How I Came to Live in a Barn: Part 7

Ladies and gentlemen, you've made it––or you've cheated, respectfully––but either way, you've arrived! This marks the seventh and final installment of "How I Came to Live in a Barn," the series that strives to connect drinking to farming as relevantly as humanly possible.

If you're just tuning in, as a quick preface to this series, from April to December of 2010 I lived in a barn. No electricity, running water, losses to Morehead State in the first round of the tournament (Sorry, Cards fans), or losses to West Virginia in the second (Let's go, Jorts!). During that time I worked on a legitimately (though proudly uncertified) organic farm in Southern Kentucky. This series is about the many whims, fascinations and revelations that eventually inspired me to drop everything and go farming. This preface appeared at the beginning of the entire series, so I guess this marks the end of that, too. sad-face emoticon. Anywho, y'ready? Wunderbar

How I came to Live in a Barn: The Barn edition

You know how they say, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket?" Well, anyone who says that simply isn't romantic enough for me to listen to. I liked what I'd read about the place and confidently, I put all of my eggs in the their basket, never once looking back.


I learn best by experience, so immediately I ruled out going to farm school. I'd found Bugtussle on the internet, wishfully searching for biodynamic farms in and around Kentucky. Luckily, being the lush-ass area it is, natural farms abound in this part of the country. One word in particular appeared regularly in my searches––"Bugtussle"–– and the more I read about the place, the more it appealed to me. I wanted a farm either close to Louisville or close to Nashville; I wanted it to be diverse including both animals and vegetables; and I wanted to learn from someone doing something similar to what I wanted, and time and time again, my search results rendered the same farm.

Hoping for the best, I filled out the application, sent it off, crossed my fingers, and waited anxiously. I was in the book store when the phone rang and it was Bugtussle. Running out onto the busy streets that surround Union Square I nervously chatted with Eric over the sirens and horns. I couldn't believe how nervous I was, but I was also happy to be so; it meant I wanted this gig bad enough to know I could screw it up. We got along well, and he said that they required a farm visit before they could take anyone on, which I suspected, was fine with, and prepared for. After we got off the phone I booked myself a trip to Nashville, and this was that farm visit.

The driveway is a solid quarter mile of rocky dirt road, distinguished in the forest by a single, hand-made cedar mailbox. It looks nothing like any farm I'd ever entered. Guided by a thick tunnel of trees, you cross two low water fords––low most of the time. About halfway in, you pass a high tunnel on the left now, however at the time I passed its skeleton. There was a cow in my path that moved along unconcerned and leaped back into the neighbor's pasture when it saw me. As I pulled down the driveway, I could see smoke billowing out from the cabin's chimney, an outdoor kitchen and a stack of shiitake logs that told me I had chosen the right driveway in the middle of nowhere. Whew.

It didn't take long for me to warm up to the family. Eric and Cher are welcoming, intelligent, and curious, as are their 3 children. Eric and I had already spoke on the phone many times, and I had read most of what he'd recommended, including Joel Salatin's "Everything I Want to do is Illegal," and Gene Logsdon's "The Contrary Farmer" among others. We had some lunch, then set out to do chores––moving the livestock and such––then headed back down the hill to the house to warm up. It was January, and it was cold. That night it was supposed to get down to 20 degrees, and I can attest to the fact that it definitely did so.

He started me a fire in the wood-stove in the barn, where I'd be staying. My space is two rooms––one up, one down––a desk (down) and a bed (up). That's about it, besides the cookstove which was what I had to rely on for heat, that, and my ability to keep a fire going, or lack there of. At first, it was raging hot, then it was raging cold, and it stayed that way until 5:00am when Eric came over to the barn to get me. We had to move the chickens before sun-up, I was a solid block of ice. Despite my sleeping bag, layers and long-johns, it was still the coldest night of my life. I had failed at bundling, or keeping the fire going, two things I could do proficiently in New York (where the landlord keeps the fire going by law). Needless to say, when Eric came to get me, I was excited to get the blood flowing.

After we moved the chickens, we headed down to breakfast. Eric always says that you feed the animals before you feed yourself, and we never strayed from that. After some oats and fresh maple syrup, we tackled a few things on the farm––there was a snow storm coming and though he never feeds his livestock hay, he didn't want to starve them if the grass was inaccessible. So I tossed him bales for the first time in my life, and it was truly (and and little sadly) difficult. I lacked any and all form of farm muscle, the baling twine slicing through my soft, wine-shop-reared hands, and the simple act of tossing a bale off of a stack from about twenty feet up was just about enough motion to send me with it. Farming, he would tell me, is the materials handling business. I learned on the farm that you move a bunch of stuff around all day long and somehow, at the end of the week, food pops out. It's physical, then it's a miracle.


For lunch that day we had roasted pork with sweet potatoes and kimchi––all from the farm. I sat there at the table quiet, admittedly more exhausted than I wanted to admit. Eric ran out of the house and returned with a bottle from the cellar and sat it next to me. "Persimmon wine" he said, and smiled. This, I have to say, was the proverbial moment I moved into the barn. I made the kids a plate, then Cher, then Eric, then myself. Eric poured the wine. They wanted to know what I thought, and I, being a nerdy wine nerd, couldn't wait to taste it. It was unctuous, slightly oxidized and a little funky: like riesling, sherry and pears all had a feral son and it was called Persimmon Wine. And it was great. Alongside the pork roast, it was perfect even. I was elated, and (way too) excited that they drank––a legitimate fear I had going into this farming world. After lunch, they offered me the internship and they offered me that room in the barn if I wanted it. I said yes to both, then the six-year-old introduced me to all 200 hundred of his fish paintings and we spent the rest of the evening hanging out. 

When I left, I took with me both soreness and enthusiasm as a souvenir. I also took with me the fact that this was going to be harder than it was in my dreams. The gravity of moving away from New York City was compounded by the gravity of how incredibly different this lifestyle would be. And how incredibly difficult. And not just for a few days like this farm visit was, but nearly 8 months to a lifetime. Between the food, and the wine, and the return to my homeland, however, it all spoke to me. I had no idea if I was going to survive it, but I was sure as hell going to give myself a chance to die trying. That April, after nearly four years at September, three and a half years after my obsession with natural wine, and a year and a half after Hervé and Éric, I was moving into my barn. I passed 8 hard fought months in that barn, through the heat, the cold, the bugs and the bites, and come April 6th of this year, I'll be fighting 8 more, eating like a king daily. When Eric offered me a second year internship, I couldn't resist. The first year I dedicated to the experience, but I still have a long way to go. The second year will be dedicated to the education, which I'll do my best to apply to the rest of my life.

I like to think that my family––generations from now––will look back fondly on the story of how crazy ol' Grandpa Fraust decided to go farming all those years ago. Hopefully they will be reminiscing over a glass of persimmon wine, or paw paw wine, or blueberry wine from the farm I willed them, and hopefully they will still be farming it. Even if I didn't really have a damn clue how to farm when I moved into the barn, and it wasn't in my family to do so, I knew it had to start somewhere, right?

So that, my friends, is how crazy ol' Grandpa Fraust came to be, came to Kentucky and came to live in a barn. In a weird little nutshell.

I want to thank you all for reading, and to say go Cats (sorry, it's March, but seriously, go Cats!)! Thank you, and happy growing.

-Fraust