Monthly Archives: July 2017

Bland County Couple Preserves Farm, Clears Debt for Retirement

It was 1960 when Gerhard Schoenthal started farming in Virginia and 1972 when he and his wife, Rosemary, bought their farm in Bland County.

In 2015, after more than 55 years working the land and enjoying its beauty, the Schoenthals were ready to slow down, but for them, as for so many farm families, farming their land had meant taking on debt. The land, where all their resources […]

Appraiser Assists as Schoolteacher and Wife Protect Dinwiddie Timber Tract

“We are the land.”

That’s how retired mathematics teacher Clay Jones explained his decision to place his 305-acre timber tract in Dinwiddie County under conservation easement with the Virginia Department of Forestry.

Raised on a 671-acre farm in Henrico County, Jones remembers streams with water so clean you could drink it, abundant timber for sustainable harvest, and bountiful wildlife, such as the […]