table talk / By Bob Doran

Juice and Permaculture

Finding fresh-squeezed bliss on a small farm

(Oct. 4, 2007)  Dave Feral pulls a handful of apples from a cardboard box and drops them into the hopper at the top of his cider press. As invisible whirling blades chop the fruit, he follows the apples with an equal amount of pears. Juice is already trickling into a glass pitcher from a wooden trough at the end of the press.

A curious woman peers into a window in the net enclosure that houses his juicing operation. It’s a busy Farmers’ Market, and his tent, marked with a banner announcing “raw juice,” is well situated, near the flagpole on the Arcata Plaza. Dave explains to the potential juice consumer that he’s making a batch of “Berry Bliss,” a blend of fresh-squeezed apple, pear, strawberry and blackberry juices that’s his most popular concoction. Would she like to try some? He takes a pitcher from the cooler behind him, fills a small plastic cup and hands her a sample. One blissful sip and she’s sold.

Dave Feral. Photo by Bob Doran

GALLERY >

All of the fruit that goes into the juice comes from Feral Family Farm, a plot of land not far from Blue Lake that Dave, his wife Autumn and their kids, Misha and Ray, call home. It’s not easy making a living from a small farm, but they’re making a go of it.

The Ferals moved to Humboldt County 10 years ago. Dave had entered the biology masters program at HSU, but at the same time, he explained, they were looking to put down roots. “We were searching for a piece of land where we could do our own sort of permaculture,” he said.

Dave talked as he led a tour of the farm from the strawberry patch past a greenhouse full of square flats of intensely green wheatgrass that to the untrained eye might seem like little lawns. As we approached a collection of small apple trees, he expanded on the notion of permaculture, a term coined in the ’70s by an Australian engineer/biologist, Bill Mollison.

“It’s permanent agriculture,” Dave said. “What that means is, everything you have on your farm is trapping energy and feeding everything else. So instead of buying feed for your chickens, you grow plants that produce seeds and nuts and fruits that you also feed to your chickens. The chickens return the energy to the soil via chicken tractors, mobile sheds that you move from one piece of ground to another. That adds phosphorus and nitrogen. The idea is also outlined in Michael Pollan’s book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma. It’s a model for sustainability.”

The piece of land Dave and Autumn found was not exactly a sustainable working farm when they bought it. It was the home of Dick Smith, a barber who grew fruits and vegetables on the side. “He sold kiwis and berries to the Co-op and grew apples, even took care of the neighbors’ trees,” said Dave.

The Ferals bought the place not long after Dick died. “He was up on his orchard ladder, felt weird, drove himself to Mad River Hospital and never returned,” Dave said.” It was kind of ghostly buying the place. Everything was left right where it was.”

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