Meet the Students: Loraine Wilder

Daniel Spiro continues his interview series with recent graduates from the School of Adaptive Agriculture.

On a Saturday afternoon in late summer, after spending the day with the SAA crew preparing for the annual Fundraiser Brunch, I sat down with practicum graduate Loraine for a chat. With a strand of pink hair, a perpetual and infectious joie de vivre and an energy that bubbles with curiosity, spunk, and drive, Lorraine talked about the long and interesting journey that brought her to Mendocino County and the SAA, her experiences here as a student, and her insight into what it means to get into farming as a profession at the age of 59.

            A registered nurse, Lorraine spent the last ten years working in hospitals in cities around the country, from Los Angeles to Boise, Idaho to San Diego. Prior to that she spent nearly two decades living around the world (“I’ve lived in Italy, Germany, Hawaii, Massachusetts, San Diego”), with her former husband, a physician and active duty military member, while raising two daughters. Her association with farming began in the last few years, but it seems to have always been a presence in her life.  

D: So Loraine, tell me a little bit about your history with farming. Did you always want to be a farmer?

L: I dated a guy in college whose uncle had an asparagus and tobacco farm in Massachusetts. This uncle wanted to bequeath it to the guy I was dating and I said, Come on, lets do that, that’s a great idea we can live on a farm and raise our children on a farm, and I had all these dreams about that. But he didn’t want the farm, he went to work on Wall Street and the farm got sold. And my mother was Quaker and she grew up on a farm, and as a child I loved hearing the stories about her life, churning butter and walking to school and helping her father in the field. But when she got married to my father she became a Presbyterian, and it was like she pushed that whole part of her life aside. So I feel like farming has always been trying to inch its way into my life.

D: And so you went from being a nurse to coming up here to farm? Talk about the decision to come up here.

L: Yes, I’ve just tried different places as a foundation for going to work and living my life, and after ten years I decided I don’t want to live in a big city anymore, I want to learn how to grow my own food and possibly have an urban farm. I do own a small house in San Diego, right by Balboa Park, and I do have a small tree farm in San Diego. And during the drought it just seemed ridiculous to have this house with two plots of grass being watered. I thought, why don’t we grow something here instead of watering grass.

I liked the idea of getting a couple of goats and a couple of chickens so I could provide eggs and milk for me and my family and possibly my block. It was exciting, but I didn’t know how to do any of that. I started doing it a little with a friend who knew a lot more and he was the guidance. He understood the microbiome of the soil, so we built up the soil, and he understood what to plant next to what. Using permaculture techniques, we planted a food garden and six dwarf fruit trees and within a year it was feeding the whole block. I think that spurred on my interest a lot. I thought, I want to learn more of how to do this and I don’t necessarily want to learn it by reading it in a book. And I didn’t want to get a permaculture certificate, I just wanted to live the life and see what else is out there.

D: And then you found out about the SAA?

L: My daughter, she’s 22 now, one day she mentioned to me this really cool Instagaram she found called the School of Adaptive Agriculture and immediately I was like, This is amazing let’s go! But she’s in college so she said can’t go until April 2019. But I decided I was going to quit my job and basically try to do this, which I did. And I got in and I got here and I knew, I think before I even got here, that I didn’t want to leave.

D: Has your nursing background influenced some of your thinking about farming?

L: The Western medical system is really great for some things. It’s really great for diagnostics and if you break your arm hopefully you’re going to go to an emergency room and have someone set it and cast it, and likewise for other illnesses. But in general Western medicine is focused on prescribing some kind of pharmaceutical, and doesn’t do anything involving nutrition. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen hospital food but in general it’s just processed packaged genetically modified food. Green jello. To me that seemed like the most unnatural thing in the world and when I learned about the school I also learned that Howard hospital up here has their own garden and that’s what started to turn me on. I thought wow if I can get a job with that hospital and learn with the school that would be an ideal life. So that part plays a part in my thinking about farming.

And I do love helping people. I get a lot of satisfaction out of helping people. And on a farm people are always getting hurt, injured by scythes or pulling muscles or other things; there are things happening and that’s just been a cool side role to administer some care. This was never part of a plan (laughing), but luckily I’ve had compliant patients here.

D: How have your thoughts and ambitions about farming changed since you got there?

L: I work for Tequio farm every Saturday and I love learning market farming. I think it’s a great skill to have if you’re doing anything with farming. But I definitely decided pretty early on that I don’t want to be a market farmer, it’s just not where my passion lies. Green Uprising is one of the farms we visited on one of the many SAA field trips, and the minute I saw her (Sara Grusky) milk those goats, I thought Wow I really really want to learn this! And she was excited by my passion, and they created an internship for me. They’ve been homesteading there, I think this is year eleven, and they have just so much knowledge, I think it’ll take years to absorb it all.

So, actually, I learned that I love livestock. Specifically goats and chickens. The field trips just really opened up my world to what’s out there. And also the school totally gives you the opportunity to take care of these chickens a couple mornings a week before school, and for some reason I was drawn to the live animals more than the lettuces.

Now it’s a matter of figuring out how to make money doing this. We’re all in the same boat. It’s almost like watching and waiting, like who’s going to be successful first, and that’s a weird way to put it, but in the real world a marker of success is being able to pay your bills and pay your mortgage. But that journey is fun too. Every day I’ve got wheels turning about all I could possibly do, like why I can’t I grow alfalfa for a living, or what if I breed goats for a living.

D: So you’ve found your time with the SAA fruitful?

L: Definitely, I just feel so supported here. The other really awesome thing about this school is the open honest direct respectful communication platform. And the nonviolent communication. It’s just really beautiful because it makes it easier to open up to each other, and support each other, and feel other, does that make sense?

D: It certainly does. Any last things you’d like to share?

L: I just want to say that one of the most important things is that it’s not about being young in numbers, it’s about having a passion for farming and being supportive of this type of community. Really, it’s about bringing your enthusiasm, whether you want a change of life, or to add to your repertoire in growing your own food, or getting better at taking care of livestock. It’s really important for anyone out there to not be thrown off by the word ‘young’ in any descriptions of the school or sustainable farming, because young is a state of mind. I’m 59, and I feel very blessed that I’m my age and I’m physically healthy and I’m strong. At this point I’m game for anything.