Flower Flock Farm, a new floral adventure!

By Cindy Ladage

Bella Hoots and Clay Harden are engaged to be married September 2025. The young couple met at Scheels where they both work!

For years, Clay has had an interest in raising chickens for eggs. “He has had chickens since he was a kid,” Bella said.

Recently his flock has expanded. Since Bella has made rural Pawnee her home, she convinced him to add ducks to the mix and now they sell chicken and duck eggs from their home, and at the new Locals Farmer’s Market. They decided to sell eggs because, “We have more eggs than we can eat or share with family. It is just something extra.”

Besides the chickens, Bella raises flowers as well. She said the chickens and ducks inspired the name, Flower Flock Farm. Selling eggs and flowers is a new venture for the young couple.  “We are super new,” Bella said, “it is our first year.”

With an acre of land to work with at their rural residence Bella said she first started out landscaping with the assistance of Clay. “How it started,” Bella said. I grew up on a cattle farm.  We grew beef cattle South of Jacksonville in Scott County.”

Bella’s family is still running their cattle operation, the business is called Andras Stock Farm.  New to the Pawnee community, Bella graduated from high school in 2020, but Clay is a Pawnee native that graduated from PHS in 2015. “We both work fulltime,” Clay said, “but at home, we both like to do outdoor projects.”

Clay does most of the bird work. It is interesting to see the chickens seem to group together, and the ducks as well. Bella pointed out that they have five Rhode Island Red chickens and five Black Australorp chickens as well. The duck brands are a variety. “We have several different kinds of ducks.”  They got the chickens and ducks as chicks. Bella said the eggs taste similar, but the duck eggs are bigger and have more protein.

Clay recently built a new coop for the chickens and ducks where they can be safe from predators that roam the countryside. Clay also helps Bella with some of the heavy work required for the flower beds as well. “Whatever she needs,” he said.

One of those outdoor projects included a flower bed that Bella started inside from seed. “We got started in early spring,” she added about the bed that includes Zinnias, sunflowers, Cosmos, Snapdragons, Statice, Straw flowers, Amaranth which she said, “are interesting looking” and Dahlia which she said, “are the showstoppers.”

In her flowerbed there were also Echinacea, Cone flowers, and yarrow, which she grew from seed. Black Eyed Susans were also thriving in part Bella said because they are native to the area. She doesn’t use any pesticides and grows all flowers organically. She is also minimizing soil tillage and practicing soil conservation efforts.

She grows the Dahlias because of their beauty but added since they are not hardy in our zone, so they are pickier.

Bella’s interest in flowers goes back to her grandmother. “I got this from my grandma. She always has a big garden, and flowers on the porch.”

Several of Bella’s starts came from the nearby New City Greenhouse. She said that Serena Basham at Heirloom Haus has also been very helpful, and customers should be able to find her flowers in Serena’s market soon.

Currently Flower Flock Farm is not a U Pick farm. Bella offers cut flowers and sells them both through orders, and now she has also expanded to the local farmer’s market.“I will probably do more selling online in the future. There has been a good amount of interest in my cut flowers.”

Fellow Scheels employees have been very supportive of their new venture and often order flowers and eggs. Bella said she can also provide flowers for events and looks forward to growing flowers for her own wedding next September.

To find out what Flower Flock Farms has available, you can check their Facebook listing or call or text Bella. Flower Flock Farms is also on Instagram, and she has business cards as well. The two have big plans. “Clay said I can turn the whole yard into a garden,” she added. We will look forward to more of their beautiful efforts!

“I’m having such a good time and there is lots of room for growth,” Bella finished about what she called, “my different type of farm.”