Land and Soul

I thought it might be fun to share a few words about what led me to farming. Along the way many things have attracted me to farming and influenced me to choose this path. I think of it as both a career path and a lifestyle choice, and at different stages or even different days it can be more one or the other.

Growing Up in Californ-I-A

I certainly didn’t grow up in an agricultural community. My great grandparents were the last generation before me to have grown up entirely on a farm. My sister and I grew up in Palo Alto, California. Its silicon valley and tech saturated these days, and when were were little it was already heading that direction and dripping with wealth. It was beautiful, suburban and a nice place to grow up but also to love to hate.

I think my first connection with the land came from backyard and neighborhood foraging. Or rather gorging is more like it. The Mediterranean climate in California meant that plum, apricot, lemon, grapefruit, pomegranate, rosemary and all sort of edible plants were used as ornamentals in the neighborhood. What a delight. Growing up we often picked neighborhood fruit for dinner ingredients, or snacks, and when we had garden space we would try to grow things there too. My mom’s favorite story to recount about me in the garden is that one year we grew carrots. My sister, my mom and I each had our own patch. When it came time to harvest them mine were tiny and stunted. I was distraught. I told my mom “I don’t know what happened- I pulled them up and checked on them every day!”

In California, agriculture is part of the landscape, and part of the cityscape too. Farmers Markets were part of almost every weekend for us. I was intimidated by the food I didn’t know and the rough looking farmers that trucked it all into town. Nevertheless it was a wonderful part of the week. Fresh flowers, fresh food, conjoined kiwis, and fruit samples. I ate it up, literally and figuratively.

Farming as a Radical Act

As a teenager, I switched to an alternative high-school program called Middle College in Los Altos, CA. There, my teachers taught a curriculum through a different lens, decidedly left and radical. They taught history through the eyes of the farmers, the workers, the laborers. The class was called ‘social change’ and after school we would go to volunteer at a local farm in the hills. There we planted potatoes, washed lettuce and chatted with the employees about farming. It was clear to me that farming was an act of social change, and these farmers reminded me of the revolutionaries that we were studying in class. They were idealistic but they worked hard to reach their goals. To learn more I took a job as an apprentice on that farm for the summer and fell deep in love with the process and act of farming. I felt like I was part of a side of human life I had never been a part of- reclaiming knowledge that is so essential. The hard work of food production was fueled by my desire to know more about everything around me. How does the farmer know what he knows? How can I know those things too? What do I need to observe closer?

Carbondale, CO

I moved away to go to college, but came back to farming when I moved back to Oakland to finish out my degree in American History. I volunteered in urban gardens growing food in West Oakland and South Berkeley. The plants were full of lessons to teach me, but once again the people- radicals, living close to nature, full of idealism and working hard to achieve it- thats what kept my interest! I decided to look for a farming job after I graduated, and found an internship at the Colorado Rocky Mountain School. There I assisted with the production of some ingredients for the school cafeteria, toured other local farms around the Roaring Fork Valley, attended the Aspen Farmers Market on the weekend and went on long bike rides through the valleys visiting hot springs. The lead gardener there had a big job, training greenhorns like me on how to grow food each year. She went above and beyond by showing us her home garden, teaching us to preserve food, operate machinery and stick with jobs through the tough spots. I saw how hard farmers were working to create a living, and all the factors they kept in their heads to make sense of their success or challenges. I now saw farming as an incredibly challenging, but rewarding way to make a living.

Asheville, NC

I left colorado to join my sister in Asheville, NC. She convinced me I could become an artist there and make and sell my pottery as a business. I tried to do just that, and loved it. Asheville was a vibrant food town surrounded my farms unlike any in the western stated I had seen. I took an internship at Hickory Nut Gap Farm for the summer. I fed chickens, cows, and moved pigs with the small crew, learned to drive a tractor and was thrown in the mix with enough projects to get a sense of how varied a farmer’s repertoire needs to be. I lived in a rough old farm shack with another intern, a lot of mice and equally as many black snakes. We ate well, and I stayed on to staff the farm stand and create big hand-painted signs and murals for their budding agritourism business. The farm owners were open about their challenges, their goals and they asked the people around them for input. I admired how they shared their thought processes as they considered new investments, or new enterprises. Its incredible to see the growth that business has seen. After leaving that farm I felt like I loved farming, but I was sick of working for stipends and doing seasonal work so I set out to find an hourly position. I didn’t feel like I knew a lot about farming, but had been exposed to a wide scope of the agricultural world, and I was ready to just figure out the rest as I went along.

Fortunately I found a position at Riverstone Organic Farm in its second season after being established as a wholesale and retail vegetable operation. I came in guns blazing and took on every project like it was my baby, and treasured the giggly new friendships forming as we worked in the field. I jumped at the chance to manage retail sales and take over management of the 60 head of sheep. I loved working at the intersection between the work we did on the farm and communicating that value to the customer enjoying our beets or requesting a whole lamb. I learned so much about sheep in the process too. I was really handed the project as a whole and given the reigns to make the pastures productive and the herd healthier each year. This came with a lot of challenges, deaths, births, and mysterious problems to figure out.

The Farmer in Me

I feel like working at Riverstone for four seasons was the first time I felt like I could own the role of ‘farmer’. I think when you aren’t raised as a farmer it takes a while to feel like you are one. Sort of like being comfortable saying that you are an ‘artist’ rather than just saying I make paintings. That was the year I created my email address as ‘katthefarmer’, which is now the name of my LLC. Moving to Floyd was like coming home for me. It felt like the place I was meant to end up, I felt like I found a community and a landscape that I wanted to support and be supported by. Farming brought some special mentors into my life. There are so many farmers in Floyd- all of whom are working so hard to make a life out of what they know and love- and wont think twice about sharing their information with you. Larry & Debby Bright, of Bright Farm, have been key mentors for me along the way. Initially Larry came to help me improve grazing and worm populations in the pastures at Riverstone. I’d say we bonded while sorting sheep and taking 60+ stool samples directly from the source. We all know farming can be a shit show- but having the right people by your side makes it worth while.

After leaving Riverstone, I worked for Patchwork Farm for one season, growing and selling food alongside super-farmer-human Amy Willoughby. The small scale was beautiful, tidy and yet quite productive and evolving. I think it was a shock to my system to go from a ten person crew to working alone or with one other person most of the time.

Then, I took a big leap of faith in myself and accepted a position at Fields Edge Farm as their first Farm Manager. The Slushers had been farming that land forever, but recently began a new specialty produce and grass fed beef enterprise. This was another opportunity to help create something from the beginning, a fun and creative process for me. It was a wide berth for me to come in and implement systems, ideas, practices and marketing to get the business going. I am proud of what we have done there as a team. I certainly learned a lot about my management skills- where I rock it, and where I need to keep growing. I felt like it was a test of my ability to juggle things, prioritize my work and execute a vision. I cant wait to see it evolve from there.

When I took each of these farming positions I somehow was only thinking short term. I never really told myself that the ultimate goal was to own my own farm business and work for myself. I always pushed that aside. I never have had a cushion in my bank account, or family land to acquire. I think reliable income is part of it too, and getting the opportunity to learn while earning a reliable paycheck is invaluable! As I dive into my new business I do wonder- How did I get here?

That makes me think of my first year in Floyd, I was speaking with a local farmer who asked me where I was from- I said “the San Francisco Bay Area” and he responded “You can’t even get there from here!”

I know what he means, but somehow I found my way from there to here… and glad I did.