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It began with a vision in the night. Lori Zomerlei Hernandez ’02 was nursing her infant daughter. Between waking and sleep she saw a large garden. She was in the garden with many other people, strangers, all laughing and talking together.

It took several months before she found the courage to tell her husband, “I think this is what we’re supposed to do.”

They were living in the Grand Rapids suburbs. Neither of them had ever farmed. They bought a farmhouse near Byron Center that took John Hernandez four months to make livable. But it was the farmhouse in the vision, and it was what they could afford.

They began growing vegetables organically, learning as they went. After five years they were growing enough to stock a farm stand. Lori waited expectantly for the people from the vision to come. A few did, a very few.

Then one day John announced he was going to grow dahlias. “I was shocked,” Lori said. “Neither of us knew what a dahlia was or how to grow them. But he said, ‘We need more beauty in our lives.’”

Their first dahlia summer gave them so much beauty—and joy—they had to share it. They turned the overgrown field alongside their house into a garden of 700 dahlias—and 33 other kinds of flowers—and invited people to come pick. And they did.

“People tell us they love to come because this forces them to slow down,” Lori said. “They come with friends and children and talk while they pick. Strangers come for flowers and share tender stories that sometimes bring me to tears. We’ve discovered that what people are really hungry for is beauty and connection.

“It’s hard work, and sometimes I’m so tired. But seeing the joy on people’s faces brings me back to joy.”

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