Wolf Hill Farm

As it turns out, instead of visiting a campy attraction after leaving our motel in Ames, we went to Main Street in search of a decent cup of coffee. We ended up spending hours luxuriating at a local coffee shop with good food and a fascinating mix of people. Ila and P. took a long walk on Main making friends with the local merchants while I absorbed the personality of the town through about as diverse a crowd as you can get when there are only white folks. An upright, well hair-sprayed bible thumper, a bearded man about 6’5” with huge knockers, more of those wholesome college students, and a couple of moms and dads straight out of Berkeley... old, young, gay, straight, preppy, hippy. We stayed for coffee and lunch taking turns giving Ila some fresh air and wandered into a superb toy store. It was 2 pm when we finally pulled away, now unable to stop at any of our kitchy stops (though it turns out several were closed anyway – guess November isn’t the high season around here). We did the math and realized we’d be doing the one thing everyone had instructed us not to do – arriving at the farm after dark.

And we didn’t know from dark! With overcast skies and no moon, it was pitch black at 5:15 when we pulled up to Caroline, Christopher and Emma’s farmhouse at the end of a long gravel drive. But even so, we could see that the farm wouldn’t disappoint. The front porch was lit and decorated with a scarecrow, pumpkins and cornstalks. Our headlights illuminated Christopher, flashlight in hand, on his way to check on the sheep. We were herded in for tea and within a few minutes were joined by Caroline and Emma back from school and work. The girls ran off to play while adults caught up, then P. and I poked around the sweet, comfy house. The ladybug infestation we’d been warned about seemed to have abated, though there were stragglers in every room crawling sluggishly by windows and ceilings. The house was cozy too, not freezing, though the temperature, at least initially, was in the balmy upper 30’s and nothing to complain about in the first place. After a hearty meal and late bedtimes, we snuggled in under a pile of blankets.

In the morning we woke to lowing cows and more grey skies. Ila says we left the sun in our neighborhood and that he’s lonely. I’m sure there’s more to that than just the change of weather. I feel it too. I’m missing our home a little more every day. Feeling adrift. But at the same time, it’s fun, and eye-opening. I feel more relaxed than I have in a long time.

We were introduced us to the ewes – twelve docile, nearly tame girls. In a frank, farm girl way seven year-old Emma told us that her parents had planned to butcher Blue Girl until she had twins and proved her worth. As for her twin brother Blue Boy, he was the soft skin on the floor in our bedroom. Chickens, she told us, hadn’t worked out because the mink got them. Even the babies who were just old enough to start roaming on their own.







It felt good to be at the farm. Caroline, Christopher and Emma work hard to maintain a lifestyle of relative simplicity and environmental responsibility, and as guests, we had a chance to feel like we were doing the same. Everything from grazing the animals to washing the dishes is done in a careful way. One afternoon I hung laundry in below freezing weather, while Peter and Christopher shoveled sheep poop for use in next spring’s vegetable garden. Both Caroline and Christopher grew up with English influences so the days were marked by a series of decadent meals: breakfast, elevenses, lunch, tea and supper – usually followed by more tea and sweets. Christopher told me that Caroline once said you could tell it had been a good day if there were no clean mugs left at bedtime.

It’s hard to capture the feel of the place without making it sound cliché. You can browse through a book like Weeds of the West, or The Complete Guide to Skinning and Tanning. Or you can turn off the electric fence and go hang with the ewes. You could walk the 80 acres of forest and grassland or drive a lazy road dotted with silos, barns and crooked farm houses. We took a day trip up alongside the Mississippi to see the tundra swans during a stop on their migration and discovered beaver dams and eagles nests. But it wasn’t all purty all the time. It happened to be the beginning of a very brief deer hunting season and we took a risk walking through the wildlife preserve. Yes, they hunt on wildlife preserves.

Leaving the farm we passed truck after truck filled with orange-capped hunters and topped with dead deer. Almost more gruesome were the trucks with tops over the beds. You couldn’t see the deer, only tell-tale streaks of blood on the tailgate. Peter drove strategically to avoid upsetting Ila who was under the impression that the hooves she saw sticking up out of a pickup belonged to a deer who was just sick and going to the doctor.

Now we're at a fleabag motel with a shuffleboard court somewhere in Indiana. A far cry from the romance of the farm, but one step closer to the next part of this scheme.

Here's Peter on the farm:
Across the Mississippi River from La Crosse, Wisconsin, is La Crescent, Minnesota. My eldest sister Caroline has a farm there. La Crosse means “the Cross” and La Crescent means “the Crescent.” I’ve always had a pretty good ear for French.
When you pull up you see a beautiful white farmhouse, some farmy type buildings, but the product is unclear. A dried up patch of corn the size of a volleyball court, a row of grape vines, then you hear them and looking up you realize that you are being closely watched.
It’s a sheep farm. Organic, sustainable, pretty small. Twelve ewes, and a ram named Adonis. The idea is to sell to local co-ops, groceries and restaurants. Like lots of farmers, Caroline and Christopher have other jobs. Caroline works for a land stewardship program with an ever-dwindling staff. Christopher is a substitute teacher. Emma, their seven year-old daughter goes to a small school a few miles away.
So while Caroline and her family wait for some good smart restaurants to open and for the world to start thinkin’ different, they plug along much like the rest of us. Except that unlike the rest of us, they’re actually putting their money where their mouths are.
Plus, my sister who does work that’s important to her and to everyone, and everyone’s kids is in great shape, a really good artist, has been a journalist, cooked on boat on the Hudson River and served for the Peace Corp in West Africa the entire time I was in college (longer than the standard four years!). She’s got about three master’s degrees and she owns and works with her husband and daughter, this boss-bitchin’ picturesque farm in Minnesota. I’m talking quiet-on-the-set picturesque, and while she can’t use it towards sustainable reusable dollar bills, she certainly has my respect and admiration for the way she lives her life.