Growing the good life with Jonathan Browning

Which came first: the chicken or the eggs? In this case, it was the eggs.

Last Sunday morning, I found myself in a field strewn with cow patties as far as the eye could see. That week, I’d purchased a dozen farm-fresh blue and brown eggs from Jonathan’s wife. That led to a conversation about their family farm, and I asked if Jonathan would let me come for a visit.

As I approached him, I immediately apologized. It had not registered with me that our scheduled interview was on Father’s Day. The father of four and stepfather to two more, I was certain I was imposing. What I quickly realized was that my time on the Browning farm would actually be about, amazingly, fathers.

Jonathan Browning grew up in Morganton. He is the proverbial gentle giant of a man who is now the loving watchman over his father’s livestock farm. As with most people that I write about, he has seen a good many changes in our county. Some, he asserts, are better than others. A road now runs between both sides of their farm, with a brewery down the street. And while the town has changed around him, one thing has remained constant: his family’s faithfulness to their farm.

To be sure, that has gone through its share of changes as well. The home his grandfather built by hand still stands on one portion, although abandoned now. Only worn pieces of wood remain from an old barn that Jonathan remembers from his childhood. The number of cattle is fewer. And all that is left of the neighboring dairy farm, once maintained by the Southmountain Children’s Home, are a few derelict stone walls.

This connection all started when Jonathan was a child. At about the same time he remembers the first Hmong immigrants integrating into his school, he declared to his dad and uncle his future calling. Jonathan wanted to be a farmer when he grew up. Not surprisingly, his uncle tried to talk him out of it. Perhaps the dissuasion worked because Jonathan pursued a career in education instead.

Still, life is never a straight line, and somehow the tug of those fields and animals grew stronger when he married Greta. The two love farming, and her support solidified that he was, indeed, meant to work that land.

This place is clearly Jonathan’s happy place. He’s at home here, walking amongst the slop and feed, drying wood to sell on the roadside, building an impenetrable chicken coop. With an eye toward ecology and conservation, he repurposes everything, including food waste from local schools. Part of an FDA program, the task of collecting the leftovers and processing them before feeding it to the animals is no small task. Still, Jonathan believes that kind of mindfulness is paramount.

Although it might seem counterintuitive for a livestock farmer, Jonathan is an animal lover. He painstakingly integrated two, antisocial goats he acquired by moving their food closer with each feeding until they were eating out of his hand. Now, they bound up to him, tails wagging and butting his leg for a playful rub on the head. They’ve become fixtures. There is also the speckled white hen that runs to the fence each time Jonathan approaches. He takes her from the pen and holds her close to his chest. It’s really quite something to observe.

As the saying goes, apples don’t fall far from trees, so it isn’t hard to imagine that Jonathan was taught all he knows by his dad, Marty. What is fascinating is the fact that Marty’s farm was never about making money. It was a calling to provide food for people who need it. Pigs, cows, eggs, and firewood abound here. The price is the price, regardless of the whims of the market.

Many of their customers are members of the Hmong community, an interesting intersection of Jonathan’s childhood and adulthood. What’s more, these people are similar to Marty and Jonathan: steeped in tradition and bound by close family ties.

For Jonathan, and his brothers who share in the maintenance of the farm, the family mission is about being good stewards of the land. Their existence includes being careful caretakers of something that will provide sustenance for others. Most importantly, it’s about carrying on the legacy their father started. One that will be gently handed down to Jonathan’s son.

As the chickens skittered under the car, I felt a sense of awe about all that the Browning men have both created and sustained. They’re growing the good life there, unencumbered by the hard work, cow patties, and pig pens. What an incredible testament to fathers and sons.