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{"id":834,"date":"2007-01-23T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-01-23T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ourbigclan.com\/?p=834"},"modified":"2017-01-22T00:30:34","modified_gmt":"2017-01-22T05:30:34","slug":"mullis-dean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ourbigclan.com\/mullis-dean\/","title":{"rendered":"Mullis, Dean"},"content":{"rendered":"

I DELIGHT IN DISPATCHES FROM THE DIRT – THANKS TO THE INTERNET, IT’S EASY FOR LOCAL FARMERS TO KEEP US UP-TO-DATE<\/span><\/p>\n

Charlotte Observer, The (NC)
\nJanuary 24, 2007
\nEdition: ONE-THREEFOOD
\nKATHLEEN PURVIS, Staff Writer
\nSection: FOOD
\nPage: 1E
\nRecord Number: 0701230257<\/p>\n

When you’re out in the fields, you have a lot of time to think. You can turn over thoughts while you’re turning over dirt and hash through the world’s problems while you hack at the weeds.<\/p>\n

Maybe that’s why Dean Mullis started writing his online newsletters from Laughing Owl Farm in Richfield.<\/p>\n

I don’t really know. I’ve never asked him.<\/p>\n

But I spent my share of hours in the field at my family’s nursery when I was younger. I remember the way your thoughts wander farther as the sun gets higher.<\/p>\n

Between the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market and the Matthews Community Market, I see Dean and his wife, Jenifer, most weeks.<\/p>\n

Dean’s a quiet guy, not one to tell jokes like his market neighbor, Donnie Cline, or to wave and greet me by name like a half-dozen others.<\/p>\n

So it was sort of a surprise when his newsletters started coming last year.<\/p>\n

Getting to know your local farmer is different in the Internet age. People who didn’t seem like the types to type now send weekly reports for customers.<\/p>\n

Donnie Cline, who farms in Lincoln County, sends short notes, just a list of what he expects to pick. Grateful Growers Farm in Denver sends occasional e-mails.<\/p>\n

Mullis’ newsletter is different. It comes out almost every week, with reports on his crops, chickens and eggs, and whatever else occurs to him.<\/p>\n

Sometimes he weighs in on news that’s gotten his goat. Sometimes it’s what’s getting his chickens.<\/p>\n

For weeks last summer, he chronicled his battle with a fox. The tale had humor and pathos, and I followed it like a Saturday morning serial.<\/p>\n

He writes about moonrise on the farm, and the antics of a strutting tom turkey.<\/p>\n

His grammar isn’t perfect (neither is mine, as some readers point out). His spelling is hit or guess. But he’s always honest, sometimes brutally so, about the realities of farming.<\/p>\n

In October, the newsletter had a picture of a bag of Funyons. He explained that when he’s processing chickens, he craves junk food.<\/p>\n

“I do not want real food while I am dressing out chickens I have raised for 8-10 weeks on pasture, have asked them to be blessed, and then I kill them, scald them and pluck them.”<\/p>\n

A couple of weeks ago, I made it out to the regional farmers market on Yorkmont Road for the first time since before Thanksgiving, drawn by Dean’s latest newsletter.<\/p>\n

Donnie Cline was there, happy to catch me up on which chefs he’s spotted lately. “Rosemary Pete” was at his herb stand with basil he’s growing on the porch.<\/p>\n

I loaded up on snow peas, spring onions, baby lettuces and whole wheat pitas. I shelled out for fresh chickens from Grateful Growers and flank steak and short ribs from Baucom’s Best.<\/p>\n

At the Mullises’ stand, I bought eggs, radishes and a bag of microgreens so fine and tender, they must have been picked with tweezers.<\/p>\n

I didn’t ask Dean what was up. I’ll wait and read it.<\/p>\n

If you want to read it, too, you can e-mail him at demullis@vnet.net<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"