our story
Our story begins years ago and miles away…
Glenn and I met while living in Crested Butte Colorado. I moved there after spending a year living in Paris, completing the Grande Diplome at Cordon Bleu. Glenn moved to the Butte after spending 7 years learning and living the New Mexico chili culture while achieving a Bachelors’ in Native American History at University of New Mexico. Both loving to entertain and eat well, we started an upscale catering business. Although we were at over 9,000 feet in the Rockies, barely 50 miles away was the “Banana Belt” of Colorado: the North Fork Valley of the Gunnison River. In the summers, we had produce from the valley driven over the pass to both use immediately and can like mad. What long, hot days but using those wonderful canned goods made even the most simple dish something to bring smiles and thoughts of summer goodness during long cold winters. As those in the catering business can know, we eventually burnt out but, having a good reputation and established clientele, were able to sell the business and have enough left-over “blue-sky” to buy a small farm on Rogers Mesa overlooking the North Fork of the Gunnison River. Our paths divulged; Glenn choosing to continue in his construction career and I developed our Missouri Foxtrotting Horse breeding farm and worked as a research assistant for an entomologist in the areas’ organic orchards. Learning to garden in that alkaline (“Dobie”) soil was an effort. Growing up in the Delta region of Arkansas with two accomplished gardener parents did not prepare me for this unbelievable environment … no rain? … no organic matter? 50 degree temperature swings everyday? … surely it’s not true?! But learn I did, and as my livelihood depended on it, began to understand it through much discussion and trial and error.
We were exposed to a unique culture that evolved in a somewhat isolated environment. Life was slow; work was hard; food tasted good; children were healthy. With no industry in the county, the people living there had either been born of generations living there and loved it or moved there and loved it. But the caliche` soil is unforgiving, one has to learn to nurture the soil (unlike the Arkansas I knew where my mother placed Iris under rocks and they multiplied) to produce the least little bit. Fast forward to Arkansas, where we moved to be closer to my aging parents and the Missouri Foxtrotting Horse Show world.
We searched for land on which to build our new farm for two years. Our treasure farm is part of an original homestead (we’re the first “outsiders” to own it) located at 1300 ft in the Boston Mountains Southeast of Fayetteville Arkansas on Mason Creek, a tributary of the Middle Fork of the White River. We believe it was logged at some point but only know it was partially cleared for the first time 16 yr.s ago and left in pasture. The first time we brush hogged the regrowth, we couldn’t believe what a paradise we had found: feet of sandy level topsoil for gardens and a small ridge for a house. Then came the rains after a dry summer and our first mushroom season: honey caps, chicken-of-the-woods, hedgehogs, American Caesar’s mushroom …delicious!
While building our farm, I catered weddings and events for a local event facility which specialized in traditional Italian foods only. During the main growing season, I was able to purchase wonderfully fresh produce from our Fayetteville Farmers Market and was able to source from other local growers. As many of you know, traditional cuisines, like French in which I was trained and Italian with which I was working, are based on foods available within the season’s cycles. In planning event menus, I tried to stay within these restrictions, which was a struggle outside of our main growing season. But out of every hardship comes a lesson. I recognized that perhaps our role in this wonderful community would be to provide a traditional full seasonal selection of quality vegetables with a finishing touch of specialty herbs (…did I have many lessons yet to learn!). As stewards of the land, we have devoted many hours to studying the land and how it functions with ecosystem while producing what we want. The lifelong nature of such an undertaking is both curse and blessing. We have learned great respect for water: our farm in Colorado was situated in a area that received less than 15 inches of rainfall a year and our present farm is situated in a creek bottom in the Ozarks where we don’t get a sprinkle … it “comes a downpour” and we get 15” in a week.
We had developed a thriving wholesale herb business, had booked all 50 of our subscriptions (CSA) and it was looking like the farm was about ready to start moving of its own energy when: we had two flash floods in the late spring of 2011 which washed away all our hard work with the vegis and herbs: the expensive woven wire fencing, all the chicks, all our years of building the soil, and Glenn almost, all literally washed away in less than an hour. Now you may be wondering just how good of stewards can they be? As it turned out, better than we were beginning to think. When things finally began to feel more manageable, Glenn took a walk up the creek and discovered the root of our disaster: neighbors had logged (and very poorly) considerable acreage in the main drainage channel of our creek! So now we have permanently (at least considering our lifetime) lost a major conservation buffer (the trees and forest floor slow rainfall & thus erosion) to our creekbottom open ground.
Almost too hard to believe is that directly on the heels of the floods came a 3 month drought. How lucky we are! It will come as no surprise to most of you that we believe the climate is changing …the world is changing: changing to become less predictable/controllable and we now know it and know what it will take to survive: adaptability & flexibility. We’ve replaced the fencing with what will lay down in a flood; we no longer try to grow crops in soil that doesn’t support it (native ground); we focus on animals that we can move as needed determined by heat, rain, pests. Think about what survives: the willow in the storm, the fox who moves into town, the tumbleweed that uses the dry wind of summer.
For those of you not bored by now, I want to mention a little of our philosophy. We believe that food and eating is the warp in the fabric of humanity. As living creatures, we need two things in life: nourishment and shelter. But beyond just fuel, food becomes the common link between ourselves and those in our surrounding environment. If it is poke salad season for me, isn’t it for you too? Will sharing this spring tonic not somehow bond us together, and to the history of our ancestors, and to the cycles of the Earth? As we seat ourselves at the family table, we share the bounty and beauty of not only the earth and our hard work, but also the history of what we are eating. The thread of how and where it was grown now is intertwined with who grew it and where it grew before. Is it your grandmother’s cantaloupe from Rocky Ford, your co-workers heirloom parsley carried from Russia in the hem of a skirt, or your father’s beef line he started as a young man? These are threads and stories to share; Glenn and I cherish our opportunity to become an important part in binding our surroundings together.
Links:
Glenn and I met while living in Crested Butte Colorado. I moved there after spending a year living in Paris, completing the Grande Diplome at Cordon Bleu. Glenn moved to the Butte after spending 7 years learning and living the New Mexico chili culture while achieving a Bachelors’ in Native American History at University of New Mexico. Both loving to entertain and eat well, we started an upscale catering business. Although we were at over 9,000 feet in the Rockies, barely 50 miles away was the “Banana Belt” of Colorado: the North Fork Valley of the Gunnison River. In the summers, we had produce from the valley driven over the pass to both use immediately and can like mad. What long, hot days but using those wonderful canned goods made even the most simple dish something to bring smiles and thoughts of summer goodness during long cold winters. As those in the catering business can know, we eventually burnt out but, having a good reputation and established clientele, were able to sell the business and have enough left-over “blue-sky” to buy a small farm on Rogers Mesa overlooking the North Fork of the Gunnison River. Our paths divulged; Glenn choosing to continue in his construction career and I developed our Missouri Foxtrotting Horse breeding farm and worked as a research assistant for an entomologist in the areas’ organic orchards. Learning to garden in that alkaline (“Dobie”) soil was an effort. Growing up in the Delta region of Arkansas with two accomplished gardener parents did not prepare me for this unbelievable environment … no rain? … no organic matter? 50 degree temperature swings everyday? … surely it’s not true?! But learn I did, and as my livelihood depended on it, began to understand it through much discussion and trial and error.
We were exposed to a unique culture that evolved in a somewhat isolated environment. Life was slow; work was hard; food tasted good; children were healthy. With no industry in the county, the people living there had either been born of generations living there and loved it or moved there and loved it. But the caliche` soil is unforgiving, one has to learn to nurture the soil (unlike the Arkansas I knew where my mother placed Iris under rocks and they multiplied) to produce the least little bit. Fast forward to Arkansas, where we moved to be closer to my aging parents and the Missouri Foxtrotting Horse Show world.
We searched for land on which to build our new farm for two years. Our treasure farm is part of an original homestead (we’re the first “outsiders” to own it) located at 1300 ft in the Boston Mountains Southeast of Fayetteville Arkansas on Mason Creek, a tributary of the Middle Fork of the White River. We believe it was logged at some point but only know it was partially cleared for the first time 16 yr.s ago and left in pasture. The first time we brush hogged the regrowth, we couldn’t believe what a paradise we had found: feet of sandy level topsoil for gardens and a small ridge for a house. Then came the rains after a dry summer and our first mushroom season: honey caps, chicken-of-the-woods, hedgehogs, American Caesar’s mushroom …delicious!
While building our farm, I catered weddings and events for a local event facility which specialized in traditional Italian foods only. During the main growing season, I was able to purchase wonderfully fresh produce from our Fayetteville Farmers Market and was able to source from other local growers. As many of you know, traditional cuisines, like French in which I was trained and Italian with which I was working, are based on foods available within the season’s cycles. In planning event menus, I tried to stay within these restrictions, which was a struggle outside of our main growing season. But out of every hardship comes a lesson. I recognized that perhaps our role in this wonderful community would be to provide a traditional full seasonal selection of quality vegetables with a finishing touch of specialty herbs (…did I have many lessons yet to learn!). As stewards of the land, we have devoted many hours to studying the land and how it functions with ecosystem while producing what we want. The lifelong nature of such an undertaking is both curse and blessing. We have learned great respect for water: our farm in Colorado was situated in a area that received less than 15 inches of rainfall a year and our present farm is situated in a creek bottom in the Ozarks where we don’t get a sprinkle … it “comes a downpour” and we get 15” in a week.
We had developed a thriving wholesale herb business, had booked all 50 of our subscriptions (CSA) and it was looking like the farm was about ready to start moving of its own energy when: we had two flash floods in the late spring of 2011 which washed away all our hard work with the vegis and herbs: the expensive woven wire fencing, all the chicks, all our years of building the soil, and Glenn almost, all literally washed away in less than an hour. Now you may be wondering just how good of stewards can they be? As it turned out, better than we were beginning to think. When things finally began to feel more manageable, Glenn took a walk up the creek and discovered the root of our disaster: neighbors had logged (and very poorly) considerable acreage in the main drainage channel of our creek! So now we have permanently (at least considering our lifetime) lost a major conservation buffer (the trees and forest floor slow rainfall & thus erosion) to our creekbottom open ground.
Almost too hard to believe is that directly on the heels of the floods came a 3 month drought. How lucky we are! It will come as no surprise to most of you that we believe the climate is changing …the world is changing: changing to become less predictable/controllable and we now know it and know what it will take to survive: adaptability & flexibility. We’ve replaced the fencing with what will lay down in a flood; we no longer try to grow crops in soil that doesn’t support it (native ground); we focus on animals that we can move as needed determined by heat, rain, pests. Think about what survives: the willow in the storm, the fox who moves into town, the tumbleweed that uses the dry wind of summer.
For those of you not bored by now, I want to mention a little of our philosophy. We believe that food and eating is the warp in the fabric of humanity. As living creatures, we need two things in life: nourishment and shelter. But beyond just fuel, food becomes the common link between ourselves and those in our surrounding environment. If it is poke salad season for me, isn’t it for you too? Will sharing this spring tonic not somehow bond us together, and to the history of our ancestors, and to the cycles of the Earth? As we seat ourselves at the family table, we share the bounty and beauty of not only the earth and our hard work, but also the history of what we are eating. The thread of how and where it was grown now is intertwined with who grew it and where it grew before. Is it your grandmother’s cantaloupe from Rocky Ford, your co-workers heirloom parsley carried from Russia in the hem of a skirt, or your father’s beef line he started as a young man? These are threads and stories to share; Glenn and I cherish our opportunity to become an important part in binding our surroundings together.
Links:
15620 Black Oak Quarry Road · Fayetteville, AR 72701 · 479-422-6000 · Email