By Bryan Painter
As printed in The Oklahoman, November 22, 2007.

We went down the pasture road, across the cattle guards, along the barbed-wire fence and near the black Angus cattle. We parked about 20 yards from the barn and holding pens and walked up to the 1898 Victorian house. All the while, vibrantly colored leaves drifted to the ground.

When I stepped into scenes like this 10 years ago, when I covered agriculture, it was because I was working on a story about cattle.

But on this day, I made my way to the porch of the Pecan Valley Inn Bed & Breakfast near Davis.

It was one of two stops I made recently on tours that were a part of the Oklahoma Agritourism and Alternative Agriculture Conference at Ardmore, organized by the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry, along with the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation.

True, this is still considered a 2,500-acre cattle ranch. But Janet Charalampous realized that if it were to remain a ranch, she would need something other than cattle for her son to be able to keep calling this home.

'Well, cow prices right now are good but that doesn't mean they are always going to stay good," said Charalampous, who bought the land 10 years ago. "I was hoping to have some way, because I'm not going to be around forever, for my son to make a living from now on. So I thought, 'Well, we'll do a bed and breakfast.'"

Toss in a touch of hunting leases, and suddenly your land as well as your business interests diversify.

Changes on the farm
When I arrived at the conference, I mentioned to Jack Carson, spokesman for the Agriculture Department, that in all of the ag trips I've taken over the years, I'd never taken one to a bed and breakfast.

After I said that to Carson, he said, "Bryan, things are changing down on the farm."

And one of those is the way those who live on the farms look at their land. For example, some people stare out the windows of buildings at other buildings and walk down sidewalks and across streets to other sidewalks and order food from their car window and pick it up at another window. So they don't see what I described earlier – the pasture road, the cattle guards, the barbed-wire fence and the cattle. But they'd like to.

"People have really been very gracious and really enjoyed just getting out and sitting on the front porch," Charalampous said. "The other night, someone saw three deer out here."

The strengths of diversity
What is agritourism? This is agritourism.

These agritourism businesses can include farm and ranch experiences, wineries, farmers markets, hunting destinations, Western events, birding tours, food fairs, festivals and much, much more, says the state Agriculture Department.

Phil Charalampous, Janet Charalampous' son, said the bed and breakfast– with three suites – wouldn't be enough alone to make a living. But again, mix it in with the cattle and the hunting and possibly it'll work. And maybe, just maybe, the next generation of farmers and ranchers can afford to stay on the farm and/or ranch.

And Terry Peach, Oklahoma's commissioner and secretary of agriculture, said that is "our major push." "That's why we're trying to promote it like we are, is to give that opportunity for them to either come back and be fulltime farmers," he said, "or actually come back to the farm and supplement their income and have that opportunity to raise their children back on that farm."

How do you make it work?

The home was owned by Dr. Thomas P. Howell, a territorial physician who let his daughter Laura Howell Youngblood and her family live in the Victorian mansion, which can be found between Wildhorse Creek and Turner Falls Park in the north foothills of the Arbuckle Mountains.

So if you look at this bed and breakfast as a crop, the yield is not only comfort and peace, but history.

That's why Janet Charalampous removed features such as the modern lavatories, bath tubs, light fixtures, fireplace mantels, woodwork and wallto-wall carpet. The floors were taken back to hardwood, as were the mantels and woodwork. She repainted to bring back historic colors. And she also brought in claw-foot bathtubs and old-time lavatories.

A glimpse at yesteryear
On the tour I participated in, Janet Charalampous took us back to scenes of yesterday such as when she pointed to the bridal staircase and said girls would come down those stairs and be married in the parlor.

Plus, the children would also come down those stairs after school. Yes, school.

She explained that the family had a governess who would teach school on the third floor.

"Then they'd come down here and light the fireplace and have piano lessons after school," she said.

Is this situation all glitter, the perfect solution? That part hasn't changed over history – there are no perfect solutions. She said insurance costs are a major concern. But if the family can work through those challenges, perhaps the new way of looking at the familiar will provide a new hope.

"As you see people get more generations away from agriculture," Peach said, "it actually creates that interest to go back and see what farming and ranching are all about.

"I think that's the benefit for the farmers and ranchers in rural communities."

This article appeared in The Oklahoman, www.newsok.com, on November 22, 2007.