It all started at a dinner table in a huge castle in the hills of Tuscany, Italy. Yeah, really.
I (Taylor) went to Italy to learn to be a butcher. I had worked with livestock a lot in the previous year and it always puzzled me that we had such an intimate connection to the animals we raised until we sent them off to be slaughtered. The meat just came back in pretty plastic packages and we didn’t have to see any of the processing, didn’t have to grapple with the most difficult part of this industry. As a former vegetarian of five years, I wrestled with this gap, so I went to Italy to learn for myself.
He went to Italy to learn how to raise pigs. Ryan was a vegan for ten years prior that trip. He came to the program and was assigned to work with a mentor named Marcellino, who became a close friend and teacher. Ryan would learn how to build pig fences in the dense oak forest, feed and monitor the pigs every day, and load them up for processing when they were ready. He knew that there was a method of agriculture that gave animals a happy and healthy life and he went to see what that was all about.
I sat down at the table on day 1 and he sat next to me. Turns out we lived 20 minutes away from each other in Colorado and here we were.
The next three months would consist of long road trips to hidden corners of Tuscany and many late nights eating delicious food and drinking natural wine trying to patch together Italian with our friends.
We parted ways last summer while Ryan continued working for The Farmette in Lyons and I worked at a ranch outside of Aspen, but we stayed together and decided to plan a trip to Chile for the winter to get more farming experience. Off we went on another adventure full of Chilean craft beer, making waffles for tourists, incredible mountain views, clipping arugula, and lots of longaniza sausage.
While in Chile, we had been in communication with some people who had purchased a house and property on Apple Valley Road in Lyons. It turns out they were very excited about regenerative agriculture and leasing the property to us when we returned. Although we didn’t really plan to start a farm so soon, this was the opportunity of a lifetime. The land desperately needed some TLC and we had learned from books, conferences, and our time as apprentices that we had the tools to restore it.
We chose the name Long Table Farmstead because it was a name I had in the back of my head all these years while farming. I had heard the quote,
“When you have more than you need, build a longer table, not a higher fence.”
We wanted a name that conveyed our commitment to our community and welcoming everyone to the table, especially in a time when our country feels so divided and disconnected. This 2019 season, we plan to raise over 600 meat chickens (we call them “broilers”) about 10 pigs, 35 turkeys, and 10 sheep. We are dedicated to practicing intensive rotational grazing with our chickens and poultry in order to utilize the animal impact in a positive way that restores life to the pasture. Our pigs will be in the wooded area where they can root in the forest soil to their hearts’ content. The idea is to use the philosophies of Allan Savory, Joel Salatin and many others who say that our ecosystems evolved with animal impact and through proper management, we can utilize animals to restore our grassland and forest ecosystems.
Our website, www.longtablefarmstead.com is coming soon and that’s where you can find information on how to buy our meat or come visit the farm!
