April 2, 2020 • 21 mins
As we hit the one month mark for the growing COVID-19 pandemic, we find both increasing uncertainty and devastation, but also small things to find some hope in—the CARES Act to provide emergency assistance and health care response for individuals, families, and businesses affected by the 2020 coronavirus pandemic will provide some relief and means that some folks in the restaurant industry may get to reopen. But the hospitality industry is just that—an industry, with supply chains and connections which reach further than the dining room and the kitchen. So this week I'm talking to Molly Chester. She's co-founder, farmer and chef at Apricot Lane Farms in Moorpark, California. Her and her husband John are dedicated to biologically diverse and sustainable farming and I wanted to find out how this pandemic was affecting their work.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
I'm Hugh Atchison, and this is another kind of episode
of the Passenger. It's been pretty weird in my industry
this week yet again kind of three and a half
weeks into this nonsense, and uh, it's a pretty scary
pandemic out there. I equated two restaurants just being the
(00:26):
first line that fell pretty quickly because we had to
to ensure public safety, so we took the hit. The
CARES Act is going to help immensely. A lot of
us will get back open. A lot of people just
have lost interest in the industry. That's really hard in
normal times. But as I look at the coronavirus COVID
(00:48):
nineteen global cases by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering,
which is the Johns Hopkins site that updates UH pretty often,
You've got eight d eighty seven thousand firmed cases. A
lot of people dealing with us in different ways. CDC
is pretty much now mandating that you probably should wear
a mask. Um, let's talk about rubber gloves, Latex gloves.
(01:13):
They're there for safety, but as in restaurants, they only
work if you treat them like gloves and your conscious
of what they've touched. They don't protect everything if you
touch a surface that's got stuff on it, you might
as well not be wearing gloves at that point. So
you just gotta keep going to be smart. Um we
(01:34):
have ways uh in systems at the restaurant right now.
Empire State South is my only restaurant that's operational doing
pretty lavish to go food. And then a really big
system of with an amazing law firm up the street,
and with the Blank Family Foundation, we've been feeding first
responders and a lot of people in the medical community.
(01:54):
So first response or first responders being the police officers,
an ambulance and all those nine on one response people
um SO, and then doctors and nurses and hospital workers
and all those people are on the front lines who
are right now our heroes. They are our army, and
we need to keep them nutritionally fed. Now, the big
(02:16):
thing about you know, you can always deliver a pizza.
I love pizza too, but in this time, I think
people who work sixteen to twenty hours shifts need nourishment.
And the big thing about food and what I do
every day is that we nourish people. And that's cooking
food with heart and it's safe and good for them
(02:37):
and give some energy and spirit and that they know
is made by a human who cares about them. And
I think that's the most important thing we can do
right now. Still checking on my neighbors, the elderly women
across the street's good, gotta some toilet paper the other day,
you know, I gotta keep them, keep people uh having
(02:58):
what they need. The Chinese graduate student who's very quiet
next door, he's safe and sound check on him every
other day or so from afar, kind of yelling into
his window, very nicely yelling, but just still yelling. It's
really interesting to me the economic impact that chatting down
the hospitality industry has. And we don't think about the
(03:20):
tentacles of of an economy, and the economy of restaurants
and hospitality is like fifteen million employees in the United States.
We account for like four percent of GDP in the country,
so it's pretty huge. But then when you really spread
out the tentacle, it's one of the things that were
really concerned about. His farms, and a lot of the
farms that we deal with are are people we know
(03:42):
and people we know well in the community and around
Athens in Atlanta, and who work really hard and the
majority of what they raise, and uh, you know that
they harvest goes to restaurants, and so west restaurants are
dark and only buying immediate supplies and emergency supplies to
feither people or to can make simpler to go food. Um.
(04:04):
Oftentimes the farms that are uh such amazing sustainable and
organic places, they're getting squashed right now. So we're gonna
call somebody in a little bit um who is a
very good friend and a wonderful human and that's Molly Chester.
And Molly runs Apricot Lane Farm in Moore Park, California,
(04:28):
just over the hills north of Los Angeles, and she
and her husband John john Chester did an amazing documentary
recently called The Biggest Little Farm that won a ton
of awards and accolades. And it's a wonderful documentary that
you can go online and get and and watch or
rent or whatever and stream. Um. But you should go
do that because it shows the impact and the the
(04:50):
amount of work that it takes to really do do
diversified farming in America today on a small scale and
be successful in it. But Molly and On Johnson documentary
filmmaker as well, and he did the whole film himself
and Molly runs the farm with John and they're just
amazing people and really it should be an interesting call.
Let me get Molly Chester on the phone. We're gonna
(05:12):
go and talk about how this crazy pandemic is affecting
small farms that do amazing Molly Chester, you're on the
phone from Moore Park, California. How are you, hi, Hugh.
(05:33):
I'm doing well. How are you? I'm getting through days?
It seems like everything is different every day and it's
like just dealing with newfound things I've never had to
deal with before. Yeah. No, that's the honest response, because
that's pretty much what we're doing over here too. It's
it's grueling. Okay, let's talk about what Apricot Lane Farms
(05:55):
does because a lot of the listeners won't understand the
diversity involved. Um, but they can always go watch Biggest
Little Farm, which is the most amazing documentary about the farm,
about Molly and her husband John. But Molly, tell me
about what the farm does in the diversity that's inherently
important to you guys. Yeah. So, um, we are two
(06:16):
and fourteen acre biodynamic and organic farm and um, really,
as a sum total, it's we practice regenerative farming, so
it's looking at our farm as an ecosystem and trying
to figure out how that we can build fertility and
create fertility from the inside out. And uh so, then
(06:37):
animals become a really big part of that because we
use their manure as fertilizer and UM it's very very diverse,
which is kind of the key to UM preventative with
making sure our microbes have enough diversity to be healthy
and happy. And in that diversity, it's very complicated, which
(07:00):
makes a time like this a little extra nuanced for us.
So you guys raise a lot of fruit and originally
the the area was really no for avocados, and you've
got about eight or million different types of avocados on
the property. What's coming into harvest right now, Well, the
half season just started, so that's a big majority of
(07:21):
our trees and UM we we do those very well.
It's something that we're known for. And really one of
the keys is that you focus on the soil, but
then you also wait to harvest them for when they're ready,
because so often they get harvested in January, they aren't
anywhere near to the oils being developed. So UM we
(07:42):
wait until the very last week in March to do that.
So they are coming in and lemons are here right now,
and we have sold out so quickly on meat that
we're going to have to face UM some some more
slaughter to restock that, but that will be a slow
process with everything going on. Yeah, that's interesting. It's like
the organic firms in Georgia have been to impacted because
(08:05):
they've lost the review of restaurants predominantly, but I think
on the other side, they're still having vast successive farmers
markets if they're planned right. So what initiatives there are
you guys taking a farmer's markets to ensure safety. Yeah,
that's really the the hard part. UM. We have changed
our stands to be a um where people walk up
(08:28):
and they request what they want and then we bag
it up for them and so no customers are touching
the produce and we're using gloves and keeping it as
sanitary as we possibly can. UM. Thankfully, my sales um
manager is a former chef, so cross contamination and things
like that come very naturally to him, so he was
(08:50):
able to really look at it from that perspective and
we ended up setting the tone for other farmers in
the region who switched. There's to that kind of white
walk ups of us as well, which was great. Yeah,
I think we're all walking Hassett plans now, mitigating disease
at every step. Yeah, what's what's the I mean the
(09:11):
percentage of restaurants sales that you had before? I mean,
what have you lost or any of them still ordering?
We actually because our farmers market operation gained popularity so much,
we UM we ended up we don't have a lot
of restaurant sales. We have a little bit, but we're
able to redistribute that food if needed. And UM our
(09:32):
farmers markets have been going strong. So from a sales perspective,
it's really UM been okay. It's just been a huge
hardship on our team UM because of all the different
measures we've had to put in place on the farm
and it's just it's it's scary for them. We're managing emotions.
UM so much for all of us about how to
(09:54):
do this best. And then even though we have every
safety measure in place, it's a very courageous UM team
member to work those farmers markets because you are interacting
with the public. Yeah, in in the realm of things
that have happened to your area in the last five years,
given droughts and uh fires and now a pandemic um
(10:18):
what comes next locusts, Oh my gosh, I know it
feels like that, and you know it is. This is
definitely for our team. It's been the most emotionally difficult
because of all the loss that you feel. It's just
the loss of connection. We're all people that focus on
building microbial populations and we don't sanitize. That's the opposite
(10:43):
of who we are. Defense is not something that we
naturally slide into, and so that's been very grueling for
us to figure that out. However, the silver lining is
that nature John likes to my husband, John likes to
say nature is still open and it is very much so.
The solace that you feel by being on a farm
right now, whether it's a bit um of optics or not,
(11:07):
is because you still have people and you're still interacting.
It feels very good to go on those walks these days,
as I know everyone feels and knows in their own homes,
and it brings you closer to nature because there's such
an appreciation for the safety that that's providing. Right now. Yeah,
it's it is really interesting. So in in the regular
(11:28):
day to day operations the farm and the biodynamic I mean,
biodynamism is a big circle. I mean it's it's you're
feeding into it to get results out of it. Um.
So what are these hurdles that you're seeing now given
the pandemic. Well, just the fact that we've had to
completely restructure our team because we do have animals to
(11:50):
feed and plants to at least water at a bare minimum,
and if the coronavirus happened to UM, happen to one
of our team members on the farm, with the different regulations,
we'd end up having to quarantine anyone that that person
came into contact with. So we've had to really put
our heads together and come up with a system that's
going to be implemented this coming week, UM, where we
(12:13):
have an A team and a B team so that
they're switching off weeks so if we do have a challenge,
it doesn't take down everything that's needed to just make
us safe with feeding those animals and taking care of
the trees. So that's been very difficult and all of
our forward progress, as I'm sure everybody feels, um we're
dealing with this collective grief, and you just can't be
(12:36):
in a state of UM progress and spearheading right now.
So we've had to scale back to UM really maintenance,
and that is a loss for us because it's springtime
right now and everything that you know, this is go
time for farmers. You can literally feel the buzz of
the earth when spring comes. And now we just we
(13:00):
we don't have the team members here. We can't focus
on the fertility in the ways that we ordinarily would.
We aren't UM able to build more composts in the
ways that we always are, so we're going to feel
the repercussions of this for long after it's over. Yeah,
it's funny that the the team would be I mean,
because the nature of taking care of animals is so constant.
(13:22):
It's kind of like it's one team, so you can't
just kind of have a breakout scenario of saying you
can't isolate one person really that easily. I was talking
to Hosanis the other day about, you know, how this
is going to go and how they deal with in
Wuhan eventually. You know, if if the pandemic gets that
bad here, then my idea is to take all of
my cooks and deliver them supplies to their house. They
(13:43):
each make meal through fifty people a day, and we
get those out of the neighborhood. Somehow say because well,
because we have to unit like put individual units, because
then one cook goes down, it's okay that we can
get them out of the chain. Um. I think it's
kind of borrowing from like terror cells. But hey, maybe
(14:03):
it's good organizational spirit that they have. UM it is,
that's an interesting perspective, and it is forcing a different
type of um patchwork community that probably will have some
positives when we get to the other side of this.
But it's so um isolating. I think so too that
there are some positives that come out of it. I mean,
(14:26):
I think that the way we think about feeding people,
the fact that I go to the regular grocery store
and see the dry denial totally barren right now makes
me proud somewhat that maybe America is understanding and can cook,
which is really important, as you and I know we
think that they don't really. Jose Andreas also said this
(14:47):
is really interesting. He's like, we talk a lot, and
he's an old friend, but he was he was just
like you you give timtnso blentels to an old Italian
woman with two handhocks and they'll feed everybody. She's like,
we don't do that in America, and I was like, yeah,
I know, but I think maybe you're being proven wrong now.
So I think that there's good things, you know. I mean,
(15:08):
I'm checking on my neighbor now, the elderly woman who
lives across the street, and we've waved each other before,
but now we're on a first name basis, and we
talked from a twelve foot distance each day, and I
go and get her supplies. And I talked to my
Chinese graduate student neighbor on the other side, who is
very quiet guy, and I was just worried about him,
(15:30):
so checked on him and got him some food. And
you know, so I think that you can get this
distanced community'd be even tighter than it was smartly. And
that's really that's good. Tell me about the success of
the documentary. That was a wonderful success and um it
so it was in twenty some countries around the world.
(15:52):
The coronavirus did affect a few of the rollouts. Japan
had this beautiful launch plan and it literally happened as
Corona started, so that put a dampener there. But UM
in the United States it was very successful. We the
last set of tours, which now have been canceled, so
again there's kind of positive negative. But we UM this
(16:14):
spring we rolled out our first couple of tours and
first couple. We have some v I P tours too,
and we put all those up on the website and
we sold it was something like eight d seventy five
tickets in seventeen minutes, so it definitely has helped the
exposure for regenerative agriculture. The people that are into the
film are the most wonderful group of individuals. They're all
(16:38):
so inspired, so lovely, and so it's actually been quite
a joy. So people, that's biggest little firm. And you
can get it. Where where can you stream it? So
I know it's on Hulu, I know it's on the
paid streaming services like Amazon things like that, and I
it's not on Netflix in the United States, it is
(16:58):
in some other countries, but it is so every everybody
can get it. And people, you've got a lot of
time these days and watch a great documentary that's award
winning and depicts Apricot Lane Farm, which is one of
the most beautiful places full of beautiful things that I've
ever been to, so it's a good place to be. Well, Molly,
(17:18):
thanks for filling us in on your world and how
this affects you, and we wish you good luck and
best to all your crew. Thank you very much you
and best to you guys down there in Athens too.
I'm Hugh Attriston. You're listening to The Passenger from my
Heart Radio. We'll be back after this quick break. I'm
(17:43):
Hugh Atchison. This is the Passenger. I still want to
talk about other impacts that we're doing and what you
need to think about in this world of how you
help restaurants UM. A lot of chefs have been asking
me for advice and chiming in with different ideas, and
there's a lot of sharing on social media of what
what's working and what's not. A lot of us have
(18:04):
put our hearts into trying to create small to go
offerings and depending on the how many regulars you have,
how big your city is, maybe that's sustainable and maybe
it's not. For most people, it's probably not. UM. Selling
gift certificates is is a good way of helping restaurants
out and buying them a good way of helping up places. Um,
But I'm shying away from that a little bit because
(18:26):
I just don't want all the gift certificates. We use
the money to pay salary, payrolls and um insurance and
rents and utilities and all that in the interim and
while we're closed. But I don't want to spend all
that money and then haven't come back and gift certificates
of money that I've already spent when we reopened in
the first two weeks, because that kind of terrifies me.
Then we'd have no cash. But I've been doing very
(18:51):
sort of uh I think a relatively smart thing. I'm
selling advanced caterings so people in the next two years
can set a day and I will come to their
house and cook for tend to forty people and on
their cutler and their silver and their plates and whatnot.
With their glassware. They provide the beverage, but I just
bring all the food, and um, my amazing chef friends
(19:13):
who works for me, Sam Herndon, and I would will
will cook an amazing five course meal. And it's amazing
how benevolent people and generous people are in these times,
there's a lot of stuff that comes out um where
people do not act as good citizens. But man, for
the most part, people are freaking awesome and they really
(19:34):
rise to the challenge, because we need to rise the
challenge right now. This is a pandemic that that we
can we can squash if we're smart. And but it
looks like it's going to take a pretty heavy toll. Um.
I the older sisters being self quarantine right now. Um
so it lives in California. She's got good health care,
(19:57):
so we're not to worry. But you know, show us
so as diabetes and uh, that's a hard previousting condition
to to work around with something that's ah that's got
pretty sudden onset like OVID nineteen. So but we'll keep
you informed on how that goes. I I'm living on
a positive note these days, just try to get by,
(20:19):
trying to support my people. My kids came over the
other day and we hung out. They've been actualating for
their mom's house, which is like three blocks away, but
they came over with Kaitan and has roasted chicken, hung
out talk for a while. So it was good. You
gotta feed your people, nurse your people. You've been listening
(20:41):
to The Passenger. This is the production of I Heart
Radio created by Hugh Atchison and Christopher Hassiotas, were produced
and edited by Mike Johns. A researcher is Jescelyn Shields
and Christopher Hassiotas as our executive producer. Special thanks to
Gabrielle Collins, Crystal Waters, and the rest of the crew.
(21:01):
If you like The Passenger, leave us a review on
Apple podcast It helps other people like you. I'm the show.
If you're a local and you want to let me
know what I missed and where should go on our
next visit, Or if you've recently been a Passenger like
me and want to share your experience, hit me up
on Instagram and Twitter at Hugh Atchison. Well more podcasts
(21:22):
from my Heart Radio. Use the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Thanks for listening.
I'm Hugh Atchison, and this is another kind of episode
of the Passenger. It's been pretty weird in my industry
this week yet again kind of three and a half
weeks into this nonsense, and uh, it's a pretty scary
pandemic out there. I equated two restaurants just being the
(00:26):
first line that fell pretty quickly because we had to
to ensure public safety, so we took the hit. The
CARES Act is going to help immensely. A lot of
us will get back open. A lot of people just
have lost interest in the industry. That's really hard in
normal times. But as I look at the coronavirus COVID
(00:48):
nineteen global cases by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering,
which is the Johns Hopkins site that updates UH pretty often,
You've got eight d eighty seven thousand firmed cases. A
lot of people dealing with us in different ways. CDC
is pretty much now mandating that you probably should wear
a mask. Um, let's talk about rubber gloves, Latex gloves.
(01:13):
They're there for safety, but as in restaurants, they only
work if you treat them like gloves and your conscious
of what they've touched. They don't protect everything if you
touch a surface that's got stuff on it, you might
as well not be wearing gloves at that point. So
you just gotta keep going to be smart. Um we
(01:34):
have ways uh in systems at the restaurant right now.
Empire State South is my only restaurant that's operational doing
pretty lavish to go food. And then a really big
system of with an amazing law firm up the street,
and with the Blank Family Foundation, we've been feeding first
responders and a lot of people in the medical community.
(01:54):
So first response or first responders being the police officers,
an ambulance and all those nine on one response people
um SO, and then doctors and nurses and hospital workers
and all those people are on the front lines who
are right now our heroes. They are our army, and
we need to keep them nutritionally fed. Now, the big
(02:16):
thing about you know, you can always deliver a pizza.
I love pizza too, but in this time, I think
people who work sixteen to twenty hours shifts need nourishment.
And the big thing about food and what I do
every day is that we nourish people. And that's cooking
food with heart and it's safe and good for them
(02:37):
and give some energy and spirit and that they know
is made by a human who cares about them. And
I think that's the most important thing we can do
right now. Still checking on my neighbors, the elderly women
across the street's good, gotta some toilet paper the other day,
you know, I gotta keep them, keep people uh having
(02:58):
what they need. The Chinese graduate student who's very quiet
next door, he's safe and sound check on him every
other day or so from afar, kind of yelling into
his window, very nicely yelling, but just still yelling. It's
really interesting to me the economic impact that chatting down
the hospitality industry has. And we don't think about the
(03:20):
tentacles of of an economy, and the economy of restaurants
and hospitality is like fifteen million employees in the United States.
We account for like four percent of GDP in the country,
so it's pretty huge. But then when you really spread
out the tentacle, it's one of the things that were
really concerned about. His farms, and a lot of the
farms that we deal with are are people we know
(03:42):
and people we know well in the community and around
Athens in Atlanta, and who work really hard and the
majority of what they raise, and uh, you know that
they harvest goes to restaurants, and so west restaurants are
dark and only buying immediate supplies and emergency supplies to
feither people or to can make simpler to go food. Um.
(04:04):
Oftentimes the farms that are uh such amazing sustainable and
organic places, they're getting squashed right now. So we're gonna
call somebody in a little bit um who is a
very good friend and a wonderful human and that's Molly Chester.
And Molly runs Apricot Lane Farm in Moore Park, California,
(04:28):
just over the hills north of Los Angeles, and she
and her husband John john Chester did an amazing documentary
recently called The Biggest Little Farm that won a ton
of awards and accolades. And it's a wonderful documentary that
you can go online and get and and watch or
rent or whatever and stream. Um. But you should go
do that because it shows the impact and the the
(04:50):
amount of work that it takes to really do do
diversified farming in America today on a small scale and
be successful in it. But Molly and On Johnson documentary
filmmaker as well, and he did the whole film himself
and Molly runs the farm with John and they're just
amazing people and really it should be an interesting call.
Let me get Molly Chester on the phone. We're gonna
(05:12):
go and talk about how this crazy pandemic is affecting
small farms that do amazing Molly Chester, you're on the
phone from Moore Park, California. How are you, hi, Hugh.
(05:33):
I'm doing well. How are you? I'm getting through days?
It seems like everything is different every day and it's
like just dealing with newfound things I've never had to
deal with before. Yeah. No, that's the honest response, because
that's pretty much what we're doing over here too. It's
it's grueling. Okay, let's talk about what Apricot Lane Farms
(05:55):
does because a lot of the listeners won't understand the
diversity involved. Um, but they can always go watch Biggest
Little Farm, which is the most amazing documentary about the farm,
about Molly and her husband John. But Molly, tell me
about what the farm does in the diversity that's inherently
important to you guys. Yeah. So, um, we are two
(06:16):
and fourteen acre biodynamic and organic farm and um, really,
as a sum total, it's we practice regenerative farming, so
it's looking at our farm as an ecosystem and trying
to figure out how that we can build fertility and
create fertility from the inside out. And uh so, then
(06:37):
animals become a really big part of that because we
use their manure as fertilizer and UM it's very very diverse,
which is kind of the key to UM preventative with
making sure our microbes have enough diversity to be healthy
and happy. And in that diversity, it's very complicated, which
(07:00):
makes a time like this a little extra nuanced for us.
So you guys raise a lot of fruit and originally
the the area was really no for avocados, and you've
got about eight or million different types of avocados on
the property. What's coming into harvest right now, Well, the
half season just started, so that's a big majority of
(07:21):
our trees and UM we we do those very well.
It's something that we're known for. And really one of
the keys is that you focus on the soil, but
then you also wait to harvest them for when they're ready,
because so often they get harvested in January, they aren't
anywhere near to the oils being developed. So UM we
(07:42):
wait until the very last week in March to do that.
So they are coming in and lemons are here right now,
and we have sold out so quickly on meat that
we're going to have to face UM some some more
slaughter to restock that, but that will be a slow
process with everything going on. Yeah, that's interesting. It's like
the organic firms in Georgia have been to impacted because
(08:05):
they've lost the review of restaurants predominantly, but I think
on the other side, they're still having vast successive farmers
markets if they're planned right. So what initiatives there are
you guys taking a farmer's markets to ensure safety. Yeah,
that's really the the hard part. UM. We have changed
our stands to be a um where people walk up
(08:28):
and they request what they want and then we bag
it up for them and so no customers are touching
the produce and we're using gloves and keeping it as
sanitary as we possibly can. UM. Thankfully, my sales um
manager is a former chef, so cross contamination and things
like that come very naturally to him, so he was
(08:50):
able to really look at it from that perspective and
we ended up setting the tone for other farmers in
the region who switched. There's to that kind of white
walk ups of us as well, which was great. Yeah,
I think we're all walking Hassett plans now, mitigating disease
at every step. Yeah, what's what's the I mean the
(09:11):
percentage of restaurants sales that you had before? I mean,
what have you lost or any of them still ordering?
We actually because our farmers market operation gained popularity so much,
we UM we ended up we don't have a lot
of restaurant sales. We have a little bit, but we're
able to redistribute that food if needed. And UM our
(09:32):
farmers markets have been going strong. So from a sales perspective,
it's really UM been okay. It's just been a huge
hardship on our team UM because of all the different
measures we've had to put in place on the farm
and it's just it's it's scary for them. We're managing emotions.
UM so much for all of us about how to
(09:54):
do this best. And then even though we have every
safety measure in place, it's a very courageous UM team
member to work those farmers markets because you are interacting
with the public. Yeah, in in the realm of things
that have happened to your area in the last five years,
given droughts and uh fires and now a pandemic um
(10:18):
what comes next locusts, Oh my gosh, I know it
feels like that, and you know it is. This is
definitely for our team. It's been the most emotionally difficult
because of all the loss that you feel. It's just
the loss of connection. We're all people that focus on
building microbial populations and we don't sanitize. That's the opposite
(10:43):
of who we are. Defense is not something that we
naturally slide into, and so that's been very grueling for
us to figure that out. However, the silver lining is
that nature John likes to my husband, John likes to
say nature is still open and it is very much so.
The solace that you feel by being on a farm
right now, whether it's a bit um of optics or not,
(11:07):
is because you still have people and you're still interacting.
It feels very good to go on those walks these days,
as I know everyone feels and knows in their own homes,
and it brings you closer to nature because there's such
an appreciation for the safety that that's providing. Right now. Yeah,
it's it is really interesting. So in in the regular
(11:28):
day to day operations the farm and the biodynamic I mean,
biodynamism is a big circle. I mean it's it's you're
feeding into it to get results out of it. Um.
So what are these hurdles that you're seeing now given
the pandemic. Well, just the fact that we've had to
completely restructure our team because we do have animals to
(11:50):
feed and plants to at least water at a bare minimum,
and if the coronavirus happened to UM, happen to one
of our team members on the farm, with the different regulations,
we'd end up having to quarantine anyone that that person
came into contact with. So we've had to really put
our heads together and come up with a system that's
going to be implemented this coming week, UM, where we
(12:13):
have an A team and a B team so that
they're switching off weeks so if we do have a challenge,
it doesn't take down everything that's needed to just make
us safe with feeding those animals and taking care of
the trees. So that's been very difficult and all of
our forward progress, as I'm sure everybody feels, um we're
dealing with this collective grief, and you just can't be
(12:36):
in a state of UM progress and spearheading right now.
So we've had to scale back to UM really maintenance,
and that is a loss for us because it's springtime
right now and everything that you know, this is go
time for farmers. You can literally feel the buzz of
the earth when spring comes. And now we just we
(13:00):
we don't have the team members here. We can't focus
on the fertility in the ways that we ordinarily would.
We aren't UM able to build more composts in the
ways that we always are, so we're going to feel
the repercussions of this for long after it's over. Yeah,
it's funny that the the team would be I mean,
because the nature of taking care of animals is so constant.
(13:22):
It's kind of like it's one team, so you can't
just kind of have a breakout scenario of saying you
can't isolate one person really that easily. I was talking
to Hosanis the other day about, you know, how this
is going to go and how they deal with in
Wuhan eventually. You know, if if the pandemic gets that
bad here, then my idea is to take all of
my cooks and deliver them supplies to their house. They
(13:43):
each make meal through fifty people a day, and we
get those out of the neighborhood. Somehow say because well,
because we have to unit like put individual units, because
then one cook goes down, it's okay that we can
get them out of the chain. Um. I think it's
kind of borrowing from like terror cells. But hey, maybe
(14:03):
it's good organizational spirit that they have. UM it is,
that's an interesting perspective, and it is forcing a different
type of um patchwork community that probably will have some
positives when we get to the other side of this.
But it's so um isolating. I think so too that
there are some positives that come out of it. I mean,
(14:26):
I think that the way we think about feeding people,
the fact that I go to the regular grocery store
and see the dry denial totally barren right now makes
me proud somewhat that maybe America is understanding and can cook,
which is really important, as you and I know we
think that they don't really. Jose Andreas also said this
(14:47):
is really interesting. He's like, we talk a lot, and
he's an old friend, but he was he was just
like you you give timtnso blentels to an old Italian
woman with two handhocks and they'll feed everybody. She's like,
we don't do that in America, and I was like, yeah,
I know, but I think maybe you're being proven wrong now.
So I think that there's good things, you know. I mean,
(15:08):
I'm checking on my neighbor now, the elderly woman who
lives across the street, and we've waved each other before,
but now we're on a first name basis, and we
talked from a twelve foot distance each day, and I
go and get her supplies. And I talked to my
Chinese graduate student neighbor on the other side, who is
very quiet guy, and I was just worried about him,
(15:30):
so checked on him and got him some food. And
you know, so I think that you can get this
distanced community'd be even tighter than it was smartly. And
that's really that's good. Tell me about the success of
the documentary. That was a wonderful success and um it
so it was in twenty some countries around the world.
(15:52):
The coronavirus did affect a few of the rollouts. Japan
had this beautiful launch plan and it literally happened as
Corona started, so that put a dampener there. But UM
in the United States it was very successful. We the
last set of tours, which now have been canceled, so
again there's kind of positive negative. But we UM this
(16:14):
spring we rolled out our first couple of tours and
first couple. We have some v I P tours too,
and we put all those up on the website and
we sold it was something like eight d seventy five
tickets in seventeen minutes, so it definitely has helped the
exposure for regenerative agriculture. The people that are into the
film are the most wonderful group of individuals. They're all
(16:38):
so inspired, so lovely, and so it's actually been quite
a joy. So people, that's biggest little firm. And you
can get it. Where where can you stream it? So
I know it's on Hulu, I know it's on the
paid streaming services like Amazon things like that, and I
it's not on Netflix in the United States, it is
(16:58):
in some other countries, but it is so every everybody
can get it. And people, you've got a lot of
time these days and watch a great documentary that's award
winning and depicts Apricot Lane Farm, which is one of
the most beautiful places full of beautiful things that I've
ever been to, so it's a good place to be. Well, Molly,
(17:18):
thanks for filling us in on your world and how
this affects you, and we wish you good luck and
best to all your crew. Thank you very much you
and best to you guys down there in Athens too.
I'm Hugh Attriston. You're listening to The Passenger from my
Heart Radio. We'll be back after this quick break. I'm
(17:43):
Hugh Atchison. This is the Passenger. I still want to
talk about other impacts that we're doing and what you
need to think about in this world of how you
help restaurants UM. A lot of chefs have been asking
me for advice and chiming in with different ideas, and
there's a lot of sharing on social media of what
what's working and what's not. A lot of us have
(18:04):
put our hearts into trying to create small to go
offerings and depending on the how many regulars you have,
how big your city is, maybe that's sustainable and maybe
it's not. For most people, it's probably not. UM. Selling
gift certificates is is a good way of helping restaurants
out and buying them a good way of helping up places. Um,
But I'm shying away from that a little bit because
(18:26):
I just don't want all the gift certificates. We use
the money to pay salary, payrolls and um insurance and
rents and utilities and all that in the interim and
while we're closed. But I don't want to spend all
that money and then haven't come back and gift certificates
of money that I've already spent when we reopened in
the first two weeks, because that kind of terrifies me.
Then we'd have no cash. But I've been doing very
(18:51):
sort of uh I think a relatively smart thing. I'm
selling advanced caterings so people in the next two years
can set a day and I will come to their
house and cook for tend to forty people and on
their cutler and their silver and their plates and whatnot.
With their glassware. They provide the beverage, but I just
bring all the food, and um, my amazing chef friends
(19:13):
who works for me, Sam Herndon, and I would will
will cook an amazing five course meal. And it's amazing
how benevolent people and generous people are in these times,
there's a lot of stuff that comes out um where
people do not act as good citizens. But man, for
the most part, people are freaking awesome and they really
(19:34):
rise to the challenge, because we need to rise the
challenge right now. This is a pandemic that that we
can we can squash if we're smart. And but it
looks like it's going to take a pretty heavy toll. Um.
I the older sisters being self quarantine right now. Um
so it lives in California. She's got good health care,
(19:57):
so we're not to worry. But you know, show us
so as diabetes and uh, that's a hard previousting condition
to to work around with something that's ah that's got
pretty sudden onset like OVID nineteen. So but we'll keep
you informed on how that goes. I I'm living on
a positive note these days, just try to get by,
(20:19):
trying to support my people. My kids came over the
other day and we hung out. They've been actualating for
their mom's house, which is like three blocks away, but
they came over with Kaitan and has roasted chicken, hung
out talk for a while. So it was good. You
gotta feed your people, nurse your people. You've been listening
(20:41):
to The Passenger. This is the production of I Heart
Radio created by Hugh Atchison and Christopher Hassiotas, were produced
and edited by Mike Johns. A researcher is Jescelyn Shields
and Christopher Hassiotas as our executive producer. Special thanks to
Gabrielle Collins, Crystal Waters, and the rest of the crew.
(21:01):
If you like The Passenger, leave us a review on
Apple podcast It helps other people like you. I'm the show.
If you're a local and you want to let me
know what I missed and where should go on our
next visit, Or if you've recently been a Passenger like
me and want to share your experience, hit me up
on Instagram and Twitter at Hugh Atchison. Well more podcasts
(21:22):
from my Heart Radio. Use the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Thanks for listening.
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