Written by DEBRA McMANIS
Photography by NATHAN COE
Ray Owen is the antithesis of corporate American farming. He is a small farmer’s small farmer—a man who will give you all the time you need, and not because he has a surplus. He gladly stops to share every last kernel of the joys and challenges that define a lifetime of farming, having spent the last thirty years coaxing an impressive yield from an island not known for its agricultural powers, or fertile soil for that matter. Not to worry, Ray has a remedy for that out back. “Liquid gold,” more commonly known as manure, awaits any brave soul willing to gamble on nature and risk throwing down a crop or two.
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Agriculture runs deep in the Owen family heritage, and Ray’s farming prowess bears witness to this. However, for many aspiring do-it-yourself growers, providing the family pantry with a variety of leafy greens, fresh fruits and vegetables from the domain of one’s own backyard has never been so en vogue, agriculturally speaking, that is. “Boutique choice,” a trendy term made popular by the USDA to describe this niche in the local food market, appeals to an increasing number of health conscious consumers who are literally rolling up their sleeves and taking their family food supply into their own hands. This turning back to the way things used to be—eating seasonally and buying locally—represents a consumer movement aimed to counter the negative effects of industrialized farming and mass food production. Many Nantucketers are choosing to become self- sufficient and sustainable by growing gardens or raising small pocket farms, by supporting local farm markets, or by shopping directly from farmers like Ray Owen.
While Ray is known for growing gargantuan pumpkins, robust vegetables, succulent tomatoes, choice greens and exquisite cut-flowers, it is his obvious flair for raising superior turkeys that distinguishes him as the most sought-after farmer come holiday time. Ray also delivers the finest eggs this side of Needham, MA, his native hometown where his sons continue to run the poultry operation and farm market started by his father in 1936.
All this crowing about poultry should come as little surprise considering Ray spent the first two years of his life literally “cooped up” alongside his mother, as she singlehandedly kept the family chicken business afloat while his father recovered from pneumonia in the hospital. One needs to peek no further than Ray’s own henhouse—aptly named Le Chanticleer— to recognize his devotion to raising healthy and seemingly happy chickens. “Two hundred old ones and two hundred young ones…about 175 eggs a day,” confirms Ray with a quick grin.
Just beyond the coop, a handful of friendly goats proudly scale up and down a modest mountaintop. (Ray says they need to summit rocks to “feel like goats.”) Alongside the fanfare of a bustling turkey enclosure, a few well-groomed pigs lie dozing in the bucolic warmth of the autumn sun. In the distance, teeming beehives are positioned between rows of grape and berry vines, a near-perfect metaphor for the “fruitful hive” that depicts not only Nantucket but also this special farm that Ray magically transformed from an old town dump site.
Ray concedes that his showy white turkeys—an American hybrid of the traditional White Holland breed—provide him with the greatest social equity. “People started to figure out that I could raise turkeys… I had to cap it off at fifty birds and now I have a waiting list. I do bartering; you can always get something done for you quicker if you have a turkey. I keep a couple spares for that reason. I save one of the ‘big strutters’ for Thanksgiving Day and bring him down to Children’s Beach for the [Turkey] Plunge. He gets a big bow and then he comes home.”
The secret to Ray’s success is that he grows his birds to maturity, about 7 months or 25 pounds for the average tom. This allows the meat to tenderize during a natural marbling process. Most commercially grow
turkeys never reach this stage because the market prefers younger birds that weigh less. Ultimately, Ray’s turkeys stand above the rest due to a process he calls the “prime finish,” a special six-week ration of organic whole grains used to fatten the birds. This is followed by an on-farm slaughtering and a “dressing ritual” in which the turkeys are kept to “age and soften” for an additional week. From the first day the poults (baby turkeys) arrive, Ray assures me, “All of it is done entirely by hand.”
Ray Owen is proof that a committed grower armed with a plan can remain, to a large degree, self-sufficient in providing a sustainable table for one’s own family and friends. Pursuing the so-called “dirty life,” whether on your own acreage, in a community space, or from your own balcony or rooftop, might just prove to be the cleanest, if not the tastiest, game in town.
