A fun family hobby meant to teach life lessons has turned into a budding farm operation for two military veterans and their four children.
At Rock Fence Farm in Lexington, Donnie Laskey and his son Dino tend the fields.
Heather and Donnie Laskey are co-owners of Rock Fence Farm on Old Richmond Road in Lexington. Along with their four children — Donovan, 18; Willow, 15; Jack, 12; and Dino, 8 — they raise chickens, herbs, and heirloom produce on a parcel of their 10-acre property.
Heather, a Chicago native and full-time cath lab nurse, is also a six-year U.S. Army veteran. Donnie, from Winchester, previously served in the Army and now serves with the Kentucky National Guard.
The couple moved to Kentucky in 2020 to be closer to family, first to Mount Sterling and, for the past two years, in Lexington.
“We started raising chickens with the kids,” Heather said. “We were breeding for egg color — we specifically wanted a dark, speckled-green color.”
The experiment was designed to teach their children about poultry breeding and genetics. Dozens of surplus eggs resulted, so the family built a roadside stand to sell them. That led to even more lessons about work ethic, food origins, responsibility, and running an agricultural business.
Heather also realized she enjoyed gardening, “and it kind of bloomed and blossomed from there,” she said.
Each child now chooses what they want to grow for the season, learning to cook with the bounty and selling the remainder. The family grows heirloom varieties of tomatoes and other produce such as Chinese string eggplant, tomatillos, Aji Cristal peppers, and Swiss chard. Photos on their Facebook page showcase a rainbow’s worth of colorful vegetables available each week.
“It’s a way for us to be able to share what we have with the community,” Heather said. “This year we were a lot more intentional about it. We picked out a whole variety of things that we enjoy cooking with.”
The Laskeys’ passion for farming has also connected them to broader agricultural and culinary networks. Through the Kentucky Department of Agriculture’s Kentucky Proud program and its Homegrown By Heroes initiative — a national brand for veteran-farmed goods launched in 2013 with the Farmer Veteran Coalition — their produce now reaches new markets.
The Laskey family grows a colorful array of heirloom vegetables and raises chickens, teaching their children the values of hard work, responsibility, and community, while participating in the Homegrown By Heroes program for veteran farmers.
The Laskeys also participate in the Kentucky Proud Buy Local Program, which helps connect farmers with chefs wanting to incorporate local produce into their menus. Their first partnership came with Boonedogs Bar & Restaurant, located just two miles from their farm.
“Our neighbors down the road, Heather and Donnie of Rock Fence Farms, stopped by for dinner one evening this past spring and told me about their farm and the products they were growing,” said Boonedogs’ general manager Kasey Darling. “We are constantly looking for new ways to create exciting cocktails and food items on our menu, so I asked if we could purchase some of their goods.”
Boonedogs now purchases Rock Fence Farm’s lemon basil for its house-made syrup and other basil varieties used in the Strawberry Basil Gin Fizz cocktail. Darling also plans to buy peppers for specialty dishes.
“We are currently in our creative phase, building out some fun stuff that we can’t wait to let everyone try!” Darling said, noting that Rock Fence Farm is the first Homegrown By Heroes farm the restaurant has partnered with — and likely not the last.
“We are not your typical hot dog stand,” Darling said. “We aspire to work with multiple local and veteran-owned businesses to expand our menu and give customers an opportunity to try unique items and continue to support those businesses.”
Heather and Donnie Laskey with daughter, Willow
As any farmer will attest, the job requires long, early hours, hard work, and sacrifice, overlapping with the elder Laskeys’ professional and military duties.
Heather said she wakes up before her day job to tend the farm, finding it a relaxing, calming way to start the day.
“The greatest challenge is time,” she said. “My husband and I both work full time and we’re very busy with four kids. Sometimes it’s hard to find the time.”
Even so, Heather hopes to add hot sauces and salsa to their offerings in the future.
For now, the rewards go beyond healthy produce and customer appreciation. The best part of farming, she said, is “being able to feed our family and have the kids learn that responsibility and learn everything that comes along with this whole process, developing life skills and modeling a lot of different, good qualities for them to take into adulthood.”