Beginnings

  In 2019, I said to my partner, "I want to quit my job here and move back to Oregon. Am I crazy?" Crazy or not, he agreed that it felt right so I sold my house in Gillette, Wyoming, and we moved 8 chickens, 3 cats, and two humans to Baker City, Oregon, where I grew up and where my sisters and parents lived. It has been my dream since I received Smoky the Cowhorse in third grade to own my own land where I ride horses and raise animals. 

My reality, however, included increasingly active juvenile rheumatoid arthritis progressing through joint after joint beginning with my left ankle and causing extensive bone and cartilage deterioration. While I yearned to be a cowboy or a farmer or a vet, it seemed that a less physically active career was a better fit so I was steered toward academia. The latest chapter leading me to a PhD at the University of Georgia in Science Education where, logically, I would continue down the respectable path to professorship, tenure, and molding the future of our nation from the comfort of a desk in air conditioning. On the other hand, logic is not my strong suit (unless I'm in the mood to be logical.) I trudged through a PhD, making wonderful friends, traveling, learning that I am stronger and more capable than I expected but all the while, I was pulled toward small towns, rural community life, farmer's markets, drives in the country, and moving back west. For my own mental health, I needed space (miles and miles of it), animals, and to be outside. I applied to assistant professor positions in the west and fortunately, accepted a position in Greeley, Colorado. Thrilled to be back in the wide open spaces, I soon bought a house with a big yard and acquired my first farm animals: 6 chicks! I worried about them constantly with almost daily phone calls to Mom about something new to me and potentially (in my mind) life threatening to my baby birds. "Mom! It's laying on it's side! It looks dead! I think I killed it!" Followed by, "Oh, wait, she's moving. She was napping. Did you know chicks sleep laying on their side?" Mom, my chicks, and I survived, despite my worries. A friend even started coming over for what we called chicken yoga where we sat outside after classes and chatted while watching the chickens' antics. We relaxed and they entertained us, cleaned the yard, and made eggs which I started selling.

I loved Greeley and my position which evolved to teaching human anatomy and physiology and place based science education research in rural eastern Colorado schools but it was a 3 year position and I had to make the decision to apply to continue teaching at the university level or teach at a community college where the emphasis is more on students and less on university prestige. I have been teaching at least part time since 1996 and know that to me, my students are the most important part of my job. I stuck with community colleges and took a job in Gillette, Wyoming. 

A long smoldering flame began to burn in me when I moved to Georgia to get that PhD. I didn't know until moving to Greeley. The flame was in support of sustainable agriculture and involving more people in it. When I grew up, we always had beef and rabbits in the freezer. We lived in town but had enough space to raise our own meat. My uncle lived up the hill and grew an amazing organic garden, before organic gardening was a thing, and shared with us. I walked up the hill every day to see our horse and pick kohlrabi from my uncle's garden. When I was in high school, we moved out of town and I started raising pigs, beginning with one market hog and leading into a farrowing sow. After high school, I went to college and ignored my feeling of "right" when it came to farming or ranching. Arthritis was going to make it too hard. I wasn't physically strong. I was told (and believed) that I needed a job that wouldn't take physical strength. I went into teaching because I didn't know what else to do. Moving to Georgia, 3000 miles from Mom and Dad's freezer full of beef, resulted in me finding the University of Georgia Meat Science Technology Center where students raise animals and learn the art of butchering and meat sales. I was thrilled, once again, to be part of the farming community, even if I was just a consumer. My purchases were supporting people who were learning to do the kinds of things I grew up doing in 4-H and FFA. Yes! In Greeley, I sought out people doing things I wanted to do or support, Farmer's Markets for one thing. I bought fruits and vegetables from the weekly market, conveniently held within walking distance from my house, and I made connections with a butcher in a nearby town to get hearts and lungs for my students to practice dissections. 

But Greeley has a downside, in my opinion. It is home to JBS USA, a nonstop feedlot and meatpacking plant that leaves a brown film of dirt? manure? both? on everything that sits outside. Can you imagine what it does to our lungs? Greeley is also situated next to miles of corn and sugar beet fields which are extensively sprayed with insecticides to protect the crops but which I feel are detrimental to all life, humans who eat the crops and plants and animals that live anywhere near the crop. And then there is fracking which is a business so economically robust that fracking companies are allowed to dig under land that is privately owned. Like it or not, they can drill under my house. I loved Greeley but I love myself more and wanted to live in a cleaner, healthier environment. I had reservations about Gillette, too. Its economy is based on coal, oil, and natural gas extraction. When you fly over Gillette, you can see enormous holes  in the earth where the coal is continuously removed and as you drive in or out of town, "gas flaring" flames burn natural gas at oil extraction .points, constantly. I needed a job. I wanted to teach human anatomy and physiology in the west at a community college and Gillette offered me a job. I went.

In Gillette, I sought like minded people, Farmer's Market people, butchers, farmers, bought meat directly, invited these people to my classes (I also taught general biology) to teach my students about practical applications of biology to their lives. Who doesn't like to eat? We learned how to make sauerkraut (salt and cabbage, not even refrigeration!) while learning about fermentation and how to grow microgreens while using them to design and carry out scientific experiments. I applied for and received thousands of dollars in grant money to update the physiology lab equipment and conducted labs in the sports complex to put the equipment to use. I loved my job, my students, my house with apple and pear trees and my chickens on almost 3/4 of an acre just 3 miles from work...you know there's a but coming...but going into the building where I worked 40-60 hours per week felt like going to jail every morning. In addition, while I felt healthy enough, the work load was draining me physically. I was nearing 50 years old, had a chronic health condition that will continue to worsen, COVID was beginning, and I couldn't stop feeling like this was not how I wanted to spend the next 15 years of my life. What if the arthritis flared up and I couldn't keep working and all this time I had felt well enough to be active had been spent working? I felt like it was time for me to go home.

I arrived in Baker City in May 2020. I bought 10 weaner pigs from a huge pig farm in Kuna, Idaho, and 10 bags of non-GMO pig feed from a family farm in Parma and started raising pigs on a weedy scrap of land under huge old willow trees next to the irrigation ditch on my parents' land in February 2021. I was renting a house from them in town, my grandparents' old house where Dad grew up. I had been watching Joel Salatin videos on YouTube which proclaimed "You don't have to own land to be a farmer!" Turns out he was right. However, as soon as I could, I bought 88 acres of sagebrush and a sow from a heritage breed farmer who answered my unending questions about pasture pork in sagebrush country and began raising my own pigs. 

Speaking of pigs, I'm off to gather my "puppy" (he's 11 months old) and laundry (no washer where I live, yet! More on that later...) and then to stop by my sister's house where her tree is throwing apples all over the yard. I'm going to take the apples to Mama Pig and her youngsters who probably think they're starving by now. "It's been hours since we were fed!" They'll be happy to get some fresh fruit and my sister will be glad to get them out of her yard.