“Just a few days ago we realized that we hadn’t been to the grocery store in months,” said psychology grad Julie Henninger ’10. How to avoid supermarketsHow is that possible? Is she a busy mom who relies on fast-food drive-thrus? A wealthy socialite who has all meals delivered to her home? An astronaut on the International Space Station? None of the above. She’s a farmer. She and her husband Matthew Lowe run Good Keeper Farm, a year-round, community supported agriculture (CSA) operation that provides vegetables, meat, dairy, fruit, breads, tortillas, eggs and a growing variety of staples like cooking oil to all of its members every week. “We like to say that we are the first members,” said Henninger. “We love living on, almost exclusively, the same food our customers enjoy.” Henninger grew up loving food and gardening, volunteering at the World Hunger Relief Farm in Waco, Texas, after graduation. Once she returned home to the Carlisle, Pa., area, she worked for three years as the farm manager of Earth Spring Farm, a local non-certified organic vegetable farm. When she met and married Lowe—who had worked for an urban farm company in San Francisco, the couple turned their hobby into a career. “Friends, family and strangers all find common needs and desires at the dinner table,” said Henninger. “We want to grow good, fresh and nutrient-dense foods and to increase the quality and vitality of the humans who consume it.” The two-person operation began its first growing season last year. While they produce their own vegetables, eggs, poultry, pork and dairy, they supplement their CSA offerings by including bread from Talking Breads in Carlisle, tortillas from MidSt8 Taco at the West Shore Farmers Market, grassfed beef from a Newville farm and fruit from Oyler’s Organic Orchard in Biglerville and Three Springs Fruit Farm in Wenksville. “As time goes on,” said Henninger, “and our fruit trees grow and we work more land, we will produce a greater share of our [CSA] offerings, but we do a lot already and enjoy teaming with other producers.” It’s a productive, active lifestyle that requires constant attention. Building the infrastructure of the farm requires growing and testing crops while also learning from mistakes. Henninger also works at Apple Valley Creamery, a family operation in East Berlin, to supplement their income while her husband works at the farm full time. The couple’s plan is for Good Keeper to provide their whole livelihood eventually. “It has been exhausting, but we feel very fortunate to have been able to spread this work out over the whole season,” Henninger said, “which we believe is at the heart of sustainability. Right now, it is just Matt and I. We would like to hire someone local next year in hopes to take a vacation sometime.” —Anna Seip