A Wild Night in the Park

Unpacking our first batch of chicks, 2021.

Hey farm friends! Get excited. I have a wild story for you.

I know you’ve experienced this … a moment in your life that probably looked perfectly normal on the outside to the casual observer.

But to you, on the inside, something drastic was shifting. I had one of those nights at Forest Park in Noblesville in 2016.

I had been avoiding the documentary Food Inc. and many others like it for years.

I had been on a clean food journey for quite a while. High quality, local food was important to me. I wanted it for myself and for my family, for our health, and for my own stamina to manage long days of parenting and work.

That journey had already taught me that there were lots of broken parts in our food system. But I had my hands full ... three kids, gymnastics, football, soccer, therapies, grocery, laundry, cooking, cleaning, oh yeah … and work. You know the things.

I could get to the farmers market if the stars were aligned. And I could avoid buying foods I knew were really bad for us. But that was about all I could commit to.

But on that night in 2016, I found myself in the park at a local food fair that a high school student had organized. Cool right? I had been volunteering for a non-profit produce farm and they needed someone to man an information table at the fair. Sounded easy enough.

I passed out brochures, talked about vegetables and organic practices, and then it happened. The organizing team announced what I didn’t know was going to be the main event … a screening of Food Inc.

Laid out before me on the big screen was the summation of our modern food system … poor treatment of animals, degradation of soil, loss of local economy, loss of nutrition, loss of health.

Yeah … a complete avalanche of despair was crashing over me.

But then.

Solutions.

Laid out right there before me on that same movie screen in the park.

I had grown up on a five-generation farm in western Boone County and I loved agriculture. Both sides of my family are deeply rooted in agrarian living. It’s in my blood. I have soil in my veins.

As an adult though, I had a complicated relationship with my family’s little farm. I wasn’t sure how I fit into it. What was my contribution going to be?

But on that evening in the park, my mindset shifted from wanting to be a consumer of clean, healthy, local food to wanting to be a producer of clean, healthy, local food.

Everything unfolded quickly after that.

The right teachers showed up. The right opportunities presented themselves. We learned about soil health and farming practices that benefit the animals AND the land, the nutrient dense meat that those practices produce, and the human health and community that come from that system.

It’s a system that allows animals to thrive, that regenerates soil rather than degrading it, and regenerates humans rather than degrading them.

So in 2021, I found myself back on the farm where I grew up, working alongside my husband and kids, the sixth generation to live on this farm. We were raising meat chickens in a way I’d never seen before (except in Food Inc., and in a series of documentaries and books I consumed after that). 

With careful attention to detail at every step, we knew those happy chickens would produce delicious, nutrient dense meat. But we didn’t anticipate our customers going coo-coo crazy for them. That was a wonderful, validating, affirming surprise.

From families calling us in the middle of their dinner to tell us it was THE BEST chicken they’d ever had, to people we know well (who typically don’t talk about things like chicken) raving about how ridiculously good they are.

And I’m not going to lie ... It. Doesn’t. Get. Old.

But there’s one thing missing … Is it you?

What can I help you with?
Have you never made a whole chicken before?
Have you never bought from a farmer before?
Do you have health goals you’re working toward? 

Drop me a line. Or better yet, come for a tour or let’s meet for coffee!

Can't wait to talk more soon.

And hey, if you’re hungry … eat some chicken! 

XOXO,
Kathy 

P.S. Got a question about chicken or our work here at Wind Wolf Farm? Call or text me at 317-225-8028.