At the border of Marin and Sonoma County lies a sweet 9-acre homestead with chickens, goats, 2 livestock guardian dogs, a large vegetable garden ringed with almond and fruit trees and native plants.
Our welcoming and gracious hosts, Amy and Peter, have been consciously co-creating their land since 2000. Amy jokes that her old persona “Condo Girl” is now dead, now that her hard-won knowledge of gardening and ranching has filled her days.
Their nine chickens live in a luxury 3-story chicken tractor and a run they call the Russian Chicken Circus. They also roam freely around the property.
They have 3 Nigerian dwarf dairy goats named Cookie Dough, Buckminster, and Princess Moonspot who provide them with fresh milk so rich it tastes like vanilla ice cream.
Soon, a friend will loan them a mama sheep and two young lambs to train their 5-month-old guardian dog puppy, Buddy.
The “back 40” has incredible views of the Petaluma river and is occasionally rented for rotational grazing of cattle. Peter said that even though the land looks dry and barren right now, it’s actually teeming with a variety of animals including: moles, voles, gophers, rabbits, and mice.
The potluck dishes were amazing! We had breaded beef liver on raw dandelion greens, fermented chickpea/fava bean flatbread, homemade turkey sausages, salad with sungold tomatoes, bacon and blue cheese, eggplant dip, fresh corn and tomato salad, a variety of raw cured olives from Good Faith Farm, and three desserts (almond cookies, fudgy coconut flour brownies and peppermint-scented coconut snow balls with hempseed). Amy’s homemade kombucha was served, too.
By Karen Hamilton-Roth