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Red Oak Farm
3040 Big Buck Road
Trezevant, TN 38258
owners@redoakfarm.com
Copyright © 1998 -2008
All Rights Reserved
Red Oak Farm
Revised: almost weekly
About Us at
Red Oak Farm
Red Oak has been in our family since 1835. The house you see above was built by L. M. Jones (my Granddaddy) and his brothers in 1927 to replace the previous house which burned. They set up a sawmill in what is now the front yard and every bit of wood in the house, including the doors and windows, came from the farm.
Since very little was saved from the original house, we do not know what it looked like. Because of the loss, Granddaddy put a window or door on the wall of every room in the new house, even in the pantry.
Over the years the farm has gone through many changes and it's size has fluctuated. Currently just under 100 acres, the fields have been rented out to a larger farmer for many years, while family has lived in the house, maintained the yard and a small garden. However, in recent years we diversified our operation to include emus.
Like many of our generation, my husband (Allen Charleston) and I (Myra Jones Charleston) were tired of working for someone else and longed to get back to the country (we were both raised on farms). Knowing that we couldn't afford a lot of land, we began investigating the alternative agriculture scene to see what the possibilities were for small farms. By this time the emu industry had already gone through the speculator stage and was on it's way to a slaughter market. We liked the gentle nature of the bird, the meat and other by-products and the fact that it didn't require a lot of land to raise.
When
my husband and I began investigating the possibilities of purchasing farm land
in south Texas (we were living and working in Corpus Christi) for the purpose of
raising emu, my Mother (Miss Billie), pointed out that we were being foolish
when we already had land up here and that she really thought it was time we came
home. Realizing that she was right, we moved our emu operation to
Tennessee on Mother's Day, 1995.
We are members of the Tennessee Emu Association and
The American Emu
Association. Myra Charleston is a past president of the Tennessee Emu
Association, an At Large Director of the American Emu Association and editor of the AEA EMUpdate.
Myra is a free lance writer and editor of Emu's Zine, an
online magazine devoted to emu products and health.
We support the Carroll County Humane Society
We are members of the Carroll County Arts Association.
Allen is lifetime member of the NRA.