Urban Farm Co-Op

Karla at Bossy Acres' Minneapolis headquarters

There are people who dream about what they would like to do with their lives in a perfect world. And there are people who just go ahead and do whatever it is they’re dreaming about, knowing that the world will never be perfect so they’d better just go for it. Karla Pankow is in the latter group. And if you’ve ever met her, you know that’s not surprising. As hooky as it sounds, if positive energy could take human form, it would be Karla.

Not long ago, Karla was willing herself up out of bed every morning to go to work as a pharmaceutical sales rep. After seven years, she was beyond disillusioned with the profession and thinking about how to escape. And then it happened. She was laid off in the midst of yet another company restructuring. Today, less than two years later, Karla and her partner, Elizabeth Millard (a  longtime writer friend of mine), are running a small organic farm they named Bossy Acres.

I wrote about Bossy Acres, and their recent move into the greenhouses of Grow! Twin Cities in this week’s issue of the online magazine, The Line. Grow! Twin Cities doesn’t have a website up yet or I’d post the link. But they do have a Facebook page if you’d like to follow what they’re up to.

Elizabeth washing up some onions.

You can read the full story in The Line, but, basically, Grow! is a local urban agriculture project with a model not unlike that of artists’ co-ops only instead of a big warehouse, they’ve got some land with a few greenhouses on it. Urban farmers and others interested in being part of the new growers community can rent space in the greenhouses.

Bossy Acres is one of several renters currently moving in to get a jump on the season. Right now they’re starting pea shoots at Grow! Back home they’ve got delicious microgreens growing in every available place. While Elizabeth would love to be digging in the dirt more often, for now she’s writing and writing to make ends meet while they get Bossy Acres up and running.

Karla sometimes refers to her journey as “from pharma to farm”. As catchy as it is true, the phrase still doesn’t do justice to the sheer moxie it takes to trade in a life that’s stable yet unsatisfying to pursue something risky that makes you happy. I admire her.