Waajid and her mother found the farm while driving around their neighborhood one day during the pandemic. Waajid had just moved back to Atlanta from Los Angeles where she worked in film, and she was trying to readjust to her new life.

The first thing she and her mother saw upon entering the property was the community garden. Located next to a shed filled with gardening supplies and packets of seeds, the garden is surrounded by a trellis fence that keeps the deer out and offers a place for climbing plants to grow.

Waajid and her mother weren’t sure how far they could go onto the property at first, so they spent their first visit exploring the garden and checking out some of the art installations, like a row of brightly painted doors and a colorful mural in the community garden.

“It feels very much like you’re home in some way,” Waajid said. “It feels welcoming.”

Intrigued, she did some research on the farm after that first visit. That led her to Eifrid, the 74-year-old retiree who owns and cultivates the property. Now she works there as a volunteer.

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Honoring their memory

Joe Eifrid grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana. After serving in the Vietnam War, he followed his brother to Atlanta in the ‘70s. He worked a variety of jobs from managing steakhouse chains to flipping houses with his brother to owning a few hardware stores, one of which became something of an Atlanta institution.

In 1985, he opened the Ace Hardware store on Scott Boulevard in Decatur, which he later named Intown Ace Hardware. When Home Depot opened a few miles down the road, Eifrid and his team brainstormed ways to keep themselves competitive, to be a hardware store that “people would drive by another one to come to us because they thought we were so special,” he said.

They scrapped the lawn mowers and lumber and started stocking more gardening supplies, giftware and houseware. He hired people with experience in the hospitality industry to make the shopping environment more pleasant, and soon the store became a destination.

After 24 years of running the store, Eifrid retired in 2009.

He doesn’t like to travel — he finds most places actually look better in photos than in real life — and he isn’t much of a sports fan, so he spent the following years blogging about his investments under the screen name “Joe Stocks,” and volunteering with Panola Mountain State Park at the encouragement of his daughter.

For most of his adulthood, Eifrid was too busy working to spend much time in nature, but retirement changed that. He bought two acres of undeveloped property across the street from the house he shared with wife Michele, and began to spend more time exploring it.

Then, five years into his retirement, Eifrid and his family’s lives were forever changed.

In April 2014, Eifrid’s daughter Tami Willadsen, 43, and her daughter Jess, 10, died in an Avondale Estates house fire. Eifrid’s son-in-law and grandson, 5, escaped, but the latter was in the hospital for several months with severe burns. Six months later, Eifrid’s daughter-in-law, Jessica Smith, 41, died in a car accident.

“That about drove me nuts,” said Eifrid. “The only thing I could do is keep busy.”

For Eifrid, keeping busy meant finding a way to honor all three of their memories.

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Finding a purpose

Tami, Jess and Jessica all shared a passion for the outdoors.

Jessica Smith had been interested in herbal and holistic medicine. She had cultivated a vegetable garden with Eifrid’s wife, Michele, in Stockbridge and dreamed of opening her own herbal medicine shop one day.

Tami Willadsen’s career track included director of philanthropy for the Nature Conservancy in Georgia, chairman of EarthShare of Georgia and founding president of the Museum School Foundation. Despite her busy schedule, Eifrid said, she always prioritized spending time with her family.

Jess had taken after her mother. When she was 9 years old, she noticed a number of squirrels in her neighborhood getting hit by cars, so she successfully petitioned the mayor to place a “squirrel crossing” sign in front of their house.

Eifrid’s first project to honor his family was to partner with Panola Mountain State Park and the Nature Conservancy to build an outdoor classroom in memory of Tami and Jess. He helped conceive and create several interactive features, but he wasn’t done. He wanted to undertake his own project where he could have complete creative freedom.

In 2017, he purchased 25 more acres across the street from his home. First his plan was to create an artists retreat, but various roadblocks deterred him. Then he tried to offer some of the land to a wildlife center, but that didn’t pan out either. That led him to Rockdale Art Farm’s current iteration.

“Jess and Tami and Jessica, you watch them grow in what they’re interested in, and then they can’t do it anymore,” Eifrid said. “And then I think, well maybe I can continue some of their works, something that they would have liked.”

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Reimagining Rockdale Art Farm

“I look at this as kind of like my final chapter,” Eifrid explained over the roar of his red four-wheeler one summer morning during a tour of the grounds. He recalled a time when the woods were so overgrown with privet it would have been nearly impossible to walk through it, much less drive a four-wheeler. He pointed out the rusted vintage cars abandoned by the previous dairy farm occupants, some of which have become the subject of paintings that now hang in the Rockdale Art Farm headquarters.

Beside him sat his 22-year-old granddaughter, Laura Smith, listening attentively as he pointed out all of the farm’s quirks and history. Smith moved in across the street earlier this year to be closer to family and to lend a hand on the farm.

Eifrid’s new vision for Rockdale Art Farm is to create a place where the community can visit and be inspired by nature and art.

In addition to the community garden, the farm has several acres of winding trails, art installations across the grounds, a pollinator garden and an herb garden. More than 2,000 perennials and shrubs have been planted on the grounds, Eifrid said, and a portion of land is loaned to Floribunda Flower Farm in exchange for owner Erin Givens’ gardening expertise.

There are hints of Eifrid’s creativity everywhere, like the old highway guardrails he uses to hem in some of the garden beds, and the thrifted pots he placed in the herb garden to contain the fragrant plants. His wife Michele has made her own impression, too, like the old milking shed she transformed into a container garden.

Eifrid hopes community members will “adopt” portions of the farm where they can plant flower beds or make their own art installations. And he wants others to feel inspired by the projects he and the volunteers have finished, like a giant scarecrow built from galvanized pipes or a collection of propane tanks Eifrid painted and plans to use for gardening.

Waajid will begin offering adult forest play sessions later this month through her outdoor wellness program, Haven Light Forest, with the goal of encouraging adults to connect with nature.

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

‘Joe as a place’

A few weeks after the house fire, Eifrid’s family learned that a painting Jess had made won first place in her age group for the Georgia Botanical Society. Today it is prominently displayed in Rockdale Art Farm’s headquarters, where it depicts a forest with a city in the background and the words, “Plug into nature.” Nearly a decade later, it serves as the purpose behind Rockdale Art Farm.

Smith said her mom would have loved what they are doing with Rockdale Art Farm. All of them were so invested in nature and the community, the farm is the best way to bring “their spirit to life,” she said.

Finding caretakers and volunteers who love the place as much as Eifrid has been a slow process, but over time he’s built a small community of people, including Waajid, Smith, Michele and Colin Henderson, a 19-year-old Conyers resident.

In the future, he hopes more people will visit the farm, and that it will foster a feeling of ownership inside of them, too.

“I want them to feel like I do about this property,” he said. “I want them to feel like they own it.”

The magic of the farm is in all the many roles it plays for its visitors. It offers people a place to “plug into nature,” like Henderson, who said his brain “feels clearer” at the farm. The community garden flourishes with tall stalks of okra and thick muscadine vines that form an arch in one corner, clusters of unripened fruit hanging from the stems. A few neighbors garden some plots, including a pair of sisters who stop by to tend their gardens and weed some of the other beds while they’re at it.

“(The farm) is like Joe as a place,” Waajid said.

For Eifrid, it’s where he can go to connect with Tami, Jess and Jessica.

“I’ve become an old man tinkerer,” he said. “I love coming over here and tinkering with something, or coming up with the ideas. And plus, I feel like I’m closer to my girls over here.”

If you go

Rockdale Art Farm. 4420 Flat Bridge Road SW, Stockbridge. Appointment required for initial visit. 404-550-1946, joe.artfarm@gmail.com, www.facebook.com/RockdaleArtFarm.

For information on the adult forest play sessions, visit havenlightforest.com.