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FINDING UTOPIA
Dayton woman lives her dream life.
WRITTEN BY BARBARA TWITCHELL
PHOTOS BY CANDACE NYANDO
The distance between the manicured lawns of posh Huntington Harbour, Calif., and the dusty back roads of rural Dayton, Nev. cannot be measured in mere miles. Just ask Nancy Dineen. She’ll certainly roll her eyes and laugh.
Dineen spent most of her life in California — the quintessential suburban housewife and carpooling soccer mom — all the while harboring a secret dream. She really just wanted to be a farmer. Always. Try explaining that to your upscale neighbors.
Nine years ago, with children grown and gone, Dineen convinced her husband, Barry, to make a daring move that completely changed their lives. They purchased five sagebrush-covered acres in Dayton. In the years that followed, they cleared brush and built barns and corrals. Then Nancy took over, planting crops and filling the place with an impressive assortment of animals. Her dream, now known as Nancy’s Green Barn Farm, became a reality.
Good Things in Small Packages
Dineen calls it a mini-farm, but it doesn’t seem so to those who visit. In fact, it is astounding how much she has managed to fit into those few acres.
She raises hundreds of pounds of certified naturally grown* vegetables and fruits — year round in a large hoop house — and seasonally in her orchard and in “the Final Frontier,” a giant garden plot measuring 30 by 300 feet. She says she grows just about everything, the usual as well as the unique.
“I love to experiment,” she says. “I’m always looking for new, interesting things to try.”
Such gardening adventures have successfully resulted in produce not common to this area, including artichokes, sweet potatoes, celeriac, and even figs!
And just to add a bit more diversity, the back acres of the property are dedicated to growing 150 Christmas trees.
But that’s just half the story. There are farm animals — lots of them. Along with the 400 or so chickens, there are ducks, turkeys, guinea hens, pigs, cows, sheep, goats, and rabbits. The animals include unusual breeds such as Babydoll sheep — adorable little creatures she breeds to sell to vineyards, where they charm visitors while they effectively weed crops — and mini-cows, “for petite filets,” she jokes.
Dineen is proud of the fact that all of her produce and animals are heirloom varieties and heritage breeds, raised in a natural, humane environment, without chemical pesticides, antibiotics, or hormones. This is important because almost everything on the farm — eggs, animals, vegetables, and fruits — provides food for the Dineens, as well as their CSA patrons, general customers, and several local restaurants.
Little Farm, Big Mission
But there is so much more to this dream. Dineen is a woman with a mission.
“I want to educate people about where their food comes from,” she says. “That’s why I grow things and have every farm animal here so they can see what it is that they eat. So they can correlate that food does have an origin and it’s not the refrigerator.”
To that end, Dineen gives free tours of the farm to hundreds of people each year. Schoolchildren, preschoolers, scouts, 4-Hers, homeschoolers, and parents and kids explore the farm from spring through fall. Helping them discover the connection to their food is one of Dineen’s greatest joys.
As an extension of her quest to educate, Dineen also offers classes to adults on how to butcher poultry (see related article in edible Reno-Tahoe’s fall 2013 edition).
It seems amazing that one woman can almost single-handedly do all this. The work is hard and the days are long, but she insists she doesn’t mind because she’s doing what she loves — what she was meant to do.
It’s a lifestyle so far removed from her former one that she admits her own grown children scratch their heads in consternation.
“They call me a ‘hickerbilly!'” she says with a hearty laugh, and then adds, absolutely beaming, “I don’t care. I love this life! I just get up every morning and I can’t believe how fortunate I am!”
* Certified Naturally Grown is a nonprofit organization offering certification tailored for small-scale, direct-market farmers using natural methods. CNG producers don’t use any synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, or GMO seeds.
Reno-based freelance writer Barbara Twitchell thinks a visit with Nancy Dineen would brighten anyone’s day. Dineen inspires people to believe that, no matter how long it’s been denied, it’s really worth it to follow your heart and live your dream.
Nancy’s Green Barn Farm
220 Bullion Road, Dayton, Nev.
775-246-8456, http://www.Nancysgreenbarnfarm.com and Nancys.green.barn.farm@gmail.com
CSA partnerships are available. People can purchase free-range eggs; hormone-free, antibiotic-free, humanely grown and processed pork, beef, chicken, turkey, lamb, goat, rabbit, and duck; as well as certified naturally grown fruits and vegetables.
Free educational tours are available spring through fall. Call to arrange time and day.
Produce and/or meat from Nancy’s Green Barn Farm is served at the following restaurants:
Adele’s Restaurant & Lounge
1112 N. Carson St., Carson City, Nev.
775-882-3353, http://www.Adelesrestaurantandlounge.com
Tahoe Ridge Winery
1644 Highway 395, Minden, Nev.
775-783-1566, http://www.Tahoeridgewinery.com
Spice
11421 Deerfield Drive, Truckee, Calif.
530-550-0500, http://www.Spicetruckee.com
