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Family farm saved from development

September 15, 2009 12:35 am

LOOKING down to the Rappahannock River from a vantage point not far above, Andrew Packett can't help but see moments from his past.

Little is moving in the half-mile of shoreline at Cobham Park Farm near Warsaw on this September morning.

But in Packett's memory, its waters are splashed by the stallion he'd ride bareback into the waves as a teen on warm summer days.

Or they're being stirred by the massive rockfish he's pulled from the waters, or ducks taken down from a nearby blind.

Beyond moments like that, he said, is a more simple, but transforming sense of place that defines you after you spend four decades on land where farming, forests and family are entwined.

"I know it will sound corny to some, but after a while, you feel a responsibility to take care of the land that's been good to you," Packett said.

Packett and his wife, Cindy, are doing just that with the 436-acre farm, putting it in a conservation easement with the Virginia Outdoor Federation to prevent it from being developed.

It allows for the addition of four houses to the two already on the Richmond County property.

"We could have split it up and sold off lots and made a good deal of money," said Packett, a public relations specialist for the Northern Neck Electric Cooperative. "But what's worth more than living the life we love here in this beautiful place?"

That sentiment is the reason the Packetts will host the Northern Neck Land Conservancy's annual "Boots and Barbecue" picnic Sunday.

Packett said the nonprofit organization, which assists and educates landowners interested in placing property into such easements, played a critical role in their case.

"There's a lot involved in this, various legal and financial aspects you have to consider," he said. "The land conservancy helped us get started."

Officials with the land conservancy, which is opening the annual event to the public this year, said they like to host the events at sites placed into conservation easements, to show what can be saved.

From the time we attended Rappahannock High School more than a few years ago, Packett's always been the funny, wisecracking pal with a smile even quicker than his quips.

He's taken an interesting path to his current job with the electric co-0p, working with law enforcement in Warsaw and then as a ranger with the National Park Service at Washington's Birthplace. His wife, Cindy, has worked as a Richmond County schoolteacher.

But for this couple, the constant is the land that's been in his family since the late 1950s.

"My dad, Louis Henry Packett, bought this property when all he has was $10 in his checking account," said Packett. "He and my mother, Nell Marie, worked hard their whole life to keep it."

Packett said he had a frank discussion not long before his mother passed away recently.

"She said two things were worrying her about the time when she'd be gone," he said.

One was preserving the house the family had lived in, something Andrew and Cindy did recently, refurbishing the house and turning it over to one of their three daughters.

The second worry: that the beautiful farm that had been home might be split up and sold off.

Packett said putting the land into a conservation easement provides tax credits that will create a financial nest egg to help his daughters and their families maintain the land.

One of the beauties of the easement is that the land can continued to be worked.

As we drove through fields of soybeans and towering pines, where a turkey hen and her young hustled past, Packett said he hopes little will change anytime soon.

"Can you really put a price tag on things like summer squash from a garden or the time we spend on the water?" he asked.

Rob Hedelt: 540/374-5415
Email: rhedelt@freelancestar.com