Carrie Chlebanowski
It all began years before there was any idea of a farm and it started with a sign at the front door that perfectly described our family and our home. We were the Looney Bin. A bit different. Not exactly run-of-the-mill. It fit us, and it stuck.
We've always had the desire to be landowners and do "something" with that land. But in late 2013 we began dreaming about how we could become more self-sufficient and live off the land that was ours. In 2014, we found a place that met every single requirement we had for a piece of property. And then, with zero experience but overflowing ambition, The Looney Farm was founded on February 6, 2015.
We started that day with little more than the land itself and a very, very old, little barn. We wasted no time before diving into the deep end of country living, in an attempt to learn EVERYTHING. And with no clearly defined path to where we wanted to take the farm, we got our feet wet in EVERYTHING farm related: livestock guardian dogs, layer chickens, a beef steer, milk goats, pigs, turkeys, broiler chickens, ducks, a horse and of course, the largest garden we’d ever seen.
Farming life is tough but good. Along this journey, we've had some great successes and wins as well as a number of monumental failures and heartbreaking losses. Oklahoma weather keeps us on our toes as it tends to do. Crop losses and a demolished barn kept the learning curve steep, but we persevered.
By the end of the Summer of 2016, with animal illnesses and losses weighing heavily on us, we sought a way to focus our efforts away from animal husbandry. Then we discover Jean-Martin Fortier, The Market Gardener. As we researched and learned from JM and other like-minded market gardeners, our minds were blown away by the potential of the land that sat in front of us.
This brings us now - The Looney Farm market garden. After many months of studying intensive market systems, business planning, crop planning, and infrastructure updates, we arrived at a place of focus and determination. We are ready to successfully live off our land; To provide something good and beautiful to our community in a way that is also good for and regenerating to the land we work, and to live a life under God's good grace that is a blessing to all we encounter through the work we do on the land He blessed us with.
