August 19, 2025

We wanted to share a significant update on Cardinal Farms with you. We’ve been so grateful for all your support since we started the farm in 2020 and have navigated some unexpected challenges. We don’t have the corner market on unexpected life circumstances - that is the case for all of us! But we wanted to share our story with you as our friends and supporters to share what has happened and the path forward as we see it today.

Before we share where we find ourselves today, we want to give you a brief timeline of how we got here. We moved from Novi to downtown Northville in 2013 and wanted to get involved in our new community.  I began volunteering at Maybury Farm and soon became the farm director there, with Rich doing a tremendous amount of volunteering. We had no desire to farm before that and were surprised by how drawn we were to it. Being involved in agriculture gave us a front-row seat to better understand how our food was grown and raised, and that affected our choices as consumers. And we also saw how visiting the farm had a similar impact on others. Fast forward to 2019, when we purchased our farm in South Lyon with a desire to create a farm that reflected our values and vision. We bought a 10-acre property that had operated as a commercial horse farm offering boarding, lessons and camps for over 20 years.

Our mission statement when we started Cardinal Farms was to be stewards of the land, livestock and opportunities for learning in ways that positively impact the health and habits of our community. We knew we wanted to farm organically, to keep our farm at a small scale, to have diversity in our farming production, and to have the community engage with the farm.  Beyond that, we were open to letting the farm develop in ways that responded to the desires of our community of customers.

Shortly after starting the farm, the COVID pandemic hit in 2020, and we had to pivot our fledgling business. We put plans for on-farm activities on hold and instead offered online “farm school” to kids.   That summer and fall we began attending the SL farmer’s market to sell our produce and pork. Then we waited along with the rest of the world to see what would happen. Coming out of the pandemic in 2022, we began to offer some farm-based education programs and on-farm produce pick-up while still attending the SL farmer’s market.  The hunger – literally and figuratively – for local food and our on-farm programs and events surprised us. We felt it was a combination of people wanting to be engaged in activities coming out of the shutdown and the “local food” movement over the last decade or so - people wanting to know how their food is grown, and who is growing it.

In 2022 and 2023, our farm-based education programs sold out and our CSA program, called the Local Food Club grew to 100 members picking up at the farm every other week. 2023 was an exciting but overwhelming year.  We felt like we were “building the plane as we were flying it “as we tried to respond to the surge of customers.

Though up until this point we had a lot of neighbors on our private road who supported and shopped at the farm, the increase in traffic on our private road from the farm activities resulted in a complaint being made to the Township at the end of 2023. This began an eighteen-month process with the Township trying to obtain the necessary permit to hold events and education programs on the farm. As you may recall, in December 2023 we were initially told by the Township that we couldn’t receive this permit until we could prove that our private road declaration permitted such traffic to our farm.  Without a way to prove it since we don’t have an HOA on our road, we opted to halt all on-farm programs in 2024, which was a significant loss to our growing business, while we pursued a solution. That same season, we were approached by a neighbor whose property was contiguous with ours but had access off Pontiac Trail. This seemed like a wonderful solution to us as we could remove the traffic from the private road but still hold small-scale events at the farm. We purchased the Pontiac Trail property in June 2024, and following the farming season we approached the Township for the needed permit in December.  After months of back and forth, our application was put on the agenda for a public hearing. At that meeting there was aggressive opposition from neighbors of both properties. There were fears that we were going to be hosting weddings, starting a winery, constructing hundreds of parking spots, that houses would be cased and robbed by our customers, that we would damage wetlands - the list went on and on. We tried to reach out to neighbors to discuss their concerns and find ways to compromise but we were stonewalled. The Township became increasingly resistant to our applicaion which we feel was a product of the intense opposition. After months of this process, we could see the writing on the wall and withdrew from the process knowing we would not be issued the necessary permits. The other deciding factor was that the Washtenaw County Road Commission denied our application for a second entrance off Pontiac Trail.  Then added commercial driveway requirements were well over $100k. All these factors combined meant making the difficult decision to abandon the idea of the Pontiac Trail property as a solution for our access issues.

We’vepreviously shared most of this history and our interactions with the Township. What we haven’t shared publicly up to this point is that parallel to the Township issues, we have been harassed and then sued by two neighbors on our private road. It started in February 2024 when we received a cease-and-desist letter from our next-door neighbor’s attorney, alleging several nuisance claims.  In May 2024 a false report was filed with MDARD, stating that we had sold the meat from a sick pig.  We hired counsel to respond to the cease-and-desist letter and nuisance claim and the neighbor dropped the matter.

Then in February 2025, the same neighbor, along with another couple living on our private road, filed a lawsuit seeking a preliminary injunction to shut down the farm. The lawsuit alleged that we were in violation of our private road declaration by having a commercial business on our property. If you aren’t familiar with a preliminary injunction, it means that a harm to the plaintiff is so great to that the defendant must halt their actions immediately while a trial is pursued to resolve the allegations. The lawsuit began a five-month process of lengthy legal briefs and hearings to rule on the preliminary injunction. In late May, we once again prevailed. The judge denied the preliminary injunction, stating that no significant harm was being done to the neighbors through our current farm operations. This ruling allowed us to continue to farm under the permitted uses of our agricultural-residential zoning as dictated by Salem Township. These permitted uses include direct to retail farming, CSA programs and U-pick events.

Unfortunately, the ruling also left the door open for our neighbors to continue to pursue the lawsuit and take us to trial. In early June, we learned that a trial date was set for October 30th. We were faced with a weighty decision. Do we go to trial, at a considerable expense of money and time, or do we attempt to settle?  We are incredibly thankful for our counsel Louie Ronayne and the team at Varnum Law who walked with us through this entire situation and provided not only excellent legal defense, but sage advice and true concern for an outcome that was best for us.

It is important to say that throughout all these events, we earnestly sought to have conversations with our neighbors to resolve their concerns and find compromise. We’ve written letters and made phone calls to seek conversation and have been willing to talk with anyone who would talk with us. The day after we received the lawsuit, we called the neighbors and left a voicemail asking if they would have a conversation with us to see if this could be resolved outside of court. They never responded. We value community highly and it has been heartbreaking to have such fractions within our neighborhood over the farm.

After much prayer and discussion, we concluded that it was in our best interest to attempt to settle. This decision was reached not because we thought we would lose - we actually believe our case is strong and perhaps precedent-setting - but we did not feel it was good stewardship to spend the time, money and resources on a trial that, when it was over, would still leave us at a location which has limited access due to the private road, and no alternative access since the plans for the Pontiac Trail property were not viable.

Two other factors were also vitally important in our decision. One is the value of having people on the farm. Having the community – and especially the children - experience the joy and wonder of the farm is so life-giving for them and for us that we could not see abandoning that aspect of our farm. Second, we are “mature” farmers with limited years to operate the farm before age takes that opportunity away from us.  We would rather spend our time and resources building a farm that reflects our values and vision, rather than fighting neighbors in a justice system that is fraught with issues and ultimately puts the outcome of our situation in a judge’s hands.

So in July of this year, we worked with our legal counsel to offer a settlement. We were able to come to an agreement that has been filed and approved by the Washtenaw County court. Our offer was to move the farm by end of 2026. If we don’t move by that time, we agreed to halt all customer traffic relating to sales of farm products on our private road. The settlement allows us to continue to operate the farm and sell our products, on or off the farm (including our Local Food Club program) through the end of 2026.

So that’s our news. We are looking to move Cardinal Farms to a location where we can have community engagement on the farm. We truly desire to be in a space where the local government holds farms and farmers in high esteem for their important role in the community. We believe there are spaces like that close by and are already pursuing conversations that we pray will lead us to the next home for Cardinal Farms.

In all honesty, it is daunting to consider moving our farm operations, but it is also exciting to consider taking what we’ve learned over the last six years and design a space using that knowledge and experience. We currently have the property on Pontiac Trail up for sale.  We are also splitting off a 2.5-acre parcel from our current farm property to help fund our move. Over the last two years the lost revenue from canceled programs, our legal fees, and the Township permit application fees have cost us over $200k. We believe moving will halt these losses and allow us to become a sustainable business that can impact the community for many years to come.

Many of you have asked how you can help us through this transition First, please pray with us that God would clearly show us the path forward as we try to faithfully discern His will. This has been a painful and emotional season, but He has been faithful to us through it all and we know He will continue to be. His loving presence has been so evident in so many ways including the kindness and encouragement of so many of you.

Second, if you know of a possible space that might be a good fit for Cardinal Farms, please reach out to us! We desire to stay within 15-20 minutes of our current location, and we know there is an abundance of great land, it’s just a matter of finding that right spot that has what we need.

If you are still watching and listening at this point – thank you! This has been a journey, but we feel it is important to share it with you because you are part of Cardinal Farms too. We would not be who we are without you. We heard a quote recently that said, “In order to stay the same, I must change.” That resonated with us because we feel that, to hold to our same vision we must, at this point, be willing to change. To make this move in the short-term so we can have a long-term impact for the good of our local food system and the community. We are so grateful for your faithful support of Cardinal Farms and hope you will walk with us through this next season of change. We commit to doing everything we can to continue to be your farmers for life. Thank you so much.

With hope and gratitude,

Farmer Cindy & Farmer Rich