983, eight years from the founding of Farmcolony in 1975, the membership met and voted to amend its bylaw Article IV, Directors, Section 1, Number and Qualification to change the number of directors on its board from five directors to seven.  The rationale given at the time for amending the bylaw…

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Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place

The board sets a new plan for maintenance and upkeep of the community, and how we’re going to pay for it. What do you do when the bill comes due, but you don’t have enough money in the bank to pay it?  If you’re like most families, you turn to savings.  That’s what the Farmcolony Board of Directors has done in past years when our quarterly dues did not fully cover our costs of operation. They turned to the reserve funds to cover the shortfalls, until there were no reserve funds left. Our historical record compiled by Farmcolony Historian Deborah Lee tells the story. Throughout its first quarter century, Farmcolony slowly evolved as a self-sufficient farm relying mostly on cattle and hay sales for revenue. A long list of…

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Committees: Essential to the Community or One Big Joke?

“A camel is a horse designed by a committee,” or so the joke goes.  “A committee is a group that keeps minutes and loses hours” is another knee slapper.  People love to poke fun at committees -- they are the brunt of many punchlines.  If committees are such a joke, why do we have them? All joking aside, the Farmcolony Board of Directors is currently reviewing the community’s committee structure and the necessity of our existing committees, which today numbers fifteen committees.  The board wants to know, are all of these committees necessary or do they create cumbersome paperwork for the association by requiring minutes and records?  The board is beginning its review of existing committees with a survey of the membership.  The survey is asking members which committees…

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Farmcolony Bids Farewell to Bill and Ann Bohn

Farmcolony Bids Farewell to Bill and Ann Bohn With gratitude for their twenty-five years of hard work and service to our family farm! On any given day you could spot Bill Bohn’s Kabota somewhere on the farm.  It was easy to spot.  Bill’s Kabota is the orange one with every tool imaginable hanging from its side panels.  Whenever you saw it, you knew something was getting done on the farm. Bill and Ann Bohn moved to Farmcolony in 1998 after selling their small farm in nearby Dyke.  They quickly became key players in the management of the farm.  Bill, a retired Army engineer who had also worked in facility maintenance at the University of Virginia, spent many hours a week maintaining fields, fences, and buildings, while Ann, retired from…

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Remembering Carol Fletcher

Remembering Carol Fletcher Our Carol Carol Martin Fletcher  1944-2022 Farmcolony mourns the loss of Carol Fletcher who went to her eternal rest at her home on July 7, 2022 surrounded by family.  We join Russ, Theresa, Matt and Lydia in mourning her passing and will continue to keep the family in our thoughts and prayers.  Carol’s presence on the farm will be sorely missed.     Remembering Carol (Photos by Barbara Brecht) Carol taught elementary school for 33 years in Virginia Beach where she touched the lives of students and colleagues. After retiring, she and Russ moved  to Farmcolony to be closer to their daughter where they made many new friends, created beautiful gardens and spent many precious years caring for their grandchild, Lydia. Carol loved traveling, gardening, and entertaining.…

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Welcome New Neighbors!

Farmcolony welcomes seven new families to the neighborhood.  We hope you love it here! Gwenn and Jim Zimmerman (389 Farmview Road) Jeffrey Zulli (Lot 40) Kathy and Mike Foley (30 Farmview Road) Darla and Dennis Wattier (548 Colony Drive) Suzanne and Sandy Culotta (12 Farmview) Lilly and Adam Register (Lot 39) Becky and Gene Lorenzo (8 Farmview Road) The Farmcolony Times asked our newest members to share some information about themselves. So far three have accepted the invitation.    Say hello to Gwenn and Jim Zimmerman, Jeff Zulli and Kathy and Mike Foley.  Gwenn & Jim Zimmerman We are beyond excited to call 389 Farmview Road our home. We were able to spend a couple weeks there in June and were very fortunate to have met so many neighbors…

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Did you know? February 22-26 is National Invasive Species Awareness Week.

Happy National Invasive Species Awareness Week (NISAW), the week we celebrate our native plants and their importance in our landscape.  Native plants are the plants that grow naturally in our area.  They are best adapted to our local soil and climate conditions and provide the best food and habitat to support native insects and wildlife.  By simple definition, invasive plants are an alien or non-native species that show a tendency to spread out of control, often crowding out indigenous plants that feed and shelter the animals we love.  Once “introduced” into the native landscape, invasive species displace native plants that are the foundation for the food webs that sustain life. In fact, invasive species have directly contributed to the decline 42% of the threatened and endangered species in the United States.” According…

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The Times They Are A’Changin’ and So Are We

Backyard chickens have enjoyed a renaissance in popularity in recent years, and with a rise in popularity comes a rise in costs -- for hens, for feed, for all things chicken.  This trend has touched Farmcolony as well as we have seen the costs of raising chickens on the farm continue to go up.  And the craze is only getting worse.  Raising chickens has become one of the hottest trends during COVID-19.  Google searches for the term “live chickens” recently spiked to the highest point in five years, interest in backyard chicken coops has exploded, and hatcheries across the country have sold out in the wake of runaway demand. We’ve all read about toilet paper and dried beans. Now people are stockpiling chicks, too. Brace yourself! Backyard bird owners…

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