WACO, Texas — Texas farmer Grady Phelan loves to plant and plow the old-school way. He just harvested a bunch of wheat by hand.

“We bind it, and thresh it and then we clean the wheat, so there’s a lot that goes into,” said Phelan.

Phelan is part of a church community.  They live and work on 530 acres just north of Waco.

There’s no fancy machinery, just horse and plow and old fashioned hard work.

"I wanna stay as connected to the earth as I can. I want to stay as connected to people as I can,” said Phelan.

All that wheat ends up at the gristmill down the road. A large water wheel powers everything inside the mill to turn the wheat into flour.

“When the pioneers came over from Europe, one of the first things they built was the blacksmith, then the gristmill where they actually milled their flour. As a community, that’s what we’re trying to do,” said gristmill manager Kash Nathan.

The mill itself dates back to the 1800s. The building was built in 1760.

“It was left abandoned for a long time. We do have a business in our community that looks for old barns that actually restores them and brings them down,” said Nathan.

Each part of the building was brought down from New Jersey and carefully put back together in Waco.

Besides a history lesson, visitors are also introduced to freshly milled flour.

“It’s good. Its healthy. We don’t put any preservatives. Its non-GMO. It’s organic wheat,” said Nathan.

Just last year, old-world flour making met a 21st century pandemic. That’s when the gristmill went into overdrive churning out tons of flour for those who couldn’t find it anywhere else.  That’s part of the giving spirit here. It’s all about community.

“I have five children. My two oldest are boys. They love being on the farm. That gives them a place to grow up, learn how to work, learn right from wrong, and implications of their decisions. It’s real. It’s not a program, it’s just life,“ said Phelan.