The long-time Wilmington resident has had to adjust to country life.
“It has been hard,” Rousey says. “But the benefits have been endless.”
Her 3,000-square-foot home is heated in the winter by two woodburning
stoves and cooled by window units in the three bedrooms. Her
artwork is found at every threshold, decorating door-frames with wispy
vines and other natural renderings. The long list of renovations to the
house all involved reclaimed wood found in dumpsters, piles and old
buildings as well as sinks and other miscellaneous materials found in
the woods on the property.
“I just felt like ... so disconnected with the pulse of the planet,” Rousey
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WBM may 2011
says. “I couldn’t shake an overwhelming desire to
re-invent myself.”
The kids roam free here, she says. An acre or
so from the house, they recently constructed a
twig hut that all four of them can relax in. The
large teepee erected near the house is adjacent to
a large sheet hung between trees used to project
movies on family night.
The 9.5-acre farm contains four acres of
pasture groomed by two cows and a ram. The
paddies are used for garden compost. Sheep and
chickens are kept on another half acre. There is
an acre of garden, an original garden shed and
lots of open and wooded space. Outside the bakery,
at the back of the house, is a cottage garden filled
with herbs, perennials and flowering vines.
Taylor, a childhood friend of Rousey’s, has been integral
in creating harmonious garden spaces. He designed
all the gardens on the farm and has been heavily involved
in the CSA, which provides anywhere from 28 to 50
area families with a large box of organic produce, bread
and optional meats and flower bouquets in summer.
The meat is offered by Grassy Ridge; herbs and some
vegetables by Meg Shelton; and flowers by Deener. “It’s
a community of gardeners,” Rousey says. “That’s important
to me.”
Taylor provides most of the honey that sweetens
Rousey’s wheat bread and other baked goods. The
organic wheat used in her baking comes from a North
Carolina certified organic farm.
Sitting at the kitchen table with her children, who are
munching on turnips and radishes just pulled from the
garden minutes before and bread baked that morning,
Rousey says her creative spirit is sustained by living more
sustainably.
As challenging as this new lifestyle can be, Rousey
says it just feels right. “This is what I’m supposed to be
doing,” she says with a smile.
On the Copper Guinea Farm, clockwise from top: Young
Cotswold sheep, garden signs hand painted by Molly
Rousey, Rousey at work in her garden, the teepee frame
built by Rousey’s oldest son.