My Granny spent her childhood running barefoot, playing in hay fields and learning the ins and outs of poultry care on the family’s 100+ acre pastured egg farm in Petaluma, CA. There was a boom – or maybe it was a bust – but in the ‘60s, the egg industry moved east. Fast forward to 2005, Granny’s great-grandson, Jake [my son], took on a 4H Poultry Project. He started with three day-old-baby chicks, raising them at his Grandmas house and caring for them before and after school. Turns out, chicken math is a real thing because I turned that itty-bitty flock of three into 300+ chickens within two years.

And eggs? Needless to say, we had a lot of eggs. This newfound love for chickens transformed the barn and pastures into a “poultry paradise” and, to my husband’s surprise, quickly took over his garage and workshop too. Soon after I bid farewell to my cushy desk job on the 22nd floor of the Federal Building in San Francisco. I traded in my department store suits and heels for all things chickens: straw in my hair, eggs in my pockets and an endless array of organic grains, herbs, and seeds to enrich the growing flock.