Walking out to the parking ramp, I inhaled sharply, bent at the waist, and vomited across the concrete floor. Now, at the age of forty-three, trying to wipe gag splash off my pant legs with a glove-compartment napkin, I truly understood the adage: “It is better to give than receive.”
I had no idea how I could ever repay these people.
Other than by winning.
We did not win.
We learned this via a thirty-second phone call from the contest’s marketing department, a few weeks before we were to show up in New York City for a huge football-themed celebration. And, to make matters worse, we were sworn to secrecy with a binding nondisclosure form.
Jason was stunned, in the literal openmouth, cannot-speak sense of the word.
After sprinting through those crazed months, it was like we’d hit a wall and Jason, dazed from the impact, couldn’t quite fathom that we’d lost. Then again, he is simply a more competitive human than I am. In school sports, I remember passing off field hockey balls with the clear thought that this little rubber orb was going to make my opponent so much happier than it ever would me. Take it, enjoy.
This is not how Jason is built.
It was more than his sheer want for victory. In this contest, Jason and many others felt that the winning business, a well-funded toy company, had used questionable tactics. Some said illegal ones. They’d created a high-end promotional video (with a budget more than our annual revenue) and dubbed it with well-known copyrighted music. And when the band asked them to take it down, the toy company preemptively sued them.
The misstep, or stunt, depending on your perspective, earned them several days’ worth of national news cycles and lit up social media sites like Upworthy and BuzzFeed. It was the subject of talk shows; it engaged people. And like the saying goes, all press is good press.
From that standpoint, I admired their ingenuity. I had to. I asked Jason, given that this prize was of astronomical value, whether he really thought eggs could compete against the allure of plastic playthings?
I resigned myself to second place, which offered a great prize package of its own—including a Hollywood-made TV spot that aired on cable for six weeks. But Jason was not done. He called right back, asking for a recount, reconsideration, restitution. Intuit was gracious, even assigning us a big-hearted staff attorney, Lisa, who served as part legal interpreter, part therapist, and followed up on each of his concerns. And though we were given no indication that the outcome would change, Jason held on to a thin hope that somehow Locally Laid would pull it off in the end.
Given all that our community had done, it had to change, right? If this was the movie it felt like, then in this crazed drama the scrappy little egg company and its oft chicken-shit-covered owners trying to save the world from industrialized foods would, against all odds, enjoy an upset victory against the bigger corporation selling toys made in China. At least, this was what Jason thought.
I tried to press reality into his head, but he continued to believe. Jason believed all the way to the announcement in New York City, where he arrived late—trapped at the annual International Poultry Conference in Atlanta, a city completely flummoxed by snow. He was too late to join me on the planned media junket.
Truly, it was a bizarre day in New York City. It started with an interview at Fox News Business—the national one. And I had to do it without my favorite farmer. Arriving at the forty-five-story skyscraper in Manhattan, I emerged from our small fleet of black Escalades (itself a bit unnerving). That was when I started second-guessing my outfit. I’d ironed my now broken-in Dickies jacket for the TV spot and was pretty convinced I was wearing the only nonblack garment in a six-block radius of Times Square.
I’m also sure I came off too bubbly. Answering the questions of the tiny newswoman (she was likely a dress size zero, a garment dimension rarely seen in our corn-fed corner of the Midwest), I fell into my overcaffeinated, default TV persona that conveys how dang HAPPY I am to talk about chickens.
You see the birds exercise! And eat grass! And lay eggs with less fat! Praise be and hallelujah!
It was the opposite of deer in the headlights; it was deer charging the glowing orbs and leaping over the hood to clear the roof of that oncoming sedan. (I suppose there are worse things, but really, would a little poise kill me?)
Very quickly it was all over, and my oversized public persona was stuffed back into the fleet car. It was nearly time for the big public announcement that would roll out on the Associated Press newswire. But first, Matt, the handsome man who’d fallen in the farm muck back in Wrenshall, bought me a whiskey in the hotel bar and toasted Locally Laid. By the way, the wool coat he’d soiled at the farm was forever ruined, though he’d kept it as a memento of a great day.
I kicked back my drink, coughed, and excused myself to make a call.
“The announcement is going to roll out any moment,” I said to Jason. There would be no last-minute reprieve. No big chicken in the sky to save the day. I could hear the bustle of the overrun airport through the phone’s receiver, along with his monstrous sigh. Jason had hoped for a last-moment turn of fate. It was not coming.
“Yeah, I figured.” There was a long pause, the gathering of momentum. “It just could have been so cool, Lu. I mean, what this TV spot could have done for something important, like really important.” His voice trailed off.
“Honey, we’ve done so well. Like statistically, improbably well.”
He was quiet.
I wanted to pull him through the phone line, envelop his big body with my smaller self, and comfort this all away. Just as I yearned to shake him by the shoulders and awaken in him all we’d had been given, by the community, by Intuit, by life.
There was a lot to be grateful for. After all our megaphone shouting about the existence of middle agriculture and the glory of chickens on pasture, a consortium of lenders had recently rubber-stamped our loan application. Certainly, all the publicity and the increased sales it generated helped. We were finally going to buy a farm of our own.
Owners Dean and Sandy even allowed the birds to be moved in before the official close. On the night before Thanksgiving, Brian, Jason, and our architect friend John slipped headlamps over their wool caps. Transporting the chickens at night was the least stressful on the birds, though with the pelting snow, seen in the illuminated circles of the men’s lights, it wasn’t the best for the humans involved. They wrangled each sleeping hen off her prairie hoop coop roost, crated her, and drove her to the new barn. There were many trips in the snowstorm that dropped some five inches that night.
And while the new barn was imperfect (later we would learn just how imperfect, when we saw our winter heating bill), it gave our girls a warm shelter. There would be no more frozen waterers or frozen eggs or frozen workers this winter. Not long after, the temperature sank into a record streak with several days below minus twenty. It’s hard to imagine the flock could have survived that abnormal polar vortex freeze under tarps.
As we walked the barn later, the chickens looked healthy, lively even, and the space smelled surprisingly sweet with fresh straw on the floor. Of course, even this much-improved setup would have its problems and we’d eventually go back to ladies in hoop coops for the summer to achieve better pasture rotation. But at that moment, we were ecstatic that these chickens were out of the elements.
The new location also had a space we could build out into a new egg-washing room. We didn’t know it then, but the startup grocery store we’d been renting space from would be out of business within a year. Having our own land that we could build on was more important than ever.
But I didn’t need to think about washing eggs right then. Up in my posh Gramercy Plaza hotel suite, a place so dark and plush one risked being swallowed whole by its upholstery, I waited for the contest announcement to scroll across the newswire. I repeatedly tapped refresh on my old Mac, like an old-fashioned drinking bird toy, because I needed to be the first to congratulate our competition. It was import
ant that I set a positive tone on the social media sphere. Knowing our supporters would be wholly disappointed, I wanted to tamp down any possibility of virtual rock throwing at the winning company and certainly not at the contest sponsor Intuit.
Also, I’d been penning a blog most of the afternoon, a love letter to our volunteers, and wanted to get that online right away. In it, I stressed that because of their enthusiasm, a sustainable startup got serious national attention. Media impressions for Locally Laid were cresting into the billions. A whole lot of folks who had never heard the term pasture-raised now had an inkling that exercising chickens on grass was a good thing.
Before leaving for New York, I’d talked to my favorite editor and friend, Eric, about losing and how crestfallen LoLa’s ardent peeps would be.
What he said next, in his rich radio voice, was a lesson culled directly from Charlotte’s Web.
Now it may have been a while since you’ve read the E. B. White classic, but you’ll likely recall that Charlotte, a clever spider, spun words into her web in hopes of gaining attention for Wilbur, her pig friend slated for bacon. This web writing causes quite the hullabaloo.
But—there’s a bigger pig named Uncle. As the blue ribbon prize is based on weight, Uncle wins the blue ribbon. And here’s the important part: Uncle deserves the blue ribbon. Just as the fair-going crowd is poised to disperse, the announcer calls another award, an unprecedented award—one for a special pig. Though Wilbur was not the biggest, he touched hearts and inspired wonder.
Many good things happened out of the contest: a community came together, farmers interested in producing eggs the way we do contacted us, and though ambitious Jason still smarted at our loss, I think we ended up right where we should be.
Still the underchicken.
The tiny plane home to Duluth was delayed because of poor weather, exceptionally poor weather. It was sleeting and they elected to de-ice the plane—twice.
“They should cancel this flight,” I said, forehead against the ice-streaked window overlooking the tarmac.
I used to love to fly, but the older (and more mortal) I’ve become, the less exhilarating and the more terrifying it feels. Moments after the plane took off, there was a bing from the sound system and the captain announced that we were in for a bumpy ride.
He did not lie.
Our aircraft dipped and tossed, causing a group of women in front of us to occasionally let slip a little scream as I squeezed Jason’s hand. Then I put my head to my knees and started to cry. Weeping grew to sobbing and, while I was frightened as our small craft pitched in the gale, I felt a release of tension—over the contest, emotionally tending Jason, buying the farm, finishing my thesis, even the new Christmas tour at Glensheen. I just cried it all out—in a loud and unladylike fashion.
By the time we deplaned, I was composed and took the stares from other passengers in stride. I was officially the crazy crying woman on the flight. I did not care; it was the most relaxed I’d felt in months.
As we rounded the corner out of security, there was a wall of people. Despite the late hour and below-zero temps, a gathering of a dozen or so of our closest friends were there to welcome us. I gasped in surprise, and it was Jason’s turn to get teary.
We were home.
ACT 5
Fledged
VERB: to have acquired wing feathers large enough for flight
Chapter 20
When I was a freelance writer in Minneapolis, there were editors I’d worked with for years, with offices just across town, whom I’d never met. I’m not agoraphobic, and they were not unfriendly; it simply wasn’t necessary. While I could easily recognize their electronic signature in my mailbox, I couldn’t have picked them out of a lineup. This was perfectly acceptable and undeniably efficient, if not particularly cordial.
But it’s not the way the Amish work. At least, not the way of the particular community we were driving to see that early spring day in 2014. These Amish folks are more on the observant end of the religious spectrum. Having no electronics in their home, they’ll send us postcards to set a plan to call us from their community phone.
So, everything takes more time and patience, especially the building of relationships. It requires meeting you, shaking hands, and sharing a meal. It would not be confused with speed dating. Nor should it be viewed as optional.
As with all religions, there are those who are to the letter and others more, say, loosey-goosey. Take Lamar, our Amish partner in Indiana, just outside Chicago. He has a smartphone, texts, and is in on the Locally Laid joke. He even has a LinkedIn account (no picture, only the default silhouette photo placeholder, but what I’d give to see that outline sporting the wide brim of an Amish hat). He is clearly as progressive as an Amish guy gets, sitting on the other end of the spectrum from the people we’d be visiting today.
And this had me a tinge sweaty, for a couple of reasons.
For one, until recently, everything I’d known about the Amish culture was based on the 1985 movie Witness. My biggest takeaway: they would be immune to my self-effacing, pop culture jokes.
And while these Amish folks were eager to work with us, they’d worked with smaller numbers of layers in the past; egg production at this commercial scale would be new to them.
The other two farmers we’d been partnering with were longtime chicken keepers who only needed to shift their operations to birds seasonally out of doors, be educated on pasture management, and maybe add some poultry-life enhancements to their barns like dust baths, roosts, and winter hay. But for this community, there would be lots to learn.
Of course, they’d be starting with more practical knowledge than we ever had (or will), and they’re close enough for Jason to check in often. But what they had going for them was location. Their farm is situated nearly equidistant between two sizable egg-buying markets, Duluth and the Twin Cities area.
Even so, I hadn’t been entirely convinced this was a venture we should take on. We had our own hens, a partner in Iowa, and one in Indiana. I felt stretched.
Then Jason, likely in an attempt to get me on board, showed me the area’s demographics. The 2000 census reported a per capita income of just over thirteen thousand dollars, and the 2010 data showed a population loss of over 29 percent. Clearly, this was a rural location that could use the income.
Looking out at the flat, snow-splotched landscape from the van’s passenger seat, I said, “I hope we have stuff to talk about.”
“Well, they’re making us lunch, so you can talk about that.”
“What? We didn’t bring anything! We cannot show up empty-handed for a meal.”
Jason shrugged. Clearly this fell into his large mental file labeled Not gonna worry about it.
So I worried for the both of us.
Before setting off, I’d done a little homework, dispelling a few myths. Like, I used to think that Mennonites were breakaway Amish—folks who embraced the orthodox traditions but were more willing to interact with the modern world. Wrong. The tome of a book The Amish explains that both sects come from the Anabaptist tradition of sixteenth-century Europe. During the tumultuous time when reformers such as Luther and Calvin were stirring up radical religious change, some felt their stands were not going far enough. Enter stage left a faction known as the Mennonites, so named for the inspirational writings of former Catholic priest Menno Simmons.
But in 1680, a charismatic tailor and convert named Jacob Ammann came into the picture saying that Mennonites, while on the right track, simply weren’t radical enough. He proposed many reforms, including all-but-complete exile from the outside world. This ultimately led to a schism in 1694 between those who followed the teachings of Menno Simmons, the Mennonites, and those who adhered to the more orthodox words of Jacob Ammann, known as the Amish.
You might think this austere lifestyle, with restrictions on nearly every aspect of one’s personal freedoms, would be a dying one. And you’d be as mistaken as I was. According to the Rural Sociological Society, the
Amish religion is one of the fastest growing denominations on our continent, expected to break a million folks sometime midcentury. With growth like that, a community outgrows itself every twenty-five days, sending forth representatives to buy more land and start anew.
Usually, after I study something, I am more at ease, more confident in the topic. But turning off the highway and seeing buggy tracks on the waning snow got my anxiety twirling. And although I dressed conservatively, what I did not think through was my hair.
The Amish, who also call themselves the Plain People, eschew vanity and adhere to a literal translation of the Corinthians verses that straight-up tell women to cover their heads. But I’m embarrassed to say that when I first met our hosts my first thought was how unattractive a big-nosed gal like me would look in a hair-hiding, starched bonnet. Now let me first say that Ruth, the woman of the house, has fine features and sports the cap quite attractively. I’m pretty sure I’d be mistaken for a male wreathed hornbill or perhaps a toucan.
I nose-compensate with big hair. It’s not like I fuss with it, just wash and rumple it in my palms with whatever hair product is on sale. But given the recent snowmelt, the air was wet and tress-inflative. Like country-singer large or Sarah Jessica Parker full. Walking in the door of their comfortably modest home, I was immediately self-conscious. As we spoke our awkward hellos, I found myself attempting to iron my hair to my head using a flat palm. It sprang back up.
Ruth, perhaps in her early fifties, wearing a cotton apron over her dark homemade dress, didn’t seem to notice. Truthfully, she seemed more at ease than I was. She introduced me to some of her older children; the younger ones were at community school, from which they will graduate at the end of eighth grade, and a beautiful baby granddaughter, some six months old. In her simple dress and little bonnet, she looked like a doll, perfect with fat baby wrists.
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