Guillermo Hernandez Martinez

Autumn leaves rustle in the wind and settle among the pumpkins spread across the ground as Margery Baldwin walks through Baldwin Farms.
Home, farm and business, the enterprise is the brainchild of Margery and Tryon “Ty” Baldwin, who acquired the property near Richmond 37 years ago. Margery and Ty ran it together for many years with indispensable help from Pedro Vargas Sanchez, a farmhand who became like a son to them.
“Ty was a dreamer, and I was a doer,” says Margery. They dreamed of and built a business, letting people cut their own Christmas trees and pick vegetables and pumpkins from the fields. They worked every day during the cold holiday season and planted in the fields as soon as the weather warmed. They ate breakfast every morning with Pedro and were joined later by his wife, Adolfina “Maria” Vargas. Today, seven years after Ty passed away, Pedro and Margery continue the daily breakfasts. Maria takes care of the couple&#8217;s children, Alex and Ty.
In recent years, Margery has stepped back from the labor of farm life and focused on administration and oversight. At 69, she knows she can&#8217;t do as much as she used to and will have to stop at some point. She wants the farm to work out for Pedro and Maria, so they can keep living and working there for years to come. The younger couple take the lead in the manual labor and do most of the heavy lifting. Pedro has built some new structures, including rebuilding Margery&#8217;s house earlier this year.
In the meantime, Margery keeps having breakfast with Pedro every day, working during the winters and serving the community she cares so much about for &#8220;as long as I can do it.&#8221;

Picky, picky, picky