Community Profiles

Sheila, the horses, and Sara at Earthly Mirth

Sara Brown, a woman who's lived half her life in Northern California and the other half in the Ithaca area, says she got into farming in her early twenties when she learned how to farm with draft horses. "After that," she says, "farming just really came together."

And beautifully so. In Brooktondale, on land owned by Debbie Halpern and Eric smith, Sara runs Earthly Mirth, an organic farm where all of the plowing, cutting, and other tractor work is done by draft horses.

"I'm not really a tractor person," she says. "I like that I have a relationship with the horses."

Her ten-year-old daughter, Sheila, loves the horses, too, but not necessarily all the muck that comes with them. When we went to photograph Sara and Sheila with the horses, Sheila went barefoot rather than run and put on some shoes, and then let us know how disgusting it was to traipse through it.

"Just wash your feet off with the hose," Sara said.

Sara, who had been cutting the tops off of garlic throughout our interview, said that although the work takes longer with horses than it would with a tractor, she just accepts it as how long it takes. And besides, farming with the horses fits in with her belief in sustainable farming.

"Its way more sustainable than a tractor because we're not using fossil fuels, and the horses can reproduce," she says. In fact, of her three horses, one is being bred right now. Also, in the winter, the horses eat hay from within ten miles of the farm.

Regardless of spending a bit more time with the horses farming, she also farms a smaller plot and only takes her produce to the Saturday Farmer's Market, rather than trying to do all four that are available in Ithaca, or even two.

"Part of my goal is to not spend all of my time farming," she says. "At this point, I'd say I work four full days per week, although that's spread out over the whole week."

She has help, too. Three other adults work on the farm two days a week and do one Farmer's Market per month in exchange for housing and as much food off the farm as they need for personal consumption. Another friend lives on the property year round and works one day a week on the farm.

Earthly Mirth's biggest crops are garlic, onions and potatoes. Sara also grows a lot of greens, herbs, and root vegetables like turnips, beets and rutabaga. "I don't get into a lot of the vegetables you see at Farmer's Market, like eggplant, squash, and tomatoes," she says. "Although we grow all of the vegetables we eat."  

The garlic she was cutting she sorted into piles by size, and some of them will be replanted for next year. Some of the garlic she will braid for a huge garlic festival next month in Saugerties.

So what does she do besides farming? Sara teaches yoga on Mondays, and home-schools Sheila. In the winter months, when there's not much to do outside except take care of the horses, she teaches more yoga classes, including some at Ithaca College.

"I'm very grateful that farming has enabled me to be home with my kids," she says. "I just need to be able to do other things as well."

She also has an eighteen-year-old son, Morgan, who just started college at TC3. "I keep saying to myself, 'I have a son in college,'" she says with some incredulity.

Looking out at the farm, she smiled. "This time of year is just the best," she says. "We have tomatoes, corn—just an abundance of fresh vegetables right now. Sometimes we sit down to dinner and realize that the only food on our plates that isn't from our yard is the rice."

Amazingly, they are able to keep eating fresh greens throughout most of December. Kale and collards, she explains, are pretty hardy vegetables, and if they are planted early in a greenhouse, you can have them most of the year.

At the height of the growing season in Ithaca, it's hard to imagine those frozen winter months when you can't remember the taste of a tomato. When I asked her if she cans, she replied "Not much anymore." Instead, she opts to dry her tomatoes, and freeze other vegetables like corn and beans, to last throughout the winter.

You can look for Earthly Mirth produce at the Saturday Farmer's Market in Ithaca. Sara is usually there with Sheila. In addition to root crops and lots of garlic, you can sample her pesto for sale at the market.