A visit from Joel Salatin.

About twenty years ago, I first heard about Joel Salatin.

My niece mentioned to me in passing a gardening concept using wood chips (which has nothing to do with Joel), but in my pursuit of soil-healing gardening methods, I stumbled upon some of his writing.

Well, the discovery of his work proved to be a life-changing encounter for me.

I began to tell my husband all those years ago, I know Joel will come to Heritage Farm one day.

Now some of you will get that and some of you won’t.  (As with most of my blogs! Hahahaha! Sigh…)

For those of you who don’t know about Joel, saying he was coming to our farm one day would be kind of like saying…

The Boss is coming to your open-mic night…

or William Faulkner is going to have a look at your short story…

or Annie Leibovitz is gonna give you pointers on your new camera. 

(I know—Mr. Faulkner is dead, but you get the idea.)

Joel Salatin is a ROCKSTAR in the regenerative farming world. But it was just one of those things – a dream, if you will – that I held closely all these years. And through a series of unexpected events, that dream came true this month.

Joel Salatin came to Heritage Farm.

He stayed in our home, ate my some-what famous Louisiana Seafood Gumbo, met all of our family members, and he walked over our land, sharing his heart with us, and being gracious to let us share ours with him.

When discussing one particular matter, we were so thankful to hear him say, “I’ve met a lot of people, and you are far ahead of most.”  But then we smiled uncomfortably when he asked about one other method we were using here on our land, and to our answer, he replied, “Well, that’s not God’s way.”

Yikes. 

Correction received, Sir. 

What a gift to have someone care enough about what you’re doing to speak the truth. 

I grew up in church.  And then my callings had me behind pulpits a lot of my adult life.  All of that is wonderful, and I honor my heritage.  But I have discovered that prophetic voices shouldn’t be relegated to pulpits and life-changing messages shouldn’t be heard only on Sunday mornings.

This gentleman is a gift from God to this generation…a voice crying in the wilderness of the farming industry…an honorable man who has been brave enough to do things differently in the face of great resistance.

He is a voice of healing and stewardship and hope at a time when the food industry across the planet has been taken captive by the greed of man.

We bless him on his journey.  We will forever be helped by his time here with us on our little patch of heaven in NW Florida.

Hey Y’all…dreams really do come true…even for a plain-ol’ farm girl like me.

“That ought to be our stewardship mandate, to create Edens wherever we go. That’s why humans are here. Our responsibility is to extend forgiveness into the landscape.” 

― Joel Salatin, Folks, This Ain't Normal: A Farmer's Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People, and a Better World