In honor of International Women’s Day, Saturday, March 8th, the Dallas Farmers Market is offering compelling stories from a few of the many hardworking women entrepreneurs who make our thriving community what it is today.

413 Farms – Angela Faughtenberry
The Shed
Saturday 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. and Sunday 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Angela spent her childhood on her aunt and uncle’s hobby farm in Decatur, Texas, where, at the age of ten, her uncle built a mobile range chicken coop (30 years ahead of mobile range coops becoming trendy), and then sent her to the feed store with $20 to buy her first set of chicks. This experience, coupled with incredibly supportive parents who even sheltered her baby chicks in their Arlington, Texas, game room after a dash to gather them during a summer storm, sparked Angela’s passion for farm life.

Marriage and family would take her to Ohio, as well as Cypress, Texas, before eventually landing outside of Tulsa in Adair, Oklahoma, where her dream of creating an ecologically sound and restorative farm in the style of regenerative-farming innovator Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farm began taking shape. She expanded her knowledge in agriculture by touring Polyface Farm, completing the Polyface Marketing & Pastured Pork schools, attending American Pastured Poultry Producer Association conferences, and obtaining an OSU Master Cattleman Certification, as well as Oklahoma Beef Quality Assurance Certified Producer Certification.

413 Farms evolved rapidly featuring chicken, ducks, turkeys, sheep, goats, pigs, and cattle. Angela quickly found her meat options on just about every notable menu in town, which was an honorable and surreal opportunity, but it came with the price of time away from her family as she spent a great deal of her week traveling to butchers and delivering to restaurants. Soon she knew there needed to be a change, so she sought out the opportunity to join the Dallas Farmers Market.

Arriving at the DFM in 2017, Angela took her experience of working with the most talented chefs and incorporated it into offering her sustainable foods as grab and go options for busy folks who appreciate farm fresh and locally grown. Her animals enjoy fresh grass, fresh air, sunshine, exercise on USDA Certified Organic farmland, and eat all the non GMO feed they care to.

“It’s been the best adventure. The Dallas Farmers Market is my favorite place to be, and I love the fellowship it brings every week. Customers who have moved away from downtown but return for lunch dates with me at The Shed makes my whole weekend. It is a great honor to work here, an opportunity that I absolutely cherish. It was a challenging few years in the food space as we navigated through the pandemic, but the DFM protected our ability to serve Texans, and it’s their team who makes it possible each and every week, year around, to serve families. We couldn’t do it without them.”

And now the next generation of Faughtenberry women, Angela’s daughter Mariah, is joining in on the adventure. Mariah’s gift and love of working with animals was apparent early on when her mom put her on a horse at the age of five and she never wanted to come down. As she moved into middle school and high school, Mariah fell in love with raising sheep with FFA, which eventually led to her own farm enterprise and partnership with her mom of producing lamb bratwurst. Even though her butcher shrugged off the possible demand of jalapeno and cheese lamb bratwurst, Angela listened to her gut, and it has become the most highly sought-after menu item 413 Farms offers. Angela is now scaling up and Mariah is increasing her flock, so much so that they are exploring an opportunity to move their livestock to the 200 acre LeGrand Ranch near Corsicana making the vision of creating Go Texan branded lamb bratwurst in the great state of Texas and moving closer to their hometown of Dallas a dream come true.

It has been a joy for Angela to watch her daughter find her way through food and farming. Mariah’s hard work, diligence, and day-after-day care of her flock has garnered awards, accolades, scholarships, and championships for her excellence in livestock production, including Brand Grand Champion Lamb. Every lamb purchase made at 413 Farms goes right back to Mariah to grow her flock, as well as to help her pursue a degree in Veterinarian Medicine after high school graduation this spring. She believes the best thing young farmers and ranchers can do to succeed is to apply themselves. Her Ag teachers were great at helping her with that, as well as aiding her in gaining learning experiences and connections within the Ag industry.

In the end, 413 Farms is all about family – on the farm and at the Dallas Farmers Market. Angela loves to teach and mentor anyone who is seeking the farm life, and is always open to meeting with future farmers to work through the hard questions of vetting out a profitable way forward, but she’s firm on advising that protecting quality of life and recognizing the value in family and home time is important and needs to be considered.

“My biggest lesson in seeking out farm life, buy what you can afford closest to your buyers. If you’re too rural, they’re not coming to the farm in the numbers you need to create a sustainable living wage. There’s so many farm enterprises you can create on smaller acreages close to town. Ask – I’ll brainstorm with you!”

This weekend 413 Farms is featuring their lamb jalapeno and cheese bratwurst, as well as their goat jalapeno and cheese bratwurst, both served hot and ready to eat at The Shed, or available frozen for take home. And coming in April – lamb burgers! Swing by and give it all a try.

 

Whiski Designs – India Hearne
The Shops at Harvest Lofts
Monday – Friday 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. and Saturday – Sunday 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.

India started Whiski Designs, a hand-lettered and drawn graphics business, in 2014 by working pop up markets all over Texas, but by 2017 she was ready to look for a place to settle down. She didn’t have to search far as India and her family made the Dallas Farmers Market a part of their lives for as long as she could remember, from fresh fruits and veggies to pumpkins and Christmas trees, they’ve always been big fans of shopping local. And with The Shed open year round every Saturday and Sunday, it was the perfect fit.

The Shed became Whiski Designs’ home on the first weekend of 2018 and every single weekend that entire year. It didn’t matter if it was cold or hot, rainy or sunny, they were there. After a full year, India knew that the DFM was the best place for her business to continue to grow, so when the opportunity of a permanent storefront directly across from The Shed opened in March of 2019, she grabbed it.

“My family owned a store when I was growing up, and I was practically raised under the front desk, so owning and operating a store is all I know how to do! We opened the storefront on March 31st of 2019, and this year we will be celebrating six years. Crazy how fast time flies!”

The quintessentially Texan store offers a variety of distinctive Whiski Designs on signature graphic tees, greeting cards, and frameable prints, as well as other items featuring local artists’ work, making them proud to say that everything in their shop supports a fellow Texas business. India also collaborates with local companies on branding projects and logos making their vision come to life with her drawing and lettering.

“There is no better feeling than coming up with an idea in your head, working to make it come to life, then holding the product in your hand. It is very fulfilling! I also really enjoy meeting people who come into my shop from all over the world. I have built my business on my love for the Lone Star State, and sharing that pride with people who have never been to Texas before is really neat.”

When asked what her advice would be for fellow entrepreneurs wanting to turn their passion into a profitable business, she’s honest about how starting a business is a huge commitment that comes with a lot of sacrifice – “Be prepared to work at it every single day and show up even on the days that you don’t want to. Building a business is not easy, if it were everyone would do it. With that being said, there is also a lot of reward that comes with it. Seeing your business grow every day and looking back on where you started and where you are today and where you are headed is a feeling that words cannot describe!”

 

The weekend looks to be a bit Texas Spring, but don’t let Mother Nature stop you from coming out to celebrate these incredible women, as well as our many other women-owned and women-run businesses that make the Dallas Farmers Market the place to support community and to buy local.