Skinny Kitty Farms Is Stewarding Good Land and Cultivating Happy Customers
If you wake up before dawn and drive by Skinny Kitty Farms on a summer Sunday morning, you might see David Mackie dashing out to his field to cut lettuce or gather a bucket of parsley. That way, he can bring his farmers market customers the freshest possible vegetables and herbs. This hustle pays dividends. The reputation of Skinny Kitty Farms’ lettuce and salad mix is so good, a line of eager customers forms where they wait up to an hour to get this fresh food.
“As I tell my customers, if you are coming to a farmers market, you’re paying that premium. This is what you deserve,” says David.
Building that reputation and their farm’s regenerative practices has been a deliberate process for David and his wife Bonnie Briggs, and the route has been as winding as the Skagit River that flows past their farm.
Both of them grew up south of Skagit along the I-5 corridor, Bonnie in Seattle and David in Olympia. They met as college students at Central Washington University where a love of theater and the arts brought them together. After graduating in 2008, they luckily found theater jobs and soon discovered they loved the art more than the artists -- a “sobering realization,” says David.
They both were also self-described foodies, fortunately having family who taught them to value good food. So they found ways to work on farms. They learned they had a knack for it and enjoyed the work and being outside. Bonnie and David returned to the Northwest after a stint in Philadelphia and farmed in the Snoqualmie and Kent valleys. They were leasing a small plot along the Green River that they were forced to give up. They had to move.
Through word of mouth, David and Bonnie heard a farm in Skagit that might be for sale. King County was familiar, and they felt a pull to stay south. But they asked around about what others thought about the potential to farm in Skagit. “Everyone said in a heartbeat to move up here,” David says. They bought the place in 2014. “We have no regrets.”
While David shares the history of getting started here, bald eagles squawk above, a welcoming sound of home.
Skinny Kitty Farms had been Mother Flight Farm, a valley institution going back many years. Bonnie and David knew they needed to make it their own. Part of that has been transforming the farm, converting some alder stands into places eventually for vegetables. The farm is about 12 acres with 2.5 acres in production and another acre in fruit trees. There is room to move around and expand, but they are concerned with growing the right way.
They are committed to farming as an environmental practice. Farming, David explains, “ties us to the terrestrial realities of the world.” They want to make Skinny Kitty Farms an integrated operation where all components work together to “grow not only healthy foods, but healthy lands.”
Part of that means they run through about 500 chickens a year. They sell them for meat, but the chickens’ function on the farm is ecological, not a profit-making machine. The birds contribute manure and feather meal to the farm’s nutrient cycling -- and add a percentage or two to their accounts.
Everything on the farm is grown organically. For now, they have not gone through the certification process. There is no need for the market they serve. “Bonnie and I harvest everything, and we sell everything,” explains David. They can share their practices to anyone who asks, and customers are welcome to stop by Skinny Kitty Farms and see it with their own eyes.
“The water coming out of our ditch is crystal clear,” says David with obvious and warranted pride, a symbol of healthy land and good stewardship.
Being two people who graduated from college in 2008 and working in theater, Bonnie and David are quite averse to debt. Consequently, they have grown their farm slowly, not needing a giant customer base immediately. Primarily, they sell at farmers markets in Seattle. “We were able to build our customer base up very organically, very slowly,” says David. That helped create a dedicated following.
This became especially clear in 2020 when the pandemic officially closed farmers markets down. Still, “the community would show up and so we felt an obligation to go down and serve that community,” recalls David. Skinny Kitty Farms weathered that storm. The markets worked hard to open up safely and publicize it, and the community rewarded them. The support solidified for Bonnie and David that they were truck farmers. “I’m actually proud to say that I’m a Skagit truck farm,” says David. They sell to some local caterers and restaurants and are toying with the idea of growing more lettuce for the wholesale market.
For now, they just focus on growing good food and keeping the land and water as healthy as possible, so they can bring a bit of goodness that grows out of Skagit soils to diverse customers in Seattle.
By Adam Sowards: info@skagitonians.org