The Hughes find living off the land harder and more rewarding than they thought it would be.
Nathan (WC ‘03) and Loren Hughes didn’t set out to be farmers. It just came with the territory when the two bought a five-acre farm in Sunbury.
“We didn’t move here with the idea of farming; we just needed more space,” said Loren, who is an assistant coach with the girls’ cross country team. “I didn’t know I had this passion for farming.”
Nathan and Loren Hughes, who met while running cross country and track at Malone College, served as the head cross-country and track coaches at Worthington Christian from 2009 to 2016.
Prior to 2025, Nathan confessed that the most he knew about farming was “growing strawberries in the backyard” of their previous home in North Linden. Nathan’s parents, Doug and Rebecca Hughes, faced some health concerns and needed to rely on their son and his family for help. Nathan and Loren approached the two with an unusual idea – “what if we sold both families’ homes, pooled the money, and bought a five-acre plot in Sunbury?”
Loren, whose grandparents ran a dairy farm and raised cattle when she was growing up, was surprised that the idea awakened a desire to “work with her hands.”
“I thought this would be a way to not only provide for the family, but for friends and neighbors. Maybe I could earn an income that way,” Loren said. “I’ve talked to a lot of people who told me, ‘I would love to be able to do that. That’s always been my dream; I wish I had that kind of space.”
“I think the biggest reason (why we started farming) was my wife wanting to do this,” Nathan added. “Seeing how much she wanted to do it made me care about it a little bit more.”
The two knew there would be a steep learning curve as their family set up Log Cabin Fever Farms in Sunbury. The first-time farmers bent one of the first commandments of raising livestock: Don’t give animals names, especially the ones you might be eating later.
“I’ve been told as soon as you name your animals, you are kind of welcoming them in as family pets,” Loren said with a chuckle. “So, our pigs are affectionately named ‘Ham,’ ‘Bacon,’ and ‘Pork Chop’ to keep things in perspective from the beginning. The names remind us of why they’re here.
“We know these animals have been given to us, and we must provide them the best life possible while they are in our care. In return, the greatest gift they can give us is themselves. Our boys, Johnathan, a WC sixth grader, and Franklin, a WC third grader, understand it’s one of those circle-of-life type of things. Evelyn, a WC freshman, understands it, but she just doesn’t like it.”
The two started with growing vegetables, but slowly, they began adding animals. First came the mini Nubian dairy goats, then chickens, rabbits, and finally pigs. Ham, Bacon, and Pork Chop and their ilk proved to be a challenge from Day One. The two built a pen for the pigs and surrounded it with an electric fence.
“They were able to slip right through the openings and escaped within five minutes of us bringing them home. I told my friend James, who I bought them from, that I hope raising pigs is not always this adventurous,” Loren said.
“There is a big learning curve since we’ve added animals,” Nathan said. “If you are going to raise livestock, you also have to learn to live with deadstock. We’ve had to put down sick animals. We’ll go out one morning and find a dead rabbit or chicken. The lessons of life and death have been hard on the kids, I’m sure.”
Another life lesson is that there aren’t any sick days, and long vacations are out if you work on a farm. If the family leaves the farm for anything longer than a day, they need someone to watch over it while they are gone.
“You have to keep the animals alive even when you don’t feel like it,” Nathan joked. “When it is zero degrees outside or when you’ve been gone most of the day, there’s always one more thing you have to do.”