Mercedes Dubberly, Marketing Intern
It started with the goats.
Then there were pigs, chickens, and, of course, a nearly endless number of barn cats coming in and out.
Welcome to Granny Creek, where the grass is green, the sun is strong, and where Bryan and Jennifer Reed have been homesteading for over five years. Their piece of land lies north of Camden in Westville, South Carolina, and the Reeds sell their products locally every week at the Kershaw County Farmer’s Market.
Bryan and Jennifer pride themselves on being a Certified SC Grown Farm and a part of the Farmer Veteran Coalition. Granny Creek also serves as one of the South Carolina State Fair’s vendors at the South Carolina Grown Marketplace, providing fair goers with handmade soaps and lotions direct from their homestead to your home.
Homesteading, as Bryan describes it, is providing for yourself. While larger, industrial farms will often be for profit first and foremost, homesteads are smaller and profiting from them is simply a welcome bonus for the family farmers, Bryan notes.
Granny Creek Homestead has over 20 goats on their farm.
For the Reeds, it is about much more than profit.
Granny Creek was born out of necessity. When Bryan retired from the Army in 2019, and the family had to grapple with their daughter’s cancer diagnosis, they were searching for something to hold on to. The Reeds needed a constant in their life and a job that gave Bryan a real sense of purpose. That came in the form of the farm.
On Granny Creek Homestead, the family has over 100 animals, consisting of over 20 goats, over 50 hogs, and over 50 chickens, all of which multiply every spring. The goats’ milk is used in the production of both their lotions and soaps, and the pigs’ lard is used in the production of their soap. The chickens provide the Reeds with eggs and meat.
“Farming gave us something to look forward to. It gave us something else to do. The animals need you every day. Regardless. They need to be fed. They needed water every single day. So it gives you something to do, and instead of walking around going, ‘I have to do this,’ you start looking around like ‘I get to do this,’” Bryan said.
Bryan served in the Army for over 20 years and compares the “organized chaos” of military life to that of farming.
“It’s organized chaos. There are guidelines and ways we’re technically supposed to do everything. Do we do it that way? No. You learn as you get older that guidelines are more of a guardrail, and until you actually jump in and do it, none of them matter. That’s why I like organized chaos, it keeps you thinking and on your toes.
“When my daughter got sick, I was getting to a point in my life where I didn’t know what to do with myself. And towards the end of my military career, I didn’t know what I was going to do. She got sick, and this homestead gave me something to focus on and think about.”
Bryan and Jennifer began raising goats in the hopes of using their milk to make products for their daughter, whose skin was being affected by radiation. During treatment, her skin was becoming even more irritated by everyday soaps and lotions. The Reeds began experimenting with making those products themselves, and when they got results, they continued.
“Farming helped us learn more about just taking care of ourselves, and now we know if we grow stuff ourselves and make it ourselves from scratch, then we know where everything comes from.
“A lot of people don’t realize how many chemicals or other stuff are inside your foods or soap products — or even anything that touches your body — until you have to start making yourself. My daughter had always had itchy skin. No matter what, she was allergic to everything. And now that she uses goat milk and more natural type products, most of that stuff has gone away,” Bryan said.
It’s little things like this that really emphasize the value of these small farms and homesteads, all of which are run by real people who are growing real products. Unfortunately, these small farms seem to be growing rarer by the year.
“I think small farms need to still be a thing, but small farms are what’s dying. And I see it all the time; mom and dad will start a farm, or grandma and grandpa start a farm, and then eventually it’ll fall into the hands of somebody who just doesn’t want a farm. Most people who inherit a farm can’t keep it going because they don’t know what it takes to keep it going,” Bryan explains.
“It’s a lot of hard work for not a whole lot of payoff short term. And in a world where everything is just now, now, now, this is something that you don’t really see results from for years. It takes a lot of long-term patience for long-term payoff, but everybody wants everything now,” the veteran concluded.
Bryan and Jennifer found a purpose through farming.
One way Bryan is trying to remedy this extinction of small farms is through the classes he offers. Bryan hosts workshops on butchering and poultry in his front yard so members of the community can come face to face with real farming.
“The payoff for me in teaching is just seeing people’s faces when they realize it is easy and it is doable,” he said.
The veteran recalls trying to get started in farming himself and receiving virtually no guidance from any type of community.
“Nobody wants to explain anything. When I was trying to get into it, every time I asked anybody, they would say, ‘Oh, you don’t want to do that. You’re in your mid-40s. You don’t want to start that. You’re just gonna lose money. It’s not worth it. No one ever explained how to do it or how to get into it. And that’s what I really wanted to know, so that’s what we try to focus on,” Bryan said.
Bryan also stressed the importance of shopping locally as a way to support small farms.
“When you shop local, everyone’s local dollars stay in the local community longer. Most of us small agriculture farms try to buy all of our stuff from other small farms, too. So we buy honey from the network, and then, you gave me a dollar, and I used that same dollar to buy stuff from other farms, and you gave them that dollar, and it stays local longer.”
The State Fair is enabling South Carolinians to do so through the South Carolina Grown Marketplace, which the Reeds will return to this October. You can find products from Granny Creek at the 2025 South Carolina State Fair and each Saturday at the Kershaw County Farmers Market located at 906 Broad St, Camden, SC, 29020.
