There are times, once your passion has become your business, that you have to go back to your roots. Doing a personal assignment can fill up your creative soul again when you lose touch. So, being a farm girl way back in the day, I chose to do some documentary photography at a working, humane farm in Nicasio called Devil’s Gulch. I spent the day just roaming about. Learning about the rabbits, watching the pigs and piglets and stumbling into the Silky chickens in the most random of places.

I was utterly exhausted at the end of this day.

I was up before the sun, which those that know me know this is way out of character. I chose this as a self assignment to nurture my soul. It is a working farm and vineyard and I happily say a humane and organic farm. Silky chickens roamed free and laid eggs in the most random of places. Sows and their piglets rested in spaces filled with straw and an open door to the outside or heat lamps when they wanted to sleep. Rabbits that one day would be on the tables of diners at French Laundry were named and loved by their caretakers. Rocky, the baby bunny, was born missing an ear and mom chewed off his leg as the weakest to destroy him. Rocky is always going to have an easy home and life at this farm. This is farming the way my family did it and if only every animal had this experience I think some humanity would come back to humans. We’ve become distant from what gives us life and value, respect and understanding have diminished because of this. I think it should be a mandatory outing for kids to go to working farms and get in touch with what will one day become their food.