Local author writes about raising children on farms

Rusty Rae/News-Register file photo##Katie Kulla holds her first book, a volume she illustrated with more than 150 drawings. Her new book, “Farm-Raised Kids: Parenting Strategies for Balancing Family Life with Running a Farm or Homestead,” will be published at the end of October

Yamhill County farmer Katie Kulla was excited last year when her first book was published — a tome about plants that she illustrated. This year, she’s even more thrilled by the publication of her second book, which she conceived and wrote, in addition to contributing some of the illustrations.

“Farm-Raised Kids: Parenting Strategies for Balancing Family Life with Running a Farm or Homestead” will be published at the end of October by Storey Publishing. It will be available in bookstores and farm stores or can be pre-ordered online.

Kulla will talk about her book in a free public event at 6 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 9, in the McMinnville Public Library. Fellow farmer Christine Anderson of Cast Iron Farm in McMinnville will interview her about “Farm-raised Kids.”

Kulla has farmed on Grand Island, south of Dayton, for more than a decade. She and her husband, Casey, ran a community-supported agriculture program supplying vegetables until the pandemic hit.

Now they still grow some vegetables, she said, but she thinks of their family more as “homesteaders” than as “farmers.”

Her unique experiences as a small farmer and mother of two children inspired her new book, as did conversations she had with other parent-farmers.

She originally wrote a series of three articles about the subject. Then she approached Storey Publishing about creating a book, which she said is the first volume to address the complexities and joys of raising children on a farm.

“It’s either a book about farming and parenting or about parenting while farming,” she said.

Kulla said she and her husband were “co-farmers,” sharing the work on the farm equally. But after their first child was born, she no longer could devote as much time to the land. At farming conferences, she talked with other parents juggling the same two full-time jobs.

“In our profession, we live where we work, so the children are very much involved,” she said. “Farming, for many, is a whole lifestyle.”

She started “Farm-Raised Kids” three years ago by doing research and interviewing 25 farm families as well as reflecting on her own experiences.

“It was really satisfying,” she said. “I met people from around the world. They shared vulnerable stories.”

Kulla, whose children are now 14 and 12, said she tried to represent everyone in the farm industry.

She talked to parents who run a large almond farm as well as those with small specialty farms and a pair of families who share a homestead on a double lot in Portland.

She interviewed farmers of all ages with children ranging from infants to teens who help with the work to men and women who grew up on farms.

Many of the latter chose careers other than agriculture, she said. But they all said they appreciated growing up on the land and learning to appreciate nature.

Chapters of the book address different topics, such as safety — an important issue, Kulla said, especially keeping children safe around farm equipment and large animals. The second half of the book looks at the particular challenges of having children of various ages on the farm.

“Farm-raised Kids” is illustrated by some of Kulla’s drawings, such as she created for the earlier book, “Edible: 70 Sustainable Plants That Are Changing How We Eat,” and for her local zine published seasonally with her friend Rebecca Minifie. It also is filled with numerous color photos shot by photographers from across the country.

Now that her book is out, Kulla is concentrating on teaching writing at Chemeketa Community College. She leads courses at the Yamhill Valley Campus in McMinnville and on the main campus in Salem.