Interview by Abernathy Cochran interns and Gainesville High School seniors John Jessup & Anna Kate Embry
Meet Julie Gosset and Julie Floyd! Julie Gosset and Julie Floyd run a business called the “Egg Chicks” where they deliver farm fresh eggs, produce, delicacies and delights from their farm in Gainesville. Both Gosset and Floyd moved to Gainesville in 1996 and have been living and working here ever since.
We want to thank both Julies for spending time with us recently and telling us more about their life and love of Hall County.
Q: Please tell us a little bit about your family.
JF: “I have a daughter who just turned 18. I live right outside of the Hall County line in Cleveland and I try to give her just a little farm experience…of course, she doesn’t want to, I think you guys can probably remember being a teenager. We’re women centric at the farm.”
JG: “I’m married. Another thing we’re doing is a farm co-op. It’s when farms basically cooperate with one another. We only grow 12 different kinds of produce here. We have beef, but we don’t have goat’s milk so we co-op with Ivy Rose Farms, which is owned by Laura Labovitz. She’s a Jewish farmer and she’s very proud of that. She’s in Clermont and she provides all the goat’s milk that Julie uses to create the goat’s cheese that we sell each week.”
Q: Please tell us about your current career. What do you love most about what you do?
JF: “I love that I get to have a place where my interests cross over with entrepreneurship and spirit. I love that I get to share this lifestyle with people who want it, maybe aren’t ready for it or enjoy the thought of it, I get to share that with them each time I deliver a dozen eggs. I enjoy giving people a little ray of sunshine from a farm in this bag when it’s on the front porch.”
JG: “For me, I love everything about farming, being outside, being with the animals, and raising the chickens. And as far as launching startups, that’s just been something I’ve done since I was in my twenties, so it’s just natural for me to start something up and kick it off.”
Q: How long have you lived or worked in our community?
JG: “I’ve been here since 1996.”
JF: “I moved to Georgia in 1996 as well. I do live right outside the Hall County line, but we obviously work together closely. This farm is in the Hall County line and we have a lot of customers in Gainesville.”
Q: Who’s the most interesting person you’ve met here in our community?
JF: “I met Phil Niekro, got to play football with him. That was fun.”
Q: If you could travel anywhere in the world right now, where would it be?
JF: “I’d probably bumble around Europe, maybe a little Ireland and Scotland time…just to get back to the roots and I like the pastoral kind of community.
JG: “Virgin Islands.”
Q: What are some of your favorite movies and TV shows?
JF: “I like a lot of the outdoor television shows. I really enjoy ‘Life Below Zero: Port Protection.’ I like to see a microscope on people living these lifestyles that you’re not going to live, but you get to experience it through the lens. I enjoyed that.”
JG: “ I’m gonna age myself. I like adult animation and history television.”
Q: What’s some advice that you want to give or leave with people?
JF: “I would say, ‘everything is temporary so your excitement, your pain, everything is temporary.’ Just keep going and you just keep gathering more and more experiences throughout your life and don’t dwell on the bad things. Also, don’t take life too seriously, you have to have fun with it. If you’re not having fun with it, then what’s the point?”
JG: “For me in my 50s, I’ve learned a lot of lessons and part of starting up a female owned business was that I often felt like I lived in the shadow of someone. My husband specifically, he started the business and I came in later. Living in the shadow, you have all these ideas, all these great things that you’re like, ‘I can do this’, but you’re not in charge. When you get to a point in your life where you want to be in charge and you’re ready, take that step, take that risk…it is so worth it! It’s going to be hard in your first year, but you are going to be so proud of yourself in the long run, your family will be, and you’ll discover what you’re really made of. Also remember, we’re all on different planes of enlightenment, be good to one another if you don’t know what they’re going through.”
Q: If y’all could choose anyone that is alive today and not a relative with whom you would love to have lunch with, who would you choose?
JG: “Mother Teresa because I have some questions that existentially could be answered by her.”
JF: “I think I would probably just take my finger and hit a spot on the map and go to some small town and just find some experienced lifelong farmer and his wife and I want to sit down and talk to them about what their life has been like? Their experience is the same as someone 200 years ago, the same as someone 200 years before that and it’s what our experiences will ultimately be in the future.”
Q: What are y’all’s favorite things or something unique about Hall County?
JG: “I’ll say that one of the best parts of Gainesville and being here is I have watched the youth come up and really take over the town and I love it. It really changed the heart and the spirit of what Gainesville was. You brought in fresh blood, which we needed so much and there are not enough towns that you come across that are like that.”
JF: “I would say, I like the progressiveness of Gainesville combined with its traditional values, you get a little bit of everything and I feel like it’s very inclusive.”
Q: Where do you see yourself and your company in 5 to 10 years?
JF: “Five to 10 years, I see the Egg Chicks continuing to grow with the community, especially traditionally marginalized communities, women, people of color, and helping them feel empowered and grow. Combined with more hobby farmers, more backyard enthusiasts to help them feel that what they’re doing is not just some silly little hobby, but it’s so important for the community. I see it being a community driven business that still delivers absolutely delicious eggs, absolutely delicious products.”
Q: What is something on your bucket list?
JG: “I haven’t skydived yet. I bungee jumped, it was fun and I liked that free fall feeling.”
JF: “I enjoy diving. I’d like to see the Great Barrier Reef before it changes too much.”
Q: What is something that you have been proud to check off your bucket?
JF: “Creating something literally from something as simple as an egg to what we do now and the excitement we bring to people each week. People would doubt it and here we are.”
JG: “For me, just getting into farming. I grew up on a farm and got away from it and lived in Atlanta and did the corporate thing for many, many years. I lived on Lanier until 2016 when we bought this. My husband had never been farming before, but I knew he had the skills, so we took this and we parlayed it into something amazing. Now we do have another farm, a 270 acre farm down in South Georgia, but it’s timber only, this is cattle farming so it’s a little different.”
Q: What is your go to music when you can’t decide what to listen to?
JG: “Surfaces.”
JF: “I love an Otis Redding moment. It’s just always comforting, soulful, and passionate.”
Q: What is the most beautiful place you have ever been?
JG: “St. John, US Virgin Islands. It is my place.”
JF: “I like the kind that is very natural and I almost tend to go to swampy areas. I love the bay in Cape San Blas. I love how wild it is.”
Q: What is y’all’s favorite month and favorite holiday?
JG: “My favorite holiday is Christmas. I’m a Christmas decorator. I had eight trees last year, one giant Grinch went over here that was past the curtain. I even like to let people come tour the farm because I decorate it up so nicely during Christmas. It was so fun. And then July because it’s the middle of the year and I’m ready to kick out.”
JF: “I do love summertime and you get to see the abundance of everything you’ve put into the ground. That little seed is not a full tomato plant that you’re getting these juicy tomatoes off of. My favorite holiday, I love Christmas as well, but I’m gonna switch mine to Thanksgiving because I love the food. I love that all the community and family get together, too.”
Q: What are one or two of your favorite smells?
JG: “Vanilla and lavender.”
JF: “I love sandalwood and I love pine. I love earthy smells.”
Q: Who inspires you to be better?
JF: “My daughter, Allison. We all wanna be role models, but we’re all human. We’ll mess up but then the point is we’re supposed to show them the mess up and how we get out of it so they learn from that.”
JG: “My grandfather. God rest his soul. His name was Rex Clark Felder, the most amazing man I ever met in my life. He never had a real job day in his life because he had his own farm and he was an entrepreneur. He knew everybody in town. He was just a great guy, he was the most even keeled person. He owned little general stores and he would let people run up their accounts on credit, that’s how you paid back in the day, you didn’t have credit cards.”
