Dave Krabbe and fiancé Kathryn Spann were inspired to buy the buses after seeing a bus lying fallow in a nearby field. Goats can be quite the divas, Spann explained, and it's rare to pasture raise them subjected to inclement weather, among other things.
They gutted the interior, and then blocked off the driver's seat - "So they can't drive the bus into town to get ice cream," Krabbe said. "They are sneaky."
Spann and Krabbe's Prodigal Farm embodies what much of the local food movement is about: passion, drive, and at times surprising decisions.
Spann, 43, was an attorney, and Krabbe, 56, built homes for "Wall Streeters," before moving to Durham County. The couple met in New York City seven years ago, and within a few years had both burned out.
Spann grew up in downtown Durham. Krabbe had always wanted to farm. Both were already big foodies, and the 97 acres they bought in 2007 is where Spann has deep family roots.
They are not alone in this path. A quick email sent to the Durham and Carrboro Farmers' Market managers resulted in nearly a dozen examples of local farmers who were not born into this trade, or even born in North Carolina.
When Bon Appétit magazine named Durham-Chapel Hill (yeah, I know they are two different entities) "America's Foodiest Small Town" back in 2008, much of that had to do with our farmers, and how it is as much a calling as any profession that requires a lot of risk, and heart.
Up at Prodigal Farm, within a few months of buying the land they had a few goats given to them by friends to help clear the long-abandoned pastures - but they fell in love with said goats and their initial plan to raise pigs went by the wayside.
Loving the goats led to breeding the goats, and then they managed to rescue a large number from a farm whose owners were getting divorced. For a while they milked about half-dozen by hand, but when the numbers grew Krabbe put his construction experience to work and built a pristine, state-of-the-art milking parlor.
A friend had shown them how to make cheese on their stovetop, and then Spann took a cheese-making class at NCSU. Thanks to a program unique to North Carolina, they were loaned a pasteurizer for their first year - a big money saver, they said.
Spann now makes all sorts of bloomy rind cheeses as well as your basic, and not-so-basic chevre. They were certified by the state last fall, and have since been selling cheese (and bread made from the whey) at The King's Daughters Inn in Durham, as well as the State Farmer's Market in Raleigh.
The Durham Farmers' Market did not accept new applicants this last year, but I am personally hoping to see Prodigal Farm setting up a booth in the very near future. Come on - they LIVE in Durham County!
The couple say they put to use the same skills they needed in law, and construction, on a daily basis. Navigating the state and county agricultural certifications, lobbying for the conservation easement of local farmland, and restoring the numerous out buildings on the aged property (they currently live in a double-wide while restoring the main farmhouse) make them feel like their backgrounds are (finally, perhaps) paying off.
In fact, thanks to Spann's lobbying energies, just last month the N.C. Agricultural Development and Farmland Preservation Trust Fund granted Durham County the money needed to make Prodigal Farm a perpetual conservation easement.
"This farm will never, ever, ever, be turned into a housing development," Krabbe said, which will make the land more affordable for the next generation of farmers. "It was always be a farm."
Their days are long, and they don't get any time off. Stinging nettly weeds and poison ivy are always an issue, and they find themselves having to act as veterinarians to their herd more than they ever imagined.
But the couple seems about as truly happy as any I've ever come across. And they are upgrading to a pasteurizer that is four times as large as their starter in a about two weeks, which will vastly improve their quality of life - not that they were complaining.
Send your local food and dining news to Elizabeth Shestak at eshestak@mac.com
Source http://www.thedurhamnews.com/
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