After more than 20 years of medical treatments, Rob Dowdle started his own farm two years ago for an alternative route of medicine.
At 15, Dowdle was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, irritation of the bowels and colon. Now 37, he has largely quit all his medical treatments and switched to working his farm and eating only the food he grows himself.
“I’m not symptom-free, but I’ve noticed the quality of the food (is) healthier for me,” Dowdle said. “That’s the main reason we do it. We’re trying to avoid any synthetics and we grow the food we want to eat and the way we want to eat it. Eating more nutrient-based food and just being outside has done a world of difference.”
On about two acres, Dowdle grows tomatoes, kale, lettuce, asparagus, onions, apples, carrots and other produce. He has designated chicken coops for his egg-laying chickens and meat chickens.
“All of the chicken that we eat, we produce,” Dowdle said. “We don’t buy chicken from the grocery store, (but) that doesn’t mean at times we don’t go out to Chick-Fil-A every now and then.”
While on his farm, Dowdle said he is often working for Sunday. He serves as the pastor of Old Immanuel Baptist Church in Steens.
“I can write a sermon better talking to my chickens out here than I could sitting in an office all day,” Dowdle said. “Really, my health and faith has played a huge part in this farm.”
On Friday, church members and friends were piling into Dowdle Farms picking up pounds of chicken and dozens of eggs. Church member Linda Springstead picked up her usual dozen eggs and purchased a couple pounds of fresh chicken to make homemade chicken spaghetti.
“I’ve been buying eggs from him since he started,” Springstead said. “I love them. He’s got me eating more eggs than I ever thought I would be. We’ve been blessed to have him in the church with everything he’s done.”
For Dowdle, selling excess produce, chickens and eggs to friends, family and church members hardly makes a profit.
“We’re not trying to make any money doing this,” Dowdle said. “We’ve donated 50 or 60 eggs over to our church food pantry to date. I mean, we sell them too, but we like to give … to people nice and fresh food who can’t afford them.”
The work on the farm is a family affair, with his daughters Chloe, 8, and Sophia, 6, swimming in the lake past the pasture. Last year, Sophia wanted to tend her own flock of ducks. For an entire summer, she picked strawberries and collected peas so she could start her own duck egg business.
“I gave her a dollar for every bucket of strawberries she picked,” Dowdle said. “I told Sophia if she wanted ducks, she had to have money. She probably thought we were going to get four or five, but we don’t do anything small around here. We have 50 or 60. Sophia helps me with the chickens and I help her with the ducks. Soon, she’ll start selling her duck eggs.”
While walking through his rows of vegetables, Dowdle picked up a stalk of asparagus while his daughters picked fresh strawberries for a mid-afternoon snack.
“There’s just no comparison between this and the store,” Dowdle said. “Carrots, broccoli, I won’t buy that from the store anymore. There’s just no comparison. It’s much fresher and cleaner. We haven’t bought broccoli in years and I’ve had crop failures, but even then we don’t buy it just because it’s not as good in the store. When we don’t have fresh lettuce, we generally just don’t buy it. If we can grow it, we usually eat it.”
Farming and working closely with nature, Dowdle said, has influenced his faith.
“We have a responsibility to take care of God’s creation, especially if we are gong to eat it,” Dowdle said. “Having enough compassion and care for the animals, I’m coming to the point where if we are going to kill them and eat them, I want to be the one to do it with compassion and without fault.
“Any time we are in nature, when we are involved in the creation whether it’s somebody deer hunting or us farming, you see so much,” he added. “There’s a spiritual involvement in the work where you see tangible benefits. In some ways it’s easier to get closer to God or the divine. It’s difficult to explain for me, but there’s a closeness there.”
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