Vol. 1 · No. 1 · Week of May 19, 2025

Welcome to Life at the Barn — a weekly dispatch from behind the scenes of our venue here in West Tennessee. If you have been thinking about hosting your wedding, event, or getaway with us, this is where you get the real version: the projects underway, the property coming into season, the small decisions and the bigger ones. We hope it gives you a feel for who we are and how much we love this place.

This is our first post, so consider this week one. There is a lot happening — a day trip to Nashville, some new plants in the Cushman, a groundhog that overstayed his welcome, and a wildflower bed that is about one good week of sunshine away from being something special.

This Week

A Day in Nashville and the Road Home

Friday I took my wife into Nashville for work. While she was in meetings I had a few hours to wander and run some errands, and on the way home we made two very important stops. The first was In-N-Out for a Double-Double and fries — if you know, you know. The second was Crumbl for a box of cookies because apparently one indulgence deserves another. It was one of those easy, unhurried afternoons that remind you why you love where you are headed as much as where you have been.

We also discovered a new nursery west of Nashville that we had not been to before — and we did not leave empty-handed. We brought the plants home to Yorkville, loaded them into the Cushman, and headed into the week feeling pretty good about what is coming.

The Property

New Plants and the Groundhog That Started It All

Here is the short version: groundhogs ate my Nandinas. All of them. The ones planted along the columns at the entrance to the back courtyard — gone. I set a live trap, caught one, drove it a couple of miles down the road and released it, and have not had any trouble since. Hopefully that is the end of the story.

The replacement crew is considerably more dramatic than what we lost, and honestly the groundhog may have done us a favor. We came home with Sunjoy Barberry, Crimson Barberry, and Orange Rocket Barberry — three varieties that give us deep burgundy foliage, rich red tones, and that bright upright coral growth the Orange Rockets are known for. We also picked up a Monrovia Golden Spirit Smoke Tree, which brings chartreuse foliage through the season and a show-stopping display come fall. The plants are sitting in the Cushman for now — next week we will get them in the ground and you can see how the space starts to come together.

The Airbnb

A Marketplace Mirror and a Bathroom Coming Together

On the drive back from Nashville we made one more stop — picked up a gold arch mirror found on Facebook Marketplace. It is going into the bathroom of the Airbnb we are finishing out on the property. The room has a lot of warm gold tones running through it and this mirror fits perfectly. That bathroom is getting close to done and I am looking forward to showing it off properly in a future post.

Growing Things

The Wildflower Bed — Week One

We planted a wildflower bed earlier this season and it has been quietly doing its thing through all the rain we have had. This week the first blooms started showing up — Zinnias in red, pink, and orange, larkspur sending up those tall elegant spires, and plenty of lush green foliage that tells us the real show is still coming. We are probably a week away from this bed being in full bloom.

We will be following this bed week by week over the next few posts. There is something genuinely exciting about watching a planting go from a field of green to a mass of color — and we want you to see it happen in real time. If you are planning an event with us later this summer, this is the view you will be walking past.