chickens – Community Farm Alliance

by Sister Kathy Curtis

Kelly Scott has always wanted to be a farmer. She grew up as a city girl in Pikeville where her parents were business owners, but her grandparents farmed. “They were miners but they always had a little plot of land for a garden. My grandmother cooked and grew and saved everything and I wanted to do that.”

Scott got her chance when the family moved back to Kentucky to her husband’s home place with two hundred or so acres on Joe’s Creek in Pike County. Most of their land is mountainous but they have “about four acres of flat land, which is a lot in our area”. Scott’s husband Dean, who grew up working in the garden, isn’t always as excited about all the work that goes into farming, saying he already did that. “But I haven’t” remarks Scott.

When asked how she finds the time to work a garden, raise chickens, grow food for her family, and teach full time, she admits that she has to let some things go. “You learn from your mistakes. You plan a lot and do what you can.”

In 2014 they grew enough to feed her family, put up and give away but it wasn’t enough. “By February we were out of pickles and beans. We just didn’t grow enough”. This year the Scott’s are slowly adding to their garden with the addition of cold frames and a greenhouse so that in the fall they can extend their growing season into the cooler months and grow more food.

Scott teaches biology and environmental science at Pikeville High School, passing on her passion for the environment and growing and cooking real food. She wants her student to learn about the world they are inheriting. “I want them to know why it’s important to buy local and grow their own food. And to be able to pronounce everything they eat.”

Her passion for teaching her students about food means that every year she shows the documentary Food Inc. to her classes. They also incubate chicken eggs each year. In fact, that is how she ended up raising chickens herself.

“One year we had a little too much water in the incubator. I came into class one morning and all but one had drowned.” Her students named the survivor “Lucky” and the entire student body came to her lab to get a peek. Scott brought Lucky home, bought some more pullets to keep it company and has been incubating eggs ever since. This year the class had better luck, hatching 15 of the eggs.

Scott is also the faculty advisor for Teens Who Care, an offshoot of the school’s Personal Responsibility in a Desirable Environment (PRIDE) Club. In 2014, Pikeville High School had a team that went all the way to finals in the state Junior Chef competition. After that, so many kids expressed an interest in learning how to cook that twice a month students gather in her classroom before school to get cooking tips. Several of those students were in the 2015 Pikeville High School Cooking Team who recently won the regional competition with their taco bowl.

“We’ve created the taco bowl recipe with brown rice and black beans and homemade seasonings for the ground beef. We even make homemade salsa.” The students hope to get their recipe approved for use in the school kitchen. They have been asked to cater events locally.

From incubating chickens and creating recipes in the classroom to making home-made seasoning mixes and “waxed paper”, environmental education is key to Scott. “Knowing what is in the food we eat is important”, says Scott. “Do we really want to be a science experiment?”

That’s food for thought, especially coming from a science teacher.

By Sister Kathy Curtis

Zack and Chris own Steele Farm and Mill, a small sawmill and vegetable garden on Bee Fork in Prestonsburg, Kentucky. While sawmills have been in Zack’s family for generations, growing food to sell at the Floyd County Farmers’ Market is a fairly new enterprise for the couple.

Chris first heard about the farmers’ market from her daughter. “Kari said that some people were putting together a ‘friends’ group for the farmers’ market and she thought I might be interested.” It was at that meeting that Chris first thought about selling eggs.

Chris, who is from England, has always had a garden. “I have been gardening since I was big enough to hold a trowel,” she says. She raised chickens a couple times while raising her three children and one day her youngest suggested that she get some more. When he went off to college, Chris and Zack found themselves with an over abundance of chickens.

“That first year I just took the eggs. I would sell them all in a couple hours and then go home,” says Chris. One of her regular customers asked her if she would still sell them after the market closed in October and soon Chris found herself delivering eggs once a week to the local college.

When asked why she thought her eggs sold so well, she remarked that besides the fresher taste her eggs were actually cheaper than the grocery store. “I use feed that has no hormones or antibiotics in it. A couple of my customers buy them because of that. And some people just like brown eggs better than white.”

The winter before her second market season, Steeles started thinking about what else they could sell at the market. Items from the sawmill like firewood and garden stakes were a new
addition, as well as baked goods.

The State of Kentucky has a little-known process in place for small farmers to add value to their crops through micro-processing. Chris went through the process to become a certified home-based processor and was then able to sell zucchini and pumpkin breads and tomato basil sourdough bread. “You have to use something you grow as a main ingredient, so I grew tomatoes, basil, zucchini and pumpkins and made my breads. Everybody seems to like them,” Chris reports.

For Chris the Floyd County Farmers’ Market is more than an income generator. “It’s good to have that money coming in, especially when Zack’s job at the mines slow down. But there is more to it than that. It is social with the vendors and customers and all. And it is really neat to bake something that so many people absolutely love.”

Chris Steele believes in the Floyd County Farmers’ Market so much that she has accepted the leadership role for 2015. As Executive Committee chairperson she hopes to grow both the vendor and customer bases as well as bring in more community partners. “We have been chosen to participate in

Community Farm Alliance’s Farmers’ Market Support Program again this year. Our goal as a market is to become a legal entity and work toward getting a permanent structure for the market.”

Last year the new thing Chris tried was growing ground cherries and fava beans. This year she plans on growing the market. She knows that she can’t do it alone but she’s willing to tell her story. “Who knows? There might be someone out there that is so pleased with the market they might be willing to help.”

Breaking Beans: The Appalachian Food Story Project is an initiative of Community Farm Alliance to tell the story of how local food and farming in Eastern Kentucky can contribute to a bright future in the mountains. For more on the project and the Alliance, visit cfaky.org.

Tag: chickens

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