Words by Ren Lezeu, Photographs by Bronte Edwards
On a pleasantly overcast Saturday, attendees of the 2nd Annual Flock Together Festival gathered at the historic Ridgewood Ranch just south of Willits, California, to enjoy a day of farm festivities. Aimed at “blending the grit of agricultural work with the joy of community gathering,” Flock Together brought work and merriment into the same space for people of all ages to enjoy. With various activities, demonstrations, and performances going on throughout the day, there was something for everyone to take an interest in.
Amid the buzz of electric shears and the bleating of sheep, the day kicked off with live sheep shearing demonstrations led by Ruthie King, owner of Headwaters Grazing and a member of Fibershed’s Climate Beneficial Program. The shearing created a continuous backdrop for the rest of the day’s events, which included sheep herding, wool felting and spinning demonstrations, as well as an equipment parade. Flock Together also brought local food and fiber into conversation with each other. Ruthie’s flock of Navajo Churro and Icelandic sheep, in addition to providing grazing services, was the source of both wool and meat at the festival as well as at different markets throughout the year. In the context of the festival, Headwaters Grazing represented the overlap between sustainable, regenerative food and fiber production, which in a world that often considers sheep good for either meat or wool, felt wonderfully refreshing.
I spoke with Ruthie during a moment of rest when she wasn’t shearing sheep or coordinating with others to keep the festival running smoothly, and she described the incredible sense of community and support at the heart of the ranch and its many operations. While the School of Adaptive Agriculture — an intensive farming vocational program that can trace its roots to the Grange organization which began in 1867 — brought Ruthie to the ranch, she said it was the “history of this place and the culture of participation, working together, and support for each other” that kept her there. Looking at the cluster of people gathered around the fleece sorting table working quickly so they could receive the next freshly shorn fleece, I could see the kind of teamwork needed to have a successful shearing day. With a smile reflecting the pride she felt, Ruthie asked me if I had seen the bathroom trailer. “It started as a junky RV,” she explained, “and they peeled it apart down to the frame, and they’ve been working on it from sunup to sundown for two weeks. They pulled it in at 10:03, or something like that,” she said with a laugh. The community had a goal, and by working together they met that goal and created something functional and beautiful for others to use.
“Service is one of the core values here; service to the land, to each other, and to our surrounding communities,” Ruthie said, reflecting my own thoughts on the selfless service I was coming to acknowledge as the backbone of Flock Together and Ridgewood Ranch. Seeing the different projects together at the festival put that sentiment into perspective, and the community-provided lunch exemplified that culture of community work and participation. The whole operation, sourced locally and largely by those living and working on the ranch, consisted of a delicious variety of home-grown crops and farm-raised meat; black turtle beans from Santa Rosa, rice from Willows, and meat and vegetables aplenty from Headwater’s Grazing and Black Dog Farm came together to create a harmonious meal that fully embodied the values of cooperation and conviviality espoused by Flock Together.
“The community here is a really rich work, service, togetherness type of community,” said Ruthie when I asked her about what made Ridgewood Ranch so special. “Work is a way for us to practice our values together,” she added before addressing something that resides at the heart of agricultural work. “I think a lot of agricultural projects have found their home here because agriculture has to be done in community, you can’t do it alone. You burn out. You just can’t do it alone. Agriculture is meant to be done with support.” Another member of the ranch community, Rachel Britten, owner of the Mendocino Grain Project, also spoke to the need for support and collaboration, recounting how lonely it was when she first started out. “You’re alone a lot of the time, so agricultural work can be quite lonely and isolating,” she said, but then explained how that all changed once she tapped into the culture of support fostered by the ranch community.
Both Ruthie and Rachel’s projects share facilities on the ranch, which means they get to check up on each other regularly. “We get to see what the other is doing and what they need help with,” said Ruthie. On the greater ranch community, she explained how “we live nearby, we work nearby; we try to have a healthy balance between work and life, but we also love our work, so they’re just intertwined.” It is precisely this passion for work and life that wove throughout the festival and created such a lively, joyful space. When the equipment parade rolled through, set to the old-timer fiddle tunes of The Baybillies, it became even clearer what Flock Together was really about. “Agriculture is not only work, but culture,” said Ruthie, smiling at the gathering, and for someone who had only ever experienced agricultural work from the sidelines, I finally understood.
The festival created a space where it became possible for people outside the agricultural community to see a physical representation of the connections shared by those on the ranch. Seeing the Mendocino Grain Project’s grains and legumes being sold alongside Ruthie’s flock’s wool and meat made the possibilities of the local land tangible. Attendees got to hear the sheep, smell the fresh grass and the smoke from the wood fire, and taste the meat, grains, and vegetables grown and raised by the resident projects. Flock Together was altogether an immersive, enlightening display of community work, shared values, and agricultural grit wrapped up in a jubilant celebration of all of those things. Flock Together demonstrated the power that comes from a group of people working together to pull something off, to make something happen, and to do it all with care and compassion for one another.