Dog Days Farm began at Tracie’s Community Farm. My name is Jack Rixey, and I am the owner and operator of Dog Days Farm. I managed Tracie’s Community Farm for 7 years before being asked if I would like to buy the property.

I first arrived in New England for college. I grew up in Annapolis, MD and still visit family down there throughout the year. My mother is a masseuse and my father worked for the Maryland State Legislature, as well as maintaining a large vegetable garden. The first jobs I ever had were at restaurants that bought my dads lettuce, cucumbers, and tomatoes. Those jobs helped me avoid working for dad in the garden, and he’ll be the first to tell you his surprise that I wound up a farmer.

I studied Sociology and Spanish at Marlboro College right outside Brattleboro and graduated in 2014. In my years at Marlboro I was able to study abroad in Argentina for a semester, and follow along with my advisor on a school trip to Spain in my senior year. Again, there was not much farming, although I did visit a few vineyards.

Farming first started to enter my periphery when I got a job at the Brattleboro Retreat in 2014 after graduating from school. The retreat is among the ivy league of mental health hospitals, and revolutionary in its approach to patient care, particularly in integrating iteself with the town of Brattleboro. A working farm was formed on the property that patients could work on, and through it connect with the larger community

.

It was in March of 2015 that I decided I wanted to become a farmer. I took a week off from work at the retreat to travel to Kearney, Nebraska with my dad to witness the migration of sand hill cranes. This is an annual occurrence where 80% of the worlds cranes converge upon a 40 mile stretch of river to feed and bulk up before finishing their spring migration north. There are hundreds of thousands of cranes in every field nearby the river, and we would drive through farm country watching them feed all day. Along with me on the trip I had a copy of Wendell Berry’s “The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture” that was given to me by a friend. I was swept up by his words while being among the farms that feed North America and realized I wanted the life he worries is disappearing. Berry believes farming is a cultural asset that is under threat by our estrangement from the natural world and production of food. I returned to Brattleboro to finish out a year at the retreat, and set my sights on working for a farm within a year.

I found that farm in northern California working and living with a retired couple in the heart of the Avenue of the Giants. I had driven west with a friend of mine from college and was living in Olympia, WA. I met Kate and Wes through a friend and would travel down to stay with them while helping out with winter projects. Wes is a retired private detective and Kate is a ecologist. I would soak up all of the information they had to offer when it came to farming and the natural world.

I was living between Olympia and Redway, CA when I met another friend that had been working on Tracie’s Community Farm and was planning on going back in the spring. She mentioned that they were hiring and its proximity to Brattleboro, where I had previously lived, and I decided I was ready to head back east to continue working on farms in New England. The first two years at Tracie’s I worked under and learned from Kristen and Sarah Wilson—long term members will remember them as the farm managers preceding my own tenure. We had a tight, hardworking crew, and those first couple of years will always be part of my mental image on the farm. Sunny, full of laughs, hard work, and beautiful veggies. I often think back to those times.

My second year in, Kristen and Sarah announced they would be departing at the end of the season to pursue another farm related career. I knew then that the void they would leave was one I wanted to fill. I was young, inexperienced, and I can say this with great clarity now, completely naïve to the demands of running a vegetable farm, but I was also determined, willing to accept failure as I learned, and surrounded by an incredibly supportive community.

The first few years managing Tracie’s I leaned heavily on those around me while I found my footing in a new position on the farm. I never got to work with Tracie in the field, by the time I arrived Tracie had already welcomed her youngest, Pierce, into her life and no longer managed the farm day to day, but we spent hours on the phone in that first year as I asked about past practices and pitched future ones. I met other CSA farmers, Craig and Megan of Sun Moon Farm, Gene of Hungry Bear Farm, and Kim and Frank from Hillside Springs, to name a few, and would pick their brains at every chance I got. It turned out to be quite a few as we organized monthly work parties on our farms that year, and in that first fall when the farm was drowning in weeds and I was unsure if I could ever make it as a farmer, they came and weeded entire swaths of the farm. Five years later and we still visit our farms once a month in the growing season to lend a hand to our so-called competitors.

Towards the end of my second year managing Tracie’s, Tracie approached me about purchasing the farm from her. She had recently welcomed Laurel, her second child, into the world, and had not worked on the farm in over 5 years, but at that time I wasn’t prepared to step into such a role. Tracie next asked the neighbors, Tom and Mary Frazier of Elephant Rock Farm, the farm that Tracie’s land used to be a part of before it was “Tracie’s.” Tom and Mary jumped at the opportunity to reconnect the two pieces of land, and as has since been revealed to me, hold on to the land until I was ready to purchase it myself. I cannot express my gratitude enough for them to have done so.

Thus, Dog Days Farm was created as I transitioned from being a manager on the land to being a manager of the land. Tracie’s had a rich history both on this land and in the community. The foundation that Tracie built, her principles and practices, are alive on the property that Dog Days now inhabits.

Dog Days Farm mission is to grow fresh, healthy produce for our neighbors and friends. We believe in hard work, passion, progress, and providing for one another so that everyone can enjoy eating locally and with the seasons.

I chose the name Dog Days Farm because of how it represents farming’s relationship with the past. The phrase “dog days of summer” has its origins in antiquity, when the Greeks and Romans believed that the hottest days of the year were brought on when the brightest star in the night sky, Sirius or “the dog star,” rises with the sun in mid-July. Farming is full of phrases which harken back to the past, it is the product of millennium of progress and innovation. I like to think that Dog Days Farm will be a continuation of what was already built on this property, and be able to carry on the legacy left by Tracie’s Farm.

The rest of the story has yet to be realized!