Improvise, Adapt and Overcome

Dave Blum and Autumn Sij were living in the city and working to "build somebody else's dream" back in 2009, during the Great Recession. That's when they decided that they wanted to invest in themselves and their own futures and went all-in on a farm outside of St. Louis. Instead of "working a full time job to get money to pay the electic bill ... we'll just work really hard and heat the house ourselves -- and feed ourselves food too," says Autumn.

Ryan McDonald was a corporate chef and worked with Autumn and Dave as they built their farm business, collaborating on produce for the restaurant -- their friendship was built over many years, and when the pandemic hit and Autumn and Dave were looking for ways to keep the farm afloat, they turned to Ryan and the rest, as they say, is history.