: Jenna Butler
: A Profession of Hope Farming on the Edge of the Grizzly Trail
: Wolsak and Wynn
: 9781928088202
: 1
: CHF 5.10
:
: Sonstiges
: English
: 152
: DRM
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB

Early in the winter of 2006, Jenna Butler found herself standing on a cold country road, looking over an unpromising quarter section of northern bush. With the glow of her car's headlights, she surveyed an abandoned grain bin, listened to the howl of a coyote pack and the call of a great horned owl, and knew a switch had flipped inside of her. Passionate about small farming and organic practices, Butler and her partner have withstood drought, floods, insects and their neighbours' disbelief over the past nine years to create Larch Grove Farm.

CHAPTER ONE


Flipping the Switch:
From the City to the Farm


WHAT MAKES US STEP AWAY from a stereotypical urban life? For some, perhaps it’s a small departure: a handful of chickens in the backyard, a few raised beds for beans and greens or a rooftop garden if the condo building permits. For others, it’s the whole hog: departing city life altogether for a different way of being. Either way, there’s a shift that happens within some of us, and the desire for change – to be closer to the earth, our food and the seasons – becomes a necessity.

There’s a moment when, no matter who you are, if you’ve been “dreaming out,” something flips that switch. You make the transition from a life ofwhat if andwouldn’t it be great if towhy not? And more importantly,why not now? No matter when that happens, it’s a date that stays with you: the moment you granted yourself permission to have that life; the moment that everything changed.

Our moment came during the early winter of 2006. After months of driving isolated back roads outside Edmonton, my husband, Thomas, and I drew up at a single-strand wire gate on an early November evening. It was five o’clock and dark as the inside of a barrel. The day’s exploring had taken us longer than we’d anticipated, and we’d gotten to the circled point on our map long after the sun, wandering toward the solstice, had set. We shivered our way out of the car and stood in the glow of the headlights, looking up at the weathered grain bin that marked the entrance to the property. Out of nowhere, a pack of coyotes began its evening chant. A great horned owl called in the deep woods, and a second one answered. Thomas squinted up at the metal bin, reading the paint. “Look at that,” he laughed. “It’s got your name on it.” It was one of those old Butler bins. We paused and considered each other.

Like that, the switch flipped.

Why were we even out there at all, two lone figures on a snow-fringed township road in early winter? Like many people, we’d dreamed of having a little plot of our own, a small piece of land or a double lot in the city where we could grow our own food, but it had been a semi-formed dream. Then we moved to England for a