A woman in charge in a man’s world
Born into a military family in Massachusetts, Gina Orr was always on the move. A young, curious, and creative girl, she lived in six states during childhood. Gina spent four years of her childhood living in Japan and acquired a small amount of the Japanese language and culture along with the primary forms of education. She had always dreamt of becoming an astronaut or studying astronomy. Over time, she utilized bits and pieces of the learned Japanese culture and language, which would help her later in life. While the idea of working in astronomy never took off or landed her on the moon, a promising position was right around the corner.
Gina’s mentality is that “If a man can do it, so can I.” Living with a constant urge to figure things out, to the point, it has become part of who she was, and it made sense that she would attain a much-admired accomplishment that dominated man’s world. The environment in which most men would carry the title of an engineer. Gina successfully earned a degree in engineering from Ohio University. Next, she became the first female engineer at her first job at a Japanese-owned company in Ohio.
As a little girl, she had big dreams of becoming an astronaut or an astronomer. Still, she loved the idea of doing whatever a man could and landed herself a degree in Engineering from Ohio University. Later, she became a former adjunct at Ohio University as an Engineer, which suited her drive to learn new things and craving a good challenge.
Where it started
In 2003, Gina purchased the farm on the hill off State Route 22 in Rushville, Ohio. The purchase was made shortly after she finished her degree in Engineering. Three years later, she married her husband Richard with no intention of becoming the unique success it is today.
Gina wakes up, has breakfast, and gets her three children, Sarah, Eliza, and George, ready for school. Once the household is empty, it’s time for Gina to start her day chores at the FreshOrr Family Farms in Rushville, Ohio.
FreshORR Family Farm uses” Regenerative Farming & Grazing practices… a holistic land management approach that increases the organic matter in the soil naturally by intensively moving animals across the pasture.”
Safety first
Gina and her husband take pride in their practice and do not use chemical pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers on their land. They also believe their animals receive all they need from the land itself and do not feed them antibiotics, hormones, steroids, or GMOs.
Life on the farm
The day-to-day operations start as soon as her kids are out the door to school and her husband leaves for work. The mother of three never imagined waking up every day to look after an entire herd of animals and wearing the hat of a regenerative farmer or marketer, known as the face of the farm. What started as a fun idea of keeping chickens for others quickly became a personal connection and relationship with the hens she housed.
When Gina first became a mother, she had to learn how to adapt to her children’s needs. She thought of herself as a clock and didn’t have the connection to know what her first baby was telling her. She thought everything was supposed to be about the time, what needed to come next, and when. After a month of motherhood, she started understanding what crying meant and what an infant’s signals were.
This thought process of observing, waiting, and watching came back when she was caring for baby chicks. Just as she did with her babies, she gauged the temperature and figured out if it was too hot, cold, or comfortable. She heard the noises and watched their reactions. Then, she realized she had to apply the same observations to the animals on the farm.
Most days, Gina enjoys spending time with her animals to observe her land and animals silently. When you get to know the woman on the farm, you learn how much love and connection she has with her customers as much as her animals.
Stewardship
Her belief that we are all stewards and that we should live life using our gifts is also how she tries to keep balance within the business. Once the job duties of customer service, animal chores, and working on her website, orders, and marketing, she calls it quits. She heads inside to enjoy meals with her family in their lovely 1800s farmhouse, where the slate roof spells out 1894. The house is an extra slice of heaven for those who visit, including previous homeowners who visited over the years. The glow Gina gets when she hears about the history of her farmhouse and the lives lived before her is a conversation she relishes and treasures.
Cooking, creativity, and conversations
While she is known as the face of the farm, her skills and talents range from heading up the marketing and customer service to creating a one-of-a-kind dinner experience where a group enjoys Gina’s passion for cooking Farm-to-table meals. Networking events are hosted once a month and are always full right away. The ever-evolving entrepreneur opens her fun, much-loved farm and shares her passion for cooking as one of her love languages.
Gina loves marketing, getting creative, decorating her tables, and getting ready before networking events. She has a master display of food, drinks, and goodies, always excited for future voices, engaging conversations, and hearing from her beloved guests. A tent, tables, and chairs are decorated with the natural elements of Mother Nature. Here, she can allow others the blessing of learning her love language and cooking a farm-to-table meal for a large group once a month.
Gina wears multiple hats. While she is known as the face of the farm, her skills and talents range from heading up the marketing customer service to creating a one-of-a-kind dinner experience where a group enjoys Gina’s passion for cooking Farm-to-table meals. Networking events are hosted once a month and are always full right away. The ever-evolving entrepreneur opens her fun, much-loved farm and shares her passion for cooking as one of her love languages.
The farm
The passion for her precious 50-acre regenerative farm is apparent when you enter the property with a blue sign reading, “FreshORR Family Farms as you pull into the driveway. The home was built in the late 1800s with a slate roof reading ” 1894.” The doors to the farmhouse lead your feet to original wood plank floors, and upon entering, you’ll hear Gina’s oldest daughter’s parakeet. This is the farmhouse and home of the Orr family.
The building known as the farm store sits next to the silo and the giant red barn. The once three-car garage slowly converted into where all products are shopped. The place where customers “ooh-and-ahh” over the fun range of carefully curated, on-point packaged meats, broths, and various items.
In the 1800s farmhouse, you’re accompanied by fresh flowers, old hardwood floors, and original markings of all the years her children have grown marked with multi-colored pens. In the living room, hung on the wall, you’ll find a written quote from Matthew 18:20-“For where two or three gather together in my name, there I am in the midst of them.”
The meats are stored neatly and organized in multiple freezer units: four extra large deep freezes, two two-bays, a three-bay, two standups, two small chest freezers, and a walk-in freezer on the way. There is also an off-site freezer warehouse to hold about nine to twelve pallets.
The 1,000 sq. ft. building is open for customers to choose their products. It is stocked with grass-finished beef, pasture-raised chicken, and forest-raised pork.
Friends on the farm
Three giant, white-haired Italian Mareema, naturally nocturnal dogs- Buddy, Tilly, and their son, Ottie. If they see a large bird fly over the property- they will follow it. While guard dogs are the main protectors of the property with sweet personalities, they have never been officially taught to protect. Given the full range of the land, they don’t have a lot of human interaction, but at times will protect Gina and her family. They live outside 365 days a year with the ability to stay inside of a barn, but they will choose to sleep outside- even so much to stay in the snow. The four-legged workers never take a day off from protecting the 31 multi-colored Katahdin sheep and, at times, the 63 pigs living in the back of the farm.
While certain animals reside at the FreshORR Family farms, the farm also encompasses 14 heads of Aberdeen Angus Mix cattle, cattle known to have shorter legs that enable them to be better foragers. The cattle are kept at a nearby farm.
Trusting her senses to learn the ways of the farm
When Gina first became a mother, she had to learn how to adapt to her children’s needs. She thought of herself as a clock and didn’t have the connection to know what her first baby was telling her. She thought everything was supposed to be about the time, what needed to come next, and when. After a month of motherhood, she started understanding what crying meant and what an infant’s signals were.
This thought process of observing, waiting, and watching came back when she was caring for baby chicks. Just as she did with her babies, she gauged the temperature and figured out if it was too hot, cold, or comfortable. She heard the noises and watched their reactions. Then, she realized she had to apply the same observations to the animals on the farm.
A forest full of pigs
When touring the property, you can observe the love, care, and quality of life given to the animals and the healthy measures taken by the family. Along the backside of the pasture-filled farm sits a small forest explicitly reserved for the Berkshire boars and sows. The pretty pink pigs grow quickly and get sold every week. The best part about the meats is that they are made without any nitrates and are known to be some of the best bacon you’ll ever eat!
Business
She prides herself on offering a wide range of over 60 products and considers the packaging process one of her favorite duties in the business. As the marketing manager, human resources, and PR for the business. Keeping her brand polished and brushed up with new updates is a priority. Staying on top of new business trends and newsletters and creating recipes are all contributing factors to help instill the importance of eating healthier. Knowing what and how your food is created is as important to Gina as the online classes and workshops to build her brand. The natural blend of life of having a sense of humor on the hard days and doing the work of a mother, wife, and entrepreneur is inspiring. From building a business with product information to educating customers about what’s new and changing on the farm, it is always shared in emails to educate customers in and out of the farm store.
Her business allows her to cultivate more than green pastures and healthier sustainable farming measures, but creative freedom. To create various items to be used in the home to provide comfort and safe scents from her beeswax and lard hand-crafted candles. While sitting on shelves next to pantry items that are locally sourced.
Gina defines success as the balance and joy in her life, and Max Lucado’s mantra shares her favorite mantra: “We do most what we do best.”
Offerings
The “think-of-everything woman” thrives on being a provider in the same way she provides for her own family and has incorporated home deliveries to ensure quality food is delivered to the homes of those who cannot come to her. She has learned to delegate and help grow her business and has given herself an extra sixteen hours by sharing the duties of the deliveries. A big bonus is given to customers who partake in a monthly subscription where they feast their eyes on about twenty recipe books. The books are broken down into products. Her next goal comes from the words of God, “Just begin.” While she works out the logistics of a future recipe book, she hopes to work on a winter project.
Inside the well-organized transformed space, still sometimes called the garage, holds an array of beef, chicken, pork, and special frozen broth from the farm. The range of products offers a grab-and-go, leaving you with a brand-new insulated FresshORR bag.
Taking pleasure in what others call a mess
The passion for planning and expanding doesn’t stop at the farm. One of her favorite tasks in the business is working in the mess of boxes to put together the pack orders for customers. She loves to think of each family as she assembles the boxes. Before being loaded into vehicles- Gina takes the time to pray over each of them. When the animals leave, she extends another prayer for them and, by nighttime, sends another request over her entire farm.
Family
The extra joy comes from her three children being at the end of the process. Her daughter, Eliza, likes the al-la-carte, where she can pull products and write down the weight. Meanwhile, her son, George, likes to grab what is on the list for the monthly meat subscriptions. The kids earn pay to work on the farm; they’ve learned to put money into their savings accounts and keep a small portion for spending. Earning pay motivates the children to work more and teaches them what they enjoy and how a business works. The goal is to encourage and grow where their interests lie.
Working on the business
Gina, right off the bat, believes in starting small. With the wisdom gained in owning a business since 2013, nothing was ever rushed in making decisions for her business. She allows God to lead the business each year. Advertising lies mostly on word-of-mouth, and she believes this approach works best. Her approach to sales is not having sales: “If you always give a sale, that is your price.” Gina Orr
Gina defines success as the balance and joy in her life, and Max Lucado’s mantra shares her favorite mantra: “We do most what we do best.”
Hobbies
During any free time- mainly in the colder months when the farm has sold the animals and the chores lessen, the mom of three cherishes her Sabbath day after church. She enjoys Gardening, learning new things, and not short-cutting projects, but her engineered brain- loves learning the whole process of a project. In the wintertime, she likes to crochet small animals in the farm store.
Her first venture into the world of entrepreneurship organically unfolded as she explored ways to be with her children yet gave herself a challenge. In her process, she opened an Etsy shop called Adorrable Crafter; incorporating her last name, she would make unique crocheted pieces of animals and sell them online.
Where to find products
The ever-motivated mother, farmer, and entrepreneur strives to make her healthy food available in multiple locations. Frozen meats can be found at the Keller Farm Market in Lancaster, Ohio. Another hot spot to purchase the products is in a large freezer space in Canal Winchester at the Winchester Farm Exchange.
The FreshORR Family Farms offers dedicated hours to visit the farm store, where humanely raised non-GMO meats, eggs, sweet-smelling, naturally made hand-crafted candles, honey, and a one-of-a-kind talcum balm are sold.
Written by Darian Rowles, The Founder of Women Who Inspire, Author of Uncork Your Life: A Guide to Getting Unstuck, Blogger, Motivational Speaker, Health Coach, Personal Trainer, and Pilates Instructor.
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Darian Rowles, Founder of Women Who Inspire,
Author of Uncork Your Life: A guide to getting unstuck, Blogger, Health Coach, Motivational Speaker, and Pilates Instructor.