We Bought the Farm! (well... we're trying to anyway)

Over the past 5 years my love of landscaping and gardening has bloomed into a full-blown passion for farming, complete with fertilizer bunnies and chicken wrangling (many in the farm-world say, chickens are the gateway drug to farming). In the many hours I have spent digging in the dirt, wrestling weeds, building fences and chicken coops, and falling in love with my chickens and Potager Cottage, I have discovered that it is in those moments that I am the most at peace with myself.

Along this same journey has been my husband, and creative cohort, Klee. He has appreciated the calm of sitting outside, listening to chicken clucks and watching our food grow, but his discoveries have been in his own creative endeavors. For years he has been studying the art of fermentation and food preservation, developing flavors and textures in sauerkrauts, pickles, jams, kvass, and vinegars. We even started our business, Spoiled Rotten Vinegar, a cottage industry, for the production and sale of his products. And, this year, with great pride, I witnessed Klee accept a Good Food Award, at the hands of Alice Waters, Nell Newman, and Carlo Petrini, for his elegantly developed, Blackstrap vinegar.

As Klee and I have been honing our individual skills and growing in our Potager Cottage and Spoiled Rotten Vinegar endeavors, we have been feeling the need to expand our cottage farm into a thriving business with a commercial kitchen in order to produce Klee's vinegars and culinary creations on a larger scale. We have faced repeated obstacles as we've reached out beyond our comfort zones, some that have knocked us down hard and left us feeling defeated. We even accepted defeat a few (or ten) times. But, the defeat never lasted, because we both felt the push in our core, in that place of your being that is the most honest, and the most driven, because it is who you are. So, we continued digging in the dirt, brewing vinegars in our closet, and searching with open hearts for our place.

Then the Good Food Awards affirmed Klee's skill and the value of his products, to us and to the greater culinary market. Suddenly, the demand for Spoiled Rotten Vinegar stretched far beyond our capability in this little rented cottage... and just as far beyond the capacity of our pocket book. In exasperation I voiced my frustration with our need to expand and our lack of options on Facebook, and the Universe (God, karma, fate, good fortune, whatever you're comfortable with) answered back through the voice of a distant friend.

It started as a long-shot idea in our friend's heart, and somehow, has evolved into a series of wide open doors. Every barrier that we imagined would prevent us from progressing further has disintegrated without resistance. The path has been carved out in such a way that it almost seems ungrateful (or even defiant) for us not to walk down it. With equal parts giddiness and panic, Klee and I have decided to take the steps forward.

In a few weeks we will be loading up a (another) moving truck and driving eight hours north to a six-acre farm in Eugene, Oregon. We will be moving into a 1973 farm house (that needs some love), which we will be renting only as long as it takes for us to acquire a loan to make the property our very own homestead! Our own home that we can spend the rest of our days loving and cultivating, a safe haven for our children. Sitting on the property are several outbuildings, including a very large barn, which we refer to as the future Spoiled Rotten Vinegar headquarters! It's almost too much to believe. And it's scary, because you know, things could go wrong. If you think too long and hard (especially at night) you could conceive of all kinds of potential problems and pitfalls. But, when presented with a string of open doors, you walk through them. That's what life is about. So, we're doing it, together. We're... going scared.

Future Potager Cottage

Future Spoiled Rotten Vinegar Headquarters

Future Front Door View

Life Changing Chicken Wrangling

When I moved back to California from Arizona eight years ago I moved into a cute neighborhood in Pleasant Hill called Poet's corner. I loved that little pocket of vintage homes, established trees, and curvy streets bearing the names of poets. In the fall I would take long walks as I admired the uniquely updated homes set on large, garden-filled lots. I could smell the smoke in the air filtering out of the fireplaces as the crisp fall leaves crunched under my feet. It was inspiring for my project-loving, non-conformist, writer's soul. Many tangled thoughts became clear on those walks. Many mental seeds took root. My favorite house was perched on a corner with a meandering yet controlled garden cushioning its edges. Across the street from that house sat a home with a lovely hand-built chicken coop planted in the front yard. And there it was; the beginning; the knowing that one day I too would be a keeper of chickens!

It has now been seven months since we inherited our first flock. I am a changed woman. Initially, I looked at my chicks as small fluffy alien-like life forms. They were cute little novelty items, akin to fish swimming in a tank. I was excited about the prospect of future home-laid eggs but I was also nervous about the work involved with maintaining the coop (specifically, the obscenely profuse production of poop). I was not prepared for the endearing quirks and unique personalities of each bird. I didn't expect the connection that I would feel to them individually. Beyond that, I couldn't have known that this experience of raising and caring for chickens would strengthen my sense of responsibility to "life" itself, as represented by animals, humanity, and the planet that supports it all.

How does chicken keeping translate into benevolence toward all living things? I'm not sure that it does; not for everyone (or for anyone other than me); not in the golden ticket kind of way. It may have just been what I needed. I can't say that I was hit with a bolt of altruism the very day that Klee and I drove our first batch of silkies home. It has been more of a quiet opening of my heart. It's in the minutia: the scooping of poop, clipping of wings, coop construction, food selection, free-range wrangling, sick chick nursing. In researching what to feed them, what kind of bedding to use, how much roaming and perch space they need, I found myself considering not just their needs but their happiness. As they grew I got excited about the new feathers they were sprouting and their adolescent transitions from peeps to b'gawks. I loved observing the bonds they developed with each other. The daily routine of letting the girls out to play in the chicken yard, cleaning the poop out from under their perches, and filling their food and water isn't so much a chore but a zen-like activity that calms my mind, replacing anxious thoughts with live chicken entertainment. As I tend to the garden around the chicken coop I am amused and soothed by the clucks, pips, and hums of the flock.

The truth is, I don't really know how the chickens did it. I'm sure they didn't work alone. What I do know is that I LOVE more since they've been here. I like that.