ON A HIGH country road in nearby Plainfield, overlooking farmland and mountains, Sally grows peonies. Rows of robust and luscious blossoms nod their heads as they await the harvest on this cool morning in late spring. Deep red, bright pink, pale pink, coral and white with a romantic blush make a stately sight up the rows.

Sally Ingraham is a Vermont native with deep roots in far mingAlthough at times, she has stepped away from it over the years, the pull to return is strong. As a child, her parents took the family to farms in New York, Montana, Nevada and back to New York, where she met her husband Rick. Together they would return to Sally’s native Vermont. Here they would raise their children, while Rick built custom houses, and Sally, an accountant by training, went down an adventuresome and unconventional path that led her back to the soil.

From 1999 until 2005, Sally ran a pizza restaurant in the Valley. With the children grown, she and Rick began to cast about for new adventure. They moved to Northfield, where Sally opened Dog River Grooming. Then, longing for warmer winters, she went to work for a large-scale flower farming operation in the area, in hopes of working in Vermont summers and living in Florida during cooler months.

Sally Ingraham prepares a box of peonies for shipping to New York City. Photo by Christine Barnes, The Northfield News Last May, the opportunity arose for Sally to lease the portion of the farm where peonies grow. Flexible and open to new ideas, the couple seized the moment, and began their first solo flower business this spring. There’s a trial and error process involved which is somewhat challenging, but Sally’s a quick study: for every problem, there’s a solution.

In an old milking barn near the peony patch, the couple works feverishly, grading, bunching, and cold-storing the harvested flowers in preparation for shipping to New York. Dark shadows under their eyes tell the story of late nights harvesting by headlamp, collecting the long-stem beauties at the proper moment so the blossoms will arrive in perfect shape for the urban flower markets. “What’s for dinner? I’m starved!” says Rick in midafternoon. “Um, Wheaties?” responds Sally apologetically. Planned dinners are on hold until the harvest is over. In fact, most of their ‘normal’ lives is suspended until the peonies are on their way.

Rick straps together the shipping cartons, huge sturdy boxes the size of a third grader, that hold a grand total of 8,160 flowers. Sally packs the peonies, ices them with frozen pouches, labels the boxes and stacks them on rolling carts. Behind the barn, a covered snowmobile trailer waits: Rick hitches up and hauls it to the barn where he and Sally load fifty-one stuffed boxes onto the trailer bed. At last, in the big red pickup, trailer in tow, the couple slowly pulls away with three dogs along for the ride, bound for the drop-off point in Springfield, Massachusetts.

What ties together an accountant, a pizza restaurant, a dog grooming parlor and a peony patch? “She’s an entrepreneur,” says Rick. “Sally loves the challenge of taking a business, incubating its potential, then building on her vision.” She likes the pressure and the adventure, and freely admits, “I move on when there’s no more challenge.”

Sally muses that one day, maybe she and Rick will have their own small farm. For now, though, the peonies have captured this energetic, engaging woman. “I love touching the ground, being out, being one with nature. It reminds me of what’s important. It keeps things real for me. It’s not about quantity, it’s about quality of life.” And further, “Flowers make people happy. We ship flowers to California, and I know they are going to someone’s wedding, and people will smile when they see them. And they come all the way from our little farm in Plainfield, Vermont!” she says with a grin. Sally Ingraham is back to her roots by choice.