To whoever returned our bank bag with more than $2,000 in it that we dropped in the Walmart parking lot — thank you. That's the message Susie Goodspeed posted to Facebook after a stranger's honesty saved her family's small farm business thousands of dollars, and reminded her, she said, that "people are good."

Goodspeed and her husband, Tyler, own and operate Farm and Hive, a 70-acre farm and self-serve honor-system farmers market near Inkom.

Earlier this month, Susie Goodspeed brought her bank bag into a Walmart to buy a few items, paying in cash to avoid transaction fees and keep her money circulating locally, she said. The bag held weeks of savings the family planned to deposit toward a $3,200 double-door freezer, which Goodspeed said would let the farm store more locally raised meat for customers.

"As a small business, it means a lot when people pay with cash, since I don't have to pay all those fees," Goodspeed said.

The bag fell out of her purse in the parking lot, and Goodspeed didn't realize it was missing until the next day, when Tyler asked whether she'd made the deposit.

"I said, 'You know what? It must have fallen out at Walmart, and I'm going to call, and they're going to have it at customer service,'" Goodspeed said, describing herself as "severely optimistic."

Her instinct was right. An older woman found the bag and turned it in without looking inside, Goodspeed said, and Walmart secured it in a safe accessible only to managers.

"It wasn't even 24 hours later, and I had well over $2,000 back in my hand," Goodspeed said. "Walmart was awesome."

Goodspeed said she posted about the experience because good news is hard to come by.

"Anytime you open the news or Facebook, everything is negative and complaining," Goodspeed said. "We do see the ills of the world, but we just need to be reminded that people are good. There's incredible things that happen in our community all the time. We don't hear enough good news."

The scare over the missing deposit money is just one chapter for a farm that has grown steadily since its start nearly two decades ago.

Farm and Hive began in 2009, when Goodspeed started keeping beehives to support pollinators. After marrying Tyler, the couple started a honey extraction business and, in 2018, built a small self-serve honor-system farm stand in Utah. They later moved to Idaho, settling on their current 70-acre farm in 2022.

That honor-system model carried over to Idaho, and Goodspeed said it still defines how the farm operates, even when it doesn't always work out in the family's favor.

"We can have thousands and thousands of dollars sitting here on the honor system, because people are good," Goodspeed said. "We have had theft, and we have had people who write things down wrong or leave without their payments processing, but it's not really intentional. There's a few people who ruin things for others sometimes, but there are amazing places like this, and there's a lot of them."

The beehives that started the operation remain central to it. Goodspeed said the farm's honey production feeds directly into its beeswax line, which has become its signature product, with more than 450 varieties of beeswax candles sold wholesale to stores around the country, particularly on the East Coast.

Beyond honey and beeswax, the farm store carries grass-fed and grain-finished beef, milk, yogurt, cheese and trout sourced from other small farmers, along with produce, fruit and vegetable starts grown in the farm's own market garden. The shelves also include hay and straw bales and dog food made by another local farmer. Seasonal produce like peaches and watermelon rotates through as it ripens.

Goodspeed said customers can get more than a transaction when they stop by — they can get the full story behind what they're buying.

"If you just want to get some peaches or a gallon of raw milk, you can go into the store and be done," Goodspeed said. "But if you want a real personal relationship and knowledge about your farmer, you can ask about that beef right there, and I can tell you everything about everything — where the animal lived, who raised it, the local butcher, all within about 50 miles."

The farm is also home to chickens, goats, sheep, alpacas, pigs, ducks, miniature horses and cows that roam the property, which hosts classes and field trips for schools, preschools and summer programs. A Christmas tree lot is planned for this winter. Goodspeed said growth has come almost entirely through word of mouth rather than advertising.

"People will be like, 'Oh, I have to bring you to this place,'" Goodspeed said. "It's just the sweetest little farm."

That growth is about to take a bigger step. The farm is preparing to break ground on a roughly $200,000, 40-by-52-foot building that will house candle production upstairs and a licensed commercial kitchen downstairs, allowing the farm to prepare items like fresh-cut salads directly on-site as it expands its produce operation.

Farm and Hive is located at 4386 W. Portneuf Road in Inkom, about 10 to 15 minutes from Pocatello. Its self-serve market is open daily from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., including holidays. The Goodspeeds also periodically sell at a farmers market in Pocatello.

For Goodspeed, the growth traces back to a demand she said she sees from the community for food they can trace back to a name and a place.

"We're growing big time because this is what the community is asking for," Goodspeed said. "We don't need imported beef from another country. We need it from right here, where you know your butcher and your farmer, and we can keep that dollar right here in our community."