Through the Looking Glass Farm is the vision of Theophanes Avery: homesteader, author, artist, and permaculture enthusiast. Currently it is in the planning and funding stages but in the future it aims to accomplish several things:
- Create a place of learning (an educational homestead where anyone can join classes to learn basic homesteading skills.)
- Host a Tool and Seed Library, allowing the surrounding area a free resource to borrow tools like library books and try planting heritage vegetables, fruits, flowers, and plants.
- Establish a co-op garden for the surrounding community to grow and gather fresh seasonal produce as well as participate in the growing and harvesting process.
- Create a sanctuary for rare and endangered livestock who will be participating in a conservation program.
- Expand into a community of self-sustaining homesteads made from as many local resources as possible.
- Allow people of all ages and backgrounds to be a part of something positive and beneficial to us all.
How it all began:
Hi, my name is Theophanes and I’m just another run of the mill millennial struggling in a world that has never felt like it was made for me. Like so many of my peers I spent much of my life adrift, not knowing what I wanted to do or who I wanted to become, and then I ended up working on a free range poultry farm for two and a half years and it changed my entire life, the way I looked at things, the way I viewed the world, the way I produced and ate food. I started with a barren plot of dirt and learned how to replenish the soil with time honored methods that are going extinct as we lose our oldest generation of farmers. As the land started growing vegetation and becoming fruitful I entered into a lifelong passion for gardening and started to raise heritage poultry in large numbers. I learned every part of the operation from gathering eggs, to hatching them, to raising chicks, to eventually slaughtering and processing the extra livestock. At this time I was in a constant state of learning – I picked up basic carpentry and learned just how easy it was to be your own handy man and creator of furniture and farm necessities. The farm began to prosper and my spirit soured with it, delighted to see chickens raised free from cages, running through pastures and eating bugs. It was magical and hard – with every predator attack and every storm life was more severe on the farm. It was filled with only the most intense joy and hope but also the most bittersweet of moments and lingering bits of heart ache whenever a beloved animal would die or something would go wrong but even with all that I wouldn’t have changed a second of any of it. I was happy beyond measure taking photos of everything and starting to gather interest in people to start making it an educational farm – devoted to teaching the beginner homesteader the basic skills they need to know to start a life off the land.
That’s when circumstances beyond my control dashed all my efforts and I was forced to move off the farm. Normally people in my situation would accept that’s life and go back to living as they had before but I couldn’t. I was spiritually underwhelmed, intellectually bored, and all around miserable. The world I came back to was not a world that valued or needed my creativity, intellect, or gained knowledge. I wasn’t problem solving out here and everything I tried to do seemed as fulfilling as another fast food gig. I had so much to offer and no where to offer it. This just couldn’t be where it all ended.
As I looked around at my own generation I saw a sea of stress and misery, a tsunami of souls running the same rat race day after day, feeling the same way I did. Most of us are broke, angry, unable to get ahead in a world with constantly moving goal posts. To add to my existential angst I started to see news stories flip by my computer screen detailing how desperately the US needs an influx of young farmers, how we’re losing the old generation and no one is taking their place. Behind that were stories about a wave of suicides on dairy farms due to the dropping price of milk. And finally there were so many jokes, memes, and anecdotes about how out of touch people are these days with where their food comes from – does chocolate milk come from brown cows? If so, where does the strawberry milk come from? It all felt so wrong. I was clearly shown my purpose in life yet I couldn’t fulfill it no matter how much the world needed more people like me.
Without a penny to my name and no reason to believe I could buck the system I decided to scream at the world, “NO! I’m not going to take this anymore! I know where I belong and I am going to get there!” I started researching tiny homes and looking at land. I talked to all sorts of people from all corners of New England and beyond. I returned to nature whenever I could to calm the unease in my soul. I started to form an idea – if I could just find a nice large plot of land and build myself a small home out of a couple shipping containers I could not only start over and use all my skills but I could make it a place to bring others under the fold. I could make it educational and with time I might even be able to add other affordable tiny homes for rent to people who want to immerse themselves in the homesteading life. Affordability would be key – we need to make these things possible for as many people as we can. We cannot let gentrification bring even tiny homes out of the reach of the common man.
My new homestead will not just be a place for me to live it’ll be a place I will dedicate to serving the community. My own life will be one of servitude, teaching others everything I have learned. With any space and resources I may have I can host a tool library so people who do not have the means to buy their own tools may rent them for free like library books. I’ll do the same with a seed library opening up a resource to local farmers to find rare and heritage seeds from other growers. A garden co-op could be created that’ll provide produce and a source of learning for anyone in the area and as I add livestock to the mix I can start a fully fledged educational establishment. I want to dedicate my life to this, to the big picture no one else can see, to something far beyond myself. It has become my calling.
But as with anything I needed money to accomplish my vision. At the beginning of this endeavor I tried hosting a Go Fund Me which raised all of the $5 I paid myself to test it. People didn’t know who I was and had no reason to believe I could accomplish anything. So I threw myself into my writing, beefing up my blogs and putting AdSense on them. After two days I earned a penny, after another week I had two. I started to go to Farmer’s Markets to sell my art but there was little interest in my area and I came home dragging everything I brought back with me. With every failure and miss I only became more determined. That’s when I sat down and over the course of four months I poured my heart into telling my story in the form of my first published book Honoring Echo. But offering up my soul on a platter was a hard sell. So after that I wrote a more comical side of my life regaling anyone who’d listen about the strange and wonderful creatures I have come to own or see in my life in Milking the Cat. Again, my nonfiction was greeted only with the sound of crickets so I buckled down and am now indulging in fiction. Achilles in Heels is a joyous retelling of a mostly forgotten tale – the teen years of Trojan war hero Achilles. It’s set to publish on September 30th, 2020. And on the following Halloween the world will hopefully embrace my first attempt at folklore based horror with The Disparaged. As I try to market these I will continue to work on my art and perhaps throw up the odd piece here and there while I continue to write, blog my travel adventures, draw a weekly comic, and reach for my goals. I’m in this for the long haul, no matter how many things I have to try and how hard I have to fight, I will continue running up my own glass hill.
So that’s my story. If you’d like to see the next chapter in my life feel free to stick around or better yet donate or buy something. Every penny is a penny closer to my goals! Thank you for joining me on my journeys and happy homesteading!