Some guys buy a Porsche 911 when they turn fifty, but we’re buying a farm. It’s been a minor obsession of mine - and a few other friends and relatives who will go unnamed to save the innocent - who send Trulia links all day, back and forth, of vast acreage in California towns we’ve never heard of. Our wives are probably convinced we’re texting dirty pics to one another of bulging-breasted golf influencers (I mean, I’ve seen those), but nope. We spend our days fantasizing about getting away from our desktops and tending to the land as our forefathers… didn’t? I mean none of my family were farmers; when my mother’s relatives came here from Denmark, they opened a bakery and got involved in politics (my great-grandfather was the first Democratic elected attorney general of South Dakota). So, those who will no doubt call me a Latte Liberal when they see me walking around town in my overalls probably have a point. Though, like many (or a latte) folks (…sorry) these past few years, my political sensibilities are leaning somewhere toward the center. Is wishing to be taxed less a gateway to conservatism? Anway… Jen’s got the pedigree. Her family rode a covered wagon from the Oklahoma Dust Bowl to California. Landing in Signal Hill and opening Clark’s Feed in Long Beach. Her dad was a movie cowboy, too, and a Marlboro Man on top of that.
There is something about this life that we’ve been doing on a small scale in Orange County, California, since Covid that just can’t be beaten. The farm fresh eggs we’ve been getting for nearly two decades are catching everyone’s attention, and the goats outside our place, wandering around the bottom of our property, are a neighborhood hit. I joke with our visitors that I thought I was becoming a farmer, but I’ve really become the owner of a petting zoo - especially with all the saint Bernards we rescue running around the place. So, why go bigger? Why dive deep into the agrarian life when so many other middle-aged folks we know, whose kids are off to college and starting to move out, are we tying ourselves down instead of freeing us to roam the earth like Kane in Kung Fu?
We get asked a lot. By our friends shaking their heads. Why make more work and not less for ourselves? There are a few reasons, but the first is meeting the Broadhurst. The couple who currently own the farm we’re buying up in the Central Coast. They are 80 years old, but you would never believe it. Like us, they got into farming late in life. Actually, Mr. Broadhurst grew up on a farm and has a PhD in Molecular Biology - not a necessity of being a farmer, but my guy is a guru on the orchard, feeding his fruit trees on a steady organic diet of minerals and microbes. So, while we both started our journey around the same age, they were on much firmer ground science-wise (Mrs Broadhurst is also a scientist). But where they are most inspiring is just looking at them. They don’t look like they are in their eighties, they pick their own fruit and work their own markets with the help of a single worker, Feliciano, who we too will be relying on for help with the thirty-two acres of orchard and farmland. They are able-bodied as we say in our latte circles, and Jen and I can’t help but blame it on the purpose and effort they exert on the farm. They are using their muscles and minds and spending their days interacting with folks at the markets. It’s clearly keeping them young. The alternative, Jen and I watching six hours of television each night between cruises around Alaska, sounds relaxing but miserable. I’d probably be fine doing that. I’m a homebody who likes nothing more than lying in bed with my wife, but that won’t keep her happy. The good news is we enjoy each other, whether sitting on the couch or fermenting 500 lbs of cabbage. Right, Jen…? Jen?!
Thirty-two acres. I can barely manage the one and a half we currently care for with its forty fruit trees, half-acre vineyard, goats, saint bernards, and chickens. Our good friend and business partner (this is how one affords 32 acres, btw, with partners. The Biggest Little Farm says as much.) did the math, and he figures with five acres of avocados, five different varieties, we’d yield somewhere between 50-80k avocados a year. Now you must be seeing it, right? Why it doesn’t seem that crazy? This doesn’t include how many oranges, grapefruit, apples, pluots, and blueberries occupy nearly another twenty acres of space. We will be overrun with fruit in the spring and summer, and (here’s my pitch!) if you are willing to subscribe to my weekly journal, this substack, I will keep you abreast of how drowning in citrus feels in real-time.
This leads us to another question our family and friends have: are you quitting the film business? the answer is no. I have a few scripts currently in development, and the skateboarding film Brad and I wrote now has a director and a few producers, including Tony Hawk, attached. That said, I intend to document our struggles and successes on film. Still, I’m guessing it will mostly be the funny shit I usually post on Instagram because once a comedy writer, always a comedy writer. It’s hard work being serious when you don’t have a serious bone in your body. And trust me, I’m sure you’ll see me cry and scream. If anyone knows how to eradicate poison oak, hit me up because it’s abundant in the summer up there. I’m already dreading that episode. Hopefully, the writers’ room will keep that complication on a shelf for season two, but you now know it’s a real threat! Plant the bomb under the table, Hitchcock said, and you’ll literally watch people talk about anything, waiting for it to go off.
Anyhow, welcome to Stardust Grove. I hope you subscribe and join us on this journey that will undoubtedly be a peach, hon.
— Sandy
