Once upon a time there was an older couple living in a big city. The city was filled with lots of people and lot of cars and lots of noise. Neither of them had been raised in a big city; they had each come there because work paid more than in their small towns. But it was in the big city that this older couple met, fell in love and got married. Their shared dream was to move out of the big city and retire to a farm in the country where there would not be lots of people, cars, or noise—and that is just what they did.

That couple was Ann and Pearce Bailey. They were living in the Dallas area when they found the land of their dreams in early 1996 and decided to buy 15 acres of beautiful native grassland prairie. The soil had never been tilled and was covered with native Texas wildflowers and prairie grasses. Pearce’s background included a degree in Agricultural Economics from Louisiana State University, and he had always wanted to have a farm where he could work and play in when he retired. Ann was from West Texas and loved the thought of again having wide open spaces, blue skies and starry nights. After much research on a number of crops and a suggestion from the Texas Veterans Land Board appraiser, the couple decided to raise blueberries.

After closing on the land in the late spring, they invested countless hours of hard, hot work into cleaning scrub trees, mowing, burning trash and marking areas for development. A one-acre pond was dug that September and it filled almost immediately. The first building project was to put up a barn that could be used to hold the equipment that was quickly accumulating. Ann was still working in Dallas and Pearce was working in Ft. Worth and they were living in Plano. Their daily commute left only limited time to tend to their new property. In February 1997, Ann accepted a transfer to the Sherman area. The barn was started shortly after that, and Pearce began planning construction of the house he had been designing for two years.

Pearce’s retirement was planned for the fall of 1998, so in April 1997, he and Ann decided to put the house in Plano up for sale. They were well aware that the sale might take six to nine months. The very day Pearce walked out to his truck to buy a “For Sale" sign at the local hardware store, he met a couple driving slowly down the street looking for a new home. They decided to purchase the house that day…with the stipulation that Ann and Pearce move out within a month!

The barn somehow got finished in the next four weeks, and Pearce and Ann moved to the country. For the next 16 months, they made their home in the one-room barn and a 27-foot fifth-wheel trailer while their house was being built. They shared their living quarters with their two precious dogs, Punkin’ Head and Lady Bug, and their best friend, a cat named Nothin’.

All of the berries were planted during this time and a complete irrigation system was installed. Pearce oversaw the building of the house and drove 160 miles back and forth to work each day. Ann sat on her bed in the barn and made all of the drapes and curtains for the new house. The couple survived the terrible heat wave and drought of 1998, but the tiny berry bushes suffered that first summer and 25% of them had to be replanted. By August, the house was finally finished and the couple moved in. Pearce retired from the federal government in September and started his real work of tending the land.

Bailey’s Berry Patch officially opened June 1, 1999. The blackberries were more plentiful than the blueberries, but the first year was a success all around. Visitors would arrive at daybreak and picked each day until every ripe berry was gone. Thank goodness a well was put in this summer to keep the pond at a constant level for irrigation, since the summer of 1999 turned out to be another year of heat and drought.

The next three years brought several seasons of change, both on the land and in the home. Punkin’ Head passed away in fall of 1999, but the winter was warm and wonderful. The berries started blooming in February and continued until mid-April. Plans to be open three days a week quickly were amended to seven days a week. A few days after the 2000 berry season ended, a beautiful, six-week old black lab puppy by the name of Hope joined Ladybug and Nothin’ as a part of Pearce and Ann’s family.

The following year, Pearce planted another acre of blackberries, and the season opened on June 1st—later than it should have, since Ann retired on Memorial Day and Pearce had to attend her retirement party. The bees had a great time pollinating all the blueberry bushes and some of the berries ended up bigger than marbles. The farm had honey for the first time that summer and it was all gone in three days. The muscadine grapes also ripened earlier than anticipated, and they were wonderful to eat right off the vines. The farm continued to grow, and Pearce spent a good part of the fall preparing another acre for more blackberries.

April 2003 brought the largest hail storm that the Berry Patch had seen, and many of the berry bushes were damaged. But the pickins were still plentiful, and visitors came out in droves all season long. It wasn’t until Pearce later compared the number of gallons of blueberries produced in 2003 to the number produced in 2002 that he determined more than 60% of the blueberries were lost because of the storm.

2004 was a warm, wet and wonderful year.  They invited their first vendor to come to spend the season with them.  They found it a joy to share with the wonderful people.  Pearce really looked forward to the days that Wildwood Bakery and Texoma Coffee Roasters were both here.  No better way to start a good day than an excellent cup of coffee and a big, fresh cinnamon roll.  The pulots bloomed beautifully and the crop was large and excellent.  The crowd has really started to grow and they had to hire a number of teenagers to help.  Rain, rain, rain….   What big, beautiful blackberries and blueberries!!!!  So much fun...... They are now carrying our own line of wonderful preserves and pickles and everyone loves them.

Lady Bug had really aged over the summer and everyone had to really look out for her.  They finally ended up losing her just before Christmas and she was missed very much.  Nothin’ thankfully did not seem to be bringing birds, frogs, etc. into the house any longer.  Hope remained their guardian angel.

2005 was unbelievable.  More concrete was poured to accommodate more vendors.  Entertainment was booked for each Saturday and people came and came and came.  The day before Father’s Day over 1000 people enjoyed the full size stagecoach and the 1880’s jail complete with gunfighters, gunfights and everything.  They had woodcarving and quilting demonstrations, a fabulous face painter, a concession for everyone to enjoy and wonderful people selling everything from organic eggs to honey to glass beads.  They hired Sharon and Mac to be the assistant managers and Linda Lewis, their wonderful church choir director, worked every Tuesday and Saturday running a golf cart with buckets of fish food and performing “kid control”.   By this time they were up to 67 different preserve, pickle, syrup and dressing products.  That year they added t-shirts that have “Bailey’s a Little Patch of Heaven” on the front of them, a great baseball hat with our logo and a soft line with blueberries printed on them.

They added a new dog to their family in late March of that year…a beautiful Pomeranian that Ann had found at a shelter in Durant.  She is a sweetie and she loves people.  Ann named her Faith.  Pearce calls her "the mouth". They now have Faith, Hope and Nothin’.  Such a wonderful group of girls (and they think that they are sisters).

2006 started well and then went "all the way down hill" on March 30th. Everything was blooming beautifully when everyone went to bed. Then the farm was hit by a small tornado and a BIG HAIL STORM during the night. Nothing was left. No blooms, no leaves, trees has been unscrewed out of the ground and "stuff" (trash cans, chairs, plant pots, etc) was scattered all over the place. What a shock!!! Then a month later, there was another bad hail storm. Ann had to return to work part time and Pearce started trying to clean everything up. Broken limbs needed to be trimmed off of the blueberry plants and the plum trees. The large thornless blackberry field in the far north side of the property was beaten down so badly that Pearce ended up taking the whole field out and then replanting it in February, 2007. With a lot of fertilizer, water and hard work the farm looked much better by the time the year ended.

The Berry Patch was only open for one day in 2006... that was day was July 1st and they opened for the 1st Annual Red, White and Blueberry Festival. The Festival had been set up to support the Sadler Volunteer Fire Department. This small force of people had helped extinguish a couple of grass fires that had come close to the patch when during the time it first got started. It was decided to go ahead and have the Festival even though they didn't have any berries themselves. Pearce drove over to a farm in east Texas and bought berries that they could sell to the people who came. There was a nice crowd that day and all of them seemed to enjoy the fun, games and food prepared by the firemen and their families.

2007 was another one of those special years. Pearce had done such a good job "babying" the berries in 2006 that they had another wonderful bloom season. There was no hail and no bad winds that spring. They knew that there would not be as many berries as they would have wished for since a lot of the berry plants had to be replanted in 2006. They opened the season on May 31. The blackberries were ready to start being picked. The first of the blueberries were picked on June 5th.

And then the rains came... It started on June 16th and rained 20 days of the next 28. It ended up with a total of 18 inches of rain during that time period. They stuck to the schedule on all but 2 of the regular days. It finally got funny!!!! Everyone was were wearing those ugly "crocs" (rubber shoes). The gravel road between the house and the barn was running ankle deep in water. They even talked time after time about building an ark or about Bailey's river. Pearce kept the tractor parked next to the cars and everyone knew that he would be right there to pull them out.

Everyone seemed to have a really good time. Every Saturday was planned to be something special... There was always food when they could get the concessionaires in and had entertainment on a regular basis. They closed on July 15th - by then it was hot and dry and the air conditioning felt really good. They had gleaner come out 3 times to pick the balance of the blueberries for different north Texas food banks. That always feels good.

2008 came and Pearce and Ann realized that Bailey’s Berry Patch was no longer a hobby; but was a full fledged, very successful business  and that age was catching up with them.  Over the last year, Pearce had to have a hip replacement and Ann lost a kidney to cancer.  For their ages, Pearce 77 and Ann 68, their health is very good but they do not have the strength or energy to keep up with everything  and the Berry Parch is in a position that it needs to continue growing.  The decision that they had to make was hard but they knew that they had to look at “re-retiring”.  

The 2008 berry season was very good.  The blackberries produced more than double the pounds that were picked in 2007.  The new blackberry fields had berries until the end of the first week of July.   The blueberries didn’t produce as many berries as they had hoped that they would.  This was probably because of them standing in water during the summer of 2007.

Saturdays were especially important this berry season.  Entertainment, food and vendors brought crowds to the farm and everyone had a wonderful time.  Somewhere around 2000 people enjoyed Family Day on June 14th .  The children were entertained with a petting zoo, pony rides, two bouncers and a woman making animals out of balloons.  One thing that the Bailey’s know – happy children = happy parents.  The following weekend was Western Day.  A chuckwagon breakfast included everything from eggs to blueberry pancakes.  Lanny Joe and Royce put on a wonderful show for everyone.  Their music and storytelling is something very special.  The first Saturday in July was the 3rd Annual Red, White and Blueberry Festival.  The firemen, their wives and mothers cook hamburgers and hot dogs for the hungry crowd.  The Baileys extend a big 'thank you' to everyone who came to support them.