The King family has been a prominent presence in the Ann Arbor and Southeastern Michigan community in a myriad of ways—as farmers, musicians, teachers, and more—for nearly fifty years. The roots of the King family and their Frog Holler Farm go back to 1971, to the founding of the Indian Summer restaurant in Ann Arbor. That’s where Indian Summer’s co-founder, co-owner, and head cook, Ken King, met Cathy Munkholm. Cathy had been hired to make salads at the restaurant and worked alongside Ken, chopping vegetables.

The organic food and locally grown movements, ubiquitous now, were brand new in ’72. Frog Holler was the first organic farm in the area and grew out of Ken and his Indian Summer partners’ decision to grow their own vegetables for the restaurant. “Even at that early time, before ‘local produce’ was a buzz word, they just didn’t like the idea of those boxes of produce coming in from California,” says Cathy King. They began looking for land and found an old abandoned piece of property in the Irish Hills (Brooklyn, Michigan), where there had once been an orchard. As the group started to separate into two entities, the restaurant and the farm, Cathy remembers that “Ken discovered an affinity for whatever this was, trying to grow things, even though there wasn’t really anything here yet.”

Both Cathy and her son, Billy, are soft-spoken, but their eyes light up when they talk about the farm. Was farming a steep learning curve? “We’re still learning,” says Cathy, laughing. Farming wasn’t what she had planned on doing when she was younger. When she talks about growing up in Grosse Pointe, Billy jokes, “Vibrant farming community in Grosse Pointe?” (Laughter). Cathy started farming only after beginning a journalism degree at Northwestern, returning to Michigan after the passing of her father, and finishing with a liberal arts degree at the University of Michigan. Billy marvels at his dad’s ability to learn on the go. “He didn’t know anything, right? He just kind of figured it out. I don’t know how that was even possible, but he somehow figured out how to make it work.”

Sandor Slomovits: What was that like, deciding to leave the relative safety of steady jobs and sharing the responsibility of running Indian Summer with other people, and then having to be responsible for it all?

Cathy King: You know, Ken thought that this land was a great growing area, that we should grow our own food for the restaurant. Which was a crazy idea, but it was the early seventies and people still had a lot of crazy ideas. The group [that ran Indian Summer] founded the farm in order to grow produce for the restaurant. So, it wasn't scary to make that decision because there was going to be this connection of restaurant and farm; the restaurant would support the farm. Then it became obvious that you can't develop a farm out of an abandoned piece of land. There was nothing here except the natural beauty of the land. There was no electricity, no well, no equipment, there was nothing, no experience, except Ken had always had a garden. You couldn't do both (farm and run the restaurant). Ken became drawn to the farming and felt he had to give up his involvement in the restaurant. He never expected the person who ended up with the most shares in the restaurant to sell it. But that's what happened. So, then we really were on our own, [because] we didn't have the restaurant buying anything that we grew. The partners all fell away and it was just Ken and I here, and we were too committed to not do this. But there were some lean years, let’s say.

Sandor Slomovits: Tell us about those lean years.

Cathy King: We really didn't know what we were doing. When the restaurant was supporting the farm, we were able to put in a well, so at least we had a well, and could buy a tractor. But the land was so undeveloped. It was just wild. We were hacking away at tree stumps and living really simply. I mean, we lived in the cabin and…

Sandor Slomovits: Was the cabin already there?

Cathy King: Yes. It was built by the people we bought the land from, Dr. Robert Gesell and his wife, Cora Lees. He was a U-M professor, they lived in Ann Arbor, and this was their retreat. They were conservationists and Dr. Gesell, in 1952 publicly came out against vivisection for research. That indicated their attitude toward life, people, justice for animals, and the earth. We felt like we didn't just buy a piece of land. We sort of made an agreement to take care of the land and the animals.

The land was really special. It was far from Ann Arbor, and we were driving back and forth to the restaurant, back to this no electricity place. [We lived] in the cabin, trying to figure out how to make a fire and warm ourselves up, and then go back to the restaurant in the morning. It sorted itself out. It was a relief to stay here, but we were always sorry that it meant the end of Indian Summer, which was a lovely institution.

Sandor Slomovits: When did it end?

Cathy King: It might have been ‘76. It didn't last very long. That's why it was named Indian Summer. Ken named it that, because it'd be really nice, but not last very long. I didn't think he knew how or why it would end, but what he said was prophetic.

Sandor Slomovits: How old were you and Ken in ‘72, when you moved to the farm?

Cathy King: (Laughter) I think I was 24. Ken was almost 30. He was all grown up. He seemed like he knew what he was doing. He was kind of an elder, he wasn't afraid to try things.

Sandor Slomovits: When did you start bringing your vegetables to the farmers market in Ann Arbor?

Cathy King: First we went to Saline to try it out and that was experience, but it wasn't many sales. Then we started in Ann Arbor on a Wednesday because we were sort of in awe of the Ann Arbor Farmers Market. Then we ended up going on a Saturday with lettuce. We had a very small sign that said ‘organic’ and the lettuce just flew off the table… it was probably 35 cents, three for a dollar. (Laughter) But we realized that was the market.

Billy King: For many years we were the only organic farm. It still feels recent to me that there are so many other organic farms now.

Sandor Slomovits: Do you think that the people who started organic farms in the area were influenced by you?

Cathy King: I think it was kind of the mood of the times. There was a while, maybe in the eighties and nineties, when there was no interest. Then, in the early 2000s there was Barbara Kingsolver and Michael Pollen, and the interest came back around. I don't think it had a whole lot to do with us except, we were still there. We hadn't given up. Now of course there’s much more awareness and appreciation of small farms and locally grown produce.

Billy King: Although it was always decent for us.

Cathy King: Yeah. Well, ‘cause we didn't need that much.

Billy King: We had maybe developed a loyal customer base.

Cathy King: But we did press cider, for a good while. There used to be apples on the farm. We thought we could bring them back organically, these old trees that were planted in World War II, but we couldn't. So, then we bought apples. That was like a factory job, driving around buying apples. Ken was working in an unheated cider area in our barn. It didn’t even have walls, just had plastic.

Billy King: That paid the bills.

Cathy King: Yes. That was how we could stay here in those early days because we couldn't grow enough to pay the land contract or feed ourselves.

Billy King: How many years did the cider production last?

Cathy King: At least fifteen years, maybe even longer. Somebody heard about an old cider press and we said, okay, we'll try it and Ken sort of put it back together again. It was nothing like the modern cider presses, but it made really good cider. We took the cider to the Del Rio, Seva, Applerose, and we sold it at the market. That was fortunate even though, again, we didn't know what we were doing. When we could stop doing that, it was a big relief because it was very physically demanding.

Sandor Slomovits: Tell us about your CSA.

Cathy King: We’d been taking our produce to the Ann Arbor Farmers Market for years when CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) became popular, so we were late adapters. The basic idea is a commitment from members at the start of the year to use what’s in season and abundant. This gives security to farmers that face the unpredictability of weather, pests, and customer demand. Members say it saves them time shopping, encourages them to try new things, and ensures that they will get a great selection of produce without having to ‘beat the crowds.’ We started small, about 25 families in 2008, which grew to 60 in a few years. We took a break from the CSA for the next few years because our growing space is limited, and our time was split between the farm and Holler Fest.

Sandor Slomovits: Yes, Holler Fest. Many people know your family as farmers, but many also know you Billy, as a musician, and plenty remember the King Brothers—you and Kenny playing and recording music when you were barely in your teens. And then there’s Holler Fest, the music festival you’ve been hosting at Frog Holler for many years. So, let’s talk about all that music. It started with Ken, right?

Learn more online at froghollerorganic.com.

Cathy King: Yeah. I often say he really considered himself a musician more than a farmer.

Billy King: I think he was always trying to elude a label. If you called him a musician he’d say, ‘I don't know, I'm a philosopher.’

Cathy King: If you called him a philosopher, he’d say, ‘no I'm a farmer,’ but certainly he wanted to include musician.

Sandor Slomovits: Did he play the Ark and other places, or was it more informal than that?

Billy King: He didn't perform very often, if at all. He was always writing songs and playing them around the house and at one point he decided to go to a studio. This was something he’d kind of always wanted to do, and it was way out of his comfort zone as a singer, to be in that environment. So, I'd say the result was not super flattering, but nonetheless, it showed that he had some ambition about his music. He tried to send it around to publishers, which is, you know, a wretched thing to do.

Sandor Slomovits: Yes, I do know! (Laughter)

Billy King: After that he was probably feeling like he hadn't been able to deliver the songs the way he would have liked to, so he ended up buying recording equipment. He came home with a cassette four-track recording studio. This is generally the way he would go about everything, ‘I'm just going to figure out how to do this myself.’ He was going to record his songs, and my brother and I quickly took charge of this new toy.

Cathy King: You took it!
Billy King: Kenny and I started recording our own songs.

Sandor Slomovits: How old were you?

Billy King: I was ten when I started recording, and by the time I was eleven, we were performing all over Ann Arbor.

Cathy King: Your first cassette was when you were eleven. Kenny was seven. They were home-schooled and we tended to trust them with expensive equipment. (Laughter) We knew they would do good things with it.

Sandor Slomovits: This was in 1988?

Billy King: Yeah. Actually, we’d started to record before this four-track. We had miscellaneous tape decks and I found a way to make them work as multi-track by playing back what I'd recorded and singing to it—very old school. But once we got this four-track, it's like the door opened. We had a little drum machine and a keyboard, and I just took to it very quickly.

Cathy King: Ken did get his cassette recording finally, didn't he?

Billy King: He was so much less comfortable recording. I think his best musical moments were probably either in his room, just banging out songs, or some shows he played where he really was able to connect with listeners. But I have a lot of recordings I still hope to make available at some point.

Sandor Slomovits: Did your dad teach you guitar, or did you teach yourself?

Billy King: I guess I resisted input from him, probably picking up on his self-guided, self-teaching mentality. I wanted to teach myself. (Laughs)

Cathy King: You were just around him doing music.

Billy King: I started on piano actually, just feeling it out, and then quickly switched to guitar. But I didn't bother with chords. I just played the top four strings where chording is very simple. When I finally sat down with a book of chords, it was just adding to what I already knew.

Kenny King is the middle brother, four years younger than Billy, and Edwin King is the youngest of the three. On Saturdays at the Ann Arbor Farmers Market, the three of them are often among the crew manning the Frog Holler stall. Kenny played a lot with Billy when they were growing up and I wondered what role music played in his life now.

Sandor Slomovits: Kenny, you played a lot with Billy when you were growing up, I remember seeing your cassettes for sale at the People’s Food Co-op, and even a couple of years ago I recall seeing you in Chelsea playing bass at a gig with Billy, my daughter Emily, and a few other people. Would you talk about music in your life now?

Kenny King: These days, I feel more comfortable in a less visible role. The performing that I did with Billy, as the King Brothers, that was a long, long, time ago. I was introduced to music, to performing, when I was pretty young. In my teens I stopped doing that and I don't feel like taking the stage anymore. I can fill in sometimes when there isn't someone else to do it. (Laughter) But I don't feel like being center stage.

Sandor Slomovits: What about you, Edwin?

Edwin King: I never picked it up. I enjoy it [music] but I managed to dodge that particular talent. (Laughter) To the best of my memory, I think I played one show with them. I think I played drums for a school sock hop. That was the full extent of my performance career. I let them have their thing and found my own.

His own thing includes playing speed chess online, he was the concurrent state chess champ for elementary and middle school, and for years was on the winning volleyball team for Manchester rec leagues. His mom, recognizing her sons’ reticence when it comes to self-promotion, also added, “Kenny is visually artistic (he won't admit that now so good luck exploring it!) but it led to his attending and getting a degree in Graphic Design from the College for Creative Studies in Detroit.”

In the late 1980s, when Billy and Kenny began playing in public and recording, the King family started hosting occasional informal open mics on their front porch, and later in their barn. “We'd have a party with music, with jamming, very casual,” says Billy. “Holler Fest was such a major leap from that, but that was the seed, having music in the barn.”

Since 2007, Holler Fest’s inaugural year, the music festival on the Frog Holler Farm grounds has grown in both size and reputation. It’s now one of the premiere folk and roots music festivals in Michigan, mentioned in the same breath as Wheatland, Blissfest, Hiawatha Traditional Music Festival, and Farmfest. Featuring a format similar to those and other music festivals, Holler Fest offers concerts, including ones especially tailored to children, as well as workshops on instruments, song and poetry writing, and more. Holler Fest primarily presents Michigan performers and has arguably the most beautiful natural setting and the best food of any music festival. For many in Southeast Michigan, musicians and music fans alike, it’s become a cherished annual goodbye-to-summer tradition.

“It was, to a large extent, Kenny’s idea,” says Billy. “He had been studying at CCS (College for Creative Studies). He came back to the farm after that and was maybe looking at it with a different perspective. He'd also been to Bliss Fest in July 2007. When he came back, he looked at our land with fresh eyes and said, ‘You know, we've got a perfect venue for something like these music festivals that happen in Northern Michigan.’ Since it also happened to be the 35th anniversary of the farm, he said, “There's a good excuse to throw a bigger party than we normally throw.”

When I talked with Kenny later and relayed what Billy said, he offered a slightly different, and typically self-effacing take on what happened. “Well, you know, I wouldn't take credit. Maybe we were all sitting around and maybe I was the first person to say the word festival. I'm not sure. Having people out, sharing music on the porch, in the cabin, that kind of community was already part of what we considered the farm to be about. I guess I thought maybe we could expand that community a bit and do something a little bit larger.”

Billy King: We didn’t have to do too much clearing [that first year] but a lot of mowing. Building a stage had to happen in like a month’s time. (Laughter) We had neighbors who helped and it all just kind of came together once the seed of the idea was planted. It was so small, but still leaps above what we'd done before. It was just one day, we had four or five bands lined up to play. I think we had 300 people.

Cathy King: But we didn't expect that many. I remember we didn't have a kitchen. We just brought some food that we had made somewhere. We were serving out of a tent and I was just madly serving, and somebody said, ‘stop a minute and look up.’ And the food line, it just stretched away from the tent up and over the hill. And I realized, that people really had come.

Billy King: And then everyone was saying, ‘So, see you next year.’ And we were like, ‘Wait, what? Okay.’ (Laughter) We were just trying to keep it small.

Cathy King: Yeah, but you changed it to three days, the second year.

Sandor Slomovits: And now you have four stages; the main one at the foot of a natural bowl amphitheater is a perfect place for playing, listening, or dancing to music. But my favorite is in the small stone cabin that you, Cathy, and Ken lived in when you first moved to the property.

Billy King: By now we're close to 2,000 people, that's people on the land, not paying attendees, that's musicians, volunteers, everybody.

Cathy King: We didn’t promote it for a long time. We still do very limited promotion.

I asked Edwin and his partner, Emily Foley, about their roles in Holler Fest. “Well, my role has generally been to do all the farm stuff while everyone else is doing festival things,” says Edwin. Emily, whose day job is in the film industry as Head of Development at Hear/Say Productions has caused her to miss some years of the festival, adds, “I don't have a specific role.” Which actually means that she wears a variety of hats in preparing for the festival, generally doing what needs to be done. “For the first twelve years that we did the festival we still went to market on the weekend of Holler Fest,“ says Edwin, “Which was crazy! (Laughter) We were harvesting while everybody else was working on the festival. I kind of enjoyed it. I found it meditative just to be out there on my own and, you know, I get done what I get done. I was always very relieved to not be as stressed as everybody who was working on the festival seemed.”

***

Sandor Slomovits: So, Billy, are you a farmer, a musician or…

Billy King: I don’t think it's being difficult of me to say that I feel like I'm a homesteader or something…

Sandor Slomovits: Like your dad, you're refusing to be pinned down.
Billy King: Well, I don't think it's necessarily to be difficult or to resist a label. I just don't think it would be fair or accurate to say I’m a farmer because I do so many other things, and some of them, like music, I would consider a part time job. On a farm you're required to be a builder, an electrician, and a general problem solver. So, I don't really identify so much as a farmer, but I'm okay with it. It doesn't bother me.

Cathy King: When you say farm, especially in this culture where farms are no longer very present in the consciousness, people see corn, they see tractors…

Billy King: Animals. Everyone thinks of animals.

Cathy King: Yeah, beef cattle or something. I feel like we live on the land. We have a beautiful piece of land that we're fortunate to be living on and taking care of the best we can. And one thing we do is grow vegetables, but it’s so much more than that. Not that “farmer” is a bad label at all, but we don't really think of the land as a farm in the traditional sense of the word. We just try to grow things on a few acres so we can preserve the rest of the 120 or so. You’ve seen this place, it's gorgeous. And I’m still in awe how nature just permeates our existence, that we live with it, and around it, and through it.

Without sounding too precious, I think the life that we have designed at Frog Holler stems largely from a space of unknowing (which can also read as insecurity). I think Ken really set the idea of the value of creativity in motion. We certainly never had a "business plan" and, while being firmly planted in place and dedicated to growing good food, Ken considered himself a scholar, a musician, a writer, and an artist as well.

Sandor Slomovits: Speaking of creativity in motion, Cathy you’ve been practicing and teaching yoga for many years.

Cathy King: I was taking yoga out here, but I also took a class in Ann Arbor because some friends said I should take a class from Barbara Linderman. She had been teaching at the YMCA but moved her classes to the Friends Center. She was going to be taking a year off while she studied psychology and she needed some people to take her classes. To this day, I do not know why she asked me to teach. I really learned to teach by the seat of my pants and also by having some really good examples, Barb Linderman and Ron Chalfant, who also taught in Ann Arbor. I didn't take a teacher training or anything, Barbara felt that I had some interest, so she asked me to teach a class. I did, and it kind of clicked. Then, along with the other teachers she asked to cover her classes—Lynette Smith, Martha Laatsch, and Jonathan Tyman—we decided that we needed a name. The four of us met with Barb at the Gazebo in Manchester, we sat around and brainstormed, laughed at ridiculous suggestions, and tried again, laughed some more until someone blurted out Inward Bound and Barb said, ‘I think that's it.’

We met at the Friends Center where Barb and her husband had a long-time affiliation. I am grateful for my early students, that they didn't get damaged. (Laughter) I learned so much as I went. I continued to study myself and then just learned from my students. It was a real passion.

Sandor Slomovits: When did you start practicing yoga?

Cathy King: I sort of studied yoga off and on all my life. I had a friend, DorothyAnn Coyne, who lived out here and she and her husband, Bernie, had built a healing center. They called it Sunnyside and they had a beautiful room where she and I were practicing teaching. (Bernie passed away a few years ago.) We had the two of us, and three people came to the class. That was a good ratio of teacher to student while we learned. This was in the early nineties, probably ‘92, ‘93. The King brothers were playing, I was teaching yoga and I think we were just able to stop doing cider, and 1995 is when Inward Bound became an entity with a name. It was a very creative, rich time. I taught there until 2009, when Ken passed away.

Sandor Slomovits: Do you still practice?

Cathy King: Yeah, not as much as I should, in the summer…

Sandor Slomovits: Farming is your yoga.

Cathy King: Yes, but it's really in me. When I stopped teaching at Inward Bound, I was also still teaching through the Washtenaw senior program, so I was teaching in Manchester, Saline, and Chelsea. When I stopped doing that, I was slowly shedding driving around and teaching yoga, I was just teaching in Brooklyn. Then we remodeled our barn and the idea was I was going to teach in the barn on the farm, and then the pandemic happened, and I'm not teaching at all, but I hope to again someday. I certainly believe in the value of it.

Billy King: We would integrate it into the music—we used our music for classes. There was a lot of crossover. My dad was involved and there were performances.

Cathy King: I had a group called Still Moving Yoga Dance Group. I had access to this wonderful original music. There were maybe eight or nine people willing to do these things with me. We performed with Billy and Kenny at Performance Network, and at different yoga studios.

Sandor Slomovits: I’ve seen videos of some of those shows. The way you combined yoga, dance, Billy and Kenny’s music, humor, and storytelling was really wonderful. I’m sorry I never got to see them live.

Cathy King: The Yoga Dance was separate from my classes, but I often use music with the postures. Music takes the consciousness into a whole new place. To me, designing a yoga class is a creative opportunity, drawing on the students' ability and interest, my personal interests, the cultural milieu at the time, and that great creative mystery. You have to sort of go into that unknowing space to allow something to emerge. I don't ascribe to any system or way to encapsulate what I do or how I teach. I try to be present to my students.

Sandor Slomovits: I've avoided asking, and I certainly understand if you don't want to talk about it, but Ken’s passing must've been an enormous shock for all of you. If you’re willing to talk about that, I would appreciate hearing.

Cathy King: Thank you. I don't really know what to say.

Billy King: Well, I think when you're in the middle of running the farm, you have no choice but to keep running. For at least two years prior to him passing, I was the one who mainly worked with my dad. Toward the end, I was the one that basically kept him from hurting himself. He was really struggling and trying to do what he'd always done.

Cathy King: Hurting himself being on equipment that he shouldn't have been on.

Billy King: Yes. Those were challenging years, especially the one before he passed, because I was trying to keep the farm going and take care of him. At some point we knew what was happening (that he was dying of cancer), not that we were necessarily processing it, it takes time to process, but kind of what we were going to be dealing with, and we just had to keep going. Prior to that, when he was very much with it and capable, I couldn't imagine how we would function without his involvement and leadership, because the way he would work was all just in his head. He didn’t do things so that other people might have insight into how he was making decisions, or why things were happening. That kind of made it a mystery to us, but once we had to take the reins, we quickly found our own way, we got very organized. We started keeping notes for everything. That's how we were able to bring more people in. I think the summer after [he passed] we had quite a large crew working on the land with us. Kenny was very instrumental in that effort to bring more people in. For my dad, it would have been too difficult because he kept so much with his work in his head that it was a distraction to have other people hanging around, needing direction. The only people he could work with were his sons.

Cathy King: I think the other thing Billy did right away is he spent some money and bought two big tractors?

Billy King: One big tractor…

Cathy King: And another newer one, right?

Billy King: Yeah. The next year.

Cathy King: And put in some irrigation. I just feel like Ken sort of functioned from those lean years when we had nothing and everything was just bobby pins and string, you know, just tied together. We were not in debt, but we were not that efficient either. We needed to make some investments.

Kenny King: Our dad was such an energetic person and he wasn't ready to go. He was the driving force on the farm and he made the tough decisions as long as he could—working non-stop most of the time. We were caught off guard and found ourselves doing what we could to adapt as his health deteriorated. Fortunately, Billy had learned a lot about farm equipment, Edwin was doing the greenhouse starts, I had a knack for records, and our mom knew the rest. The time of his passing marked the start of a new phase for Frog Holler—the festival was just beginning to take off and we started to bring in more people as farm interns and festival volunteers. The community expanded and became more multigenerational, so we had a lot to keep us busy.

Our dad had the vision for this farm and the determination to make it happen, along with our mom and very few others. We have taken that foundation and expanded it, made it more efficient and a bit easier. His approach was one of sheer will, rather than careful planning, and he had a very personal style that few could follow. He kept track of everything in his head, worked with unreliable equipment, and did a disproportionate amount of the labor himself—so we quickly realized that we had to update some of the tools and techniques in order to continue.

He had a big presence at the market and our customers miss him. They often tell me that he was the one that helped them start gardening, or eating more healthfully, or talked with them about the concerns facing our society. He was known for being really generous with his time and inventory which established trust and goodwill that continues to this day.

On a personal level, the death of those close to me is something that I imagined in the distant future—until it became immediate. I often wonder what it would be like if he was still around, and what he would think if he could see the farm now—similar, but different from how he left it. As his passing grew imminent the question, “how could we continue without him?” became “how could we not?” We had market two days after his death and it seemed like the natural place to be.

Billy King: I think over time we would be reminded of this major change. There were obviously times that were very sad. I think the thing I've missed the most was his music, his passion for music and having that inspiration, the backdrop of that inspiration. I sometimes still don't know where I find that now. It's not something I could replace.

***

Sandor Slomovits: How has the pandemic affected you?

Billy King: You know, being out where we are, we don't feel it as much. The work has not been less. In fact, the demand for food has just increased across the board in our circle of small farms. We've been very, very busy with farm related work and finding ways to get the food to people. That was very uncertain at the beginning [of the pandemic] and has worked out via online delivery and pre-orders, and now the farmers market, as well as our CSA.

Kenny King: On a daily basis it’s kind of life as usual. We try not to have as many people coming to the farm as in a normal year; maybe not quite as many interns or volunteers, but we still had a small number.

The big effect of Covid that I have felt is being reminded of the importance of local, nutritious, and consciously grown food in our community. We were happy to be able to provide online ordering and contact-free delivery—that felt like very essential services under these circumstances. In particular, delivering garden plants to customers’ doorsteps; we knew that we were helping to provide food for the whole year—a great feeling! We aren’t alone. I see other farms developing innovative ways to provide food under these tough conditions. Ann Arbor values good food and gladly supports their food growers, and this crisis has reaffirmed that.

Edwin King: We had to get more tech savvy very quickly, which Emily was really helpful with.

Emily Foley and Edwin have been together for nine years, since she interned at Frog Holler in 2011. Before that she had gone to school at the U-M and, while in Ann Arbor, had volunteered and interned at the Community Farm, and also worked at Zingerman’s, before beginning a job in the film industry. She was living in Brooklyn, New York and jokes that she liked the idea of moving to Brooklyn, Michigan. She now works largely from home but, as Head of Development for Hear/Say Productions, also frequently on location for about eight months at a time, helping to shepherd film projects from the idea stage to reality.

Emily Foley: When the pandemic hit, I was in Canada, scouting for an upcoming film that was supposed to hopefully go this past summer, filmed in Canada, which of course did not happen. So, we dropped everything, left early, and I came back here. A week later we had the farm’s website up and all of the plants online and started selling shortly thereafter. I went from film production to farm pandemic response. For a fairly straightforward operation like this, there were still, what, a hundred varieties that we have. So, doing all that, going from a hundred percent face to face sales to a hundred percent online sales was a big transition right at the beginning of spring.

Cathy King: We started with the seedlings because there was a pretty big demand for gardening and the Farmers Market was not open.

Emily Foley: It was actually kind of nice because we had about two weeks, we had a little bit of time before the plants were ready to go. It wasn't like other businesses where they had to be figuring it out on the fly, like grocery stores that stayed open through the pandemic and were also trying to figure it out. We did have a little buffer time to get organized.

Edwin King: Our day-to-day life changed much less than a lot of people's. Then, as the market opened back up, things gradually started to feel more normal, though with fewer faces.

Emily Foley: And less portions of faces, too. (Laughter)

Sandor Slomovits: Right, because of the masks.

Kenny King: When the pandemic hit, the farmers market shut down for a month or so, and we were about to start going to market with spring plant starts and we didn't exactly know what was going to happen. The market didn't really come back until pretty much after the plant season was through, so we really needed to adapt. And we did successfully have a plant season, everyone that wanted plants got them and we were able to sell most of the plants that we'd already planted, so it worked out, but it was a lot of adjusting. People could pick their orders up at the farm, or they could have those orders delivered.

Cathy King: We’ve continued that because it was very popular to have curbside pickup at the market. People who order from us online can just go to this curbside option at the farmers market and not have to park or anything, just pull in, get their order, and leave. That's continued to be a very useful option for a number of people. We're also doing some deliveries which, again, we were just meeting the need at the time when people were very uncertain if they wanted to go anywhere, if they should go anywhere, but they knew they needed food. We're continuing that on a smaller basis, because it's still helpful for a number of people.

Sandor Slomovits: Do you deliver mostly to people close by, or do you come to Ann Arbor?

Cathy King: They're pretty much all in Ann Arbor. We come to the market, then we go do deliveries. When Covid happened we saw how important it was for people to have access to locally grown food and the challenges of in-person sales, so we brought the CSA back and have more members than ever—over 100—who can pick up their box of produce without contact here at the farm, or at the market, or delivered to their door.

The delivery aspect was new due to Covid and we give Emily kudos for anticipating the need and setting up the online ordering site. In the early spring, when the farmers market and other garden centers were closed, we made hundreds of plant start deliveries to Ann Arbor households. On our first farm pickup day we had almost a hundred folks come out to the farm to get their seedlings—despite snow the day before. We transformed one of our hoop houses into a "Plantazon" fulfillment center and packed thousands of seedlings for delivery, farm pickup, and eventually curbside pickup at the Market. Everything was so uncertain, but we are grateful for the "pivots" we were able to make, for our customer's determination to get good food, and for Mother Nature who quietly went about her business of seasonal renewal and growth.

Sandor Slomovits: What about Holler Fest, how was it to have to cancel this year? Was it in some ways a relief?

Billy King: It was definitely kind of surreal. Around the time of the festival we just kept thinking about what we would normally be doing in early to mid-August, in terms of getting ready, and realizing that we didn’t have to do any of that and trying to imagine how we did it before. Especially this year, with all of the demand, and the different avenues we've been maintaining with produce distribution, it's just felt like it would have been impossible.

Kenny King: When we realized that it wasn't going to be happening, everything just filled in the space that that would have taken. It happens at a time in the year when we don't have time for it in the first place. (Laughter) I don't know if we've really processed the fact that we didn't have Holler Fest. And though we didn't have a lot of anxiety about the decision because there was really no way to even consider it, I think we need to process it a bit more because we still don't know what the situation is going to be like next year.

Edwin King: I think we all missed it, but at the same time when you don't do something like that, you wonder how you ever had the time or the energy to do it because it felt like we were just as busy as we normally are without this massive undertaking.

Emily Foley: It also made me wonder how Edwin keeps the farm running in normal years because we were all so busy with farm stuff this year.

Cathy King: It was obviously the right decision. We were comfortable with making it, but I think we, and maybe people who are connected to Holler Fest, felt it that week. It felt like something was missing, there were so many kind comments on Facebook. It pulled at my heartstrings, but also, I felt physically not able to do anything like that,{we were] just doing all we could do growing food.

Sandor Slomovits: Have you expanded the amount of food you're growing? Or is it that you’re busier delivering the food?

Billy King: A little of both. I think we're growing about as much as we can with our limited growing area. Since we didn't do Holler Fest, we didn't have to reserve the field back there for parking. So, I was able to plant more later crops in that area. We tried to expand a little, due to the demand, but there's only so much we can do.

Sandor Slomovits: How did all of you, Billy, Kenny, Edwin, and Emily decide that you were going to stay here and build your life around all this?

Billy King: I never went through too much thought or confusion about that. When I was younger, I was very fixated on the music and very much believing and imagining reaching some level of stardom. When I was playing with my brother at the age of 10, 11, 12, 13, the dream of making it big was always there. (Laughter) But then I started to see some of the downsides of that and became less fixated on that aspect of doing music. Once I stopped fixating on having music be… my life, I started feeling like I liked being on the farm where I had freedom to do music and also there was work readily available to me. I always felt like I had freedom, if I decided I wanted to do something different, I could.

Kenny King: I never really decided. I still haven't decided. My dad would have said the same thing. He'd say I haven't decided that thing. I don't know how long I'm going to do this. I have other things that I plan to do. I guess there's enough here to keep us going and keep it interesting. And, it feels valuable, I guess that would be the answer for why I've stayed here so long.

Going to college, I guess, I wanted to just see how I would do, see if I could do that. I felt like there was something that might be missing, so I went and tried to cover those bases, have that experience. And I did, and I had a graphic design job, a sort of corporate type environment. I felt like I got some of that experience and got the question answered as to whether I could do that, but I didn't continue. It didn't feel like that was it. I still wanted to keep farming and doing other things. I didn't want to just go into the corporate world and stay there forever.

I doubt I would have become a farmer if I had any other upbringing. But, as time goes by, I see myself as a steward of this land, this farm operation, and the festival where our community gathers. Capitalism doesn’t guarantee the existence of small organic farms or small festivals, so I’m motivated by the belief that these things matter. At the very least they matter a lot to those that shop with us and come to the fest. Also, Frog Holler is more nature sanctuary than it is farmland—we farm just a few of our 120 acres, so an important reason to be here is to help keep it that way.

Edwin King: It didn't really feel like a decision so to speak. I think in a sense I'm still deciding. I've never had a moment like, okay, this is it for good, forever. I'm here. This has been good for now, and I don't need to look for anything else. I don't want to close the door, you know, don’t want to be pigeon-holed in one profession or one interest.

Sandor Slomovits: Would you all talk a bit about the future.

Billy King: [The 2019] festival went really well. We were planning on building on that momentum and we had a great lineup [for 2020]. I've always been very humbled by the lineup that we were able to put together. But 2020 was expanding on that and bringing some new people in. We were excited about that. We also have this newly renovated barn, which is now a four-season space for whatever use we find for it; shows, movies, yoga, recording. We were excited about exploring that. And there's always the general challenge with the work of the farm and how we keep improving our techniques; that’s always in the mix of our thinking.

Now [since the pandemic] I don't know. We're just waiting to see how this plays out. We're doing what we can on a very, very small scale in terms of maintaining those ideas.

Cathy King: I think Billy said that really well. Holler Fest, it's kind of hard to describe the breadth of it, the number of people that we've somehow drawn into the circle and have bonded through creating that together. So, we were looking to continue developing that in service to the community. To me, it's beyond our decision anymore—except for now, of course—it is a service we provide.

I think that the land is sort of a landscape for us. This is something that I think Ken wanted to do. He didn't have time to do everything he wanted to do. We’re really just in service to the land and to the beauty here. That's what we talk about, how we can make it more functional. I have an interest in flowers and beautifying that way—not that it needs anything extra. The palette of the land is an ongoing, infinite practice.

Billy King: We're trying to work with it as much as we can because it's not really farmland, it's rolling hills and woods. I know in the early days when (he addresses Cathy) you had somebody come and consult about buying the land and said, ‘What's the best use for this land’ and they said ‘recreation,’ basically golf course or something. (Laughter)

Cathy King: I’ve been thinking about that. We are also offering recreation.

Sandor Slomovits: Yeah! You sure are.

Billy King: They were thinking campground, and now we have a once a year campground, and that's something that we might be able, as the infrastructure is in place more and more, to rent it out, or have other events that we don't have to be involved in necessarily.

Cathy King: It's wonderful when people come out. We're not that far from Ann Arbor, but it seems like we're far, yet once you get here, you've gotten away.

Billy King: We've already had more than a few inquiries about weddings. There was one scheduled that got postponed because of Covid.

Cathy King: But we'd only do funky weddings. (Laughter)

Billy King: Right. It's gotta be funky.

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Edwin King: I feel like I very rarely think that far into the future. Every year is exhausting but rewarding in its own way. Then you have a moment when you're like, well, I really want to take some time off. Then by the next spring, you're like, well, let's try it again. These days things are more uncertain than ever, but I feel like there's always some degree of that, so I try not to plan on anything too definite. That being said, things haven't changed very much for the past 15, 20 years, so maybe I should learn from the past and assume that the same will be true in the future.

Emily Foley: I call the farm home now and it’s always really nice coming back here, having stability, a piece of land that I love so much, having that as a place that I can return to, also going out on these adventures [for my other work] and be able to take more risks. It is a very speculative business (the film industry), in the sense that, especially with the development work that I do, you put in a lot of time and energy into projects that may or may not ever happen. I feel very grateful to have this grounding presence in my life. Not all of it is in my control obviously, but I do hope that both these parts of my life continue to develop and evolve. I feel so very grateful to have found some semblance of balance between my professional life and my home life.

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As I was finishing this article Cathy sent me an email in which she wanted to be sure we gave her family an opportunity to acknowledge all the help and support they have received over the years, “Some sort of shoutout to the myriad folks who have helped to establish the King family brand!” she wrote (adding a smiley face :-). Then she continued, “I thought about this when I was picking beans (my meditation zendo :-). And she went on:

Cathy King: From quizzical parents who scratched their heads but still loaned us some money in those early days of living like pioneers in the stone cabin, to the many young people over the years who have given us their energy and muscle on the farm, to the extremely loyal customers who keep coming to the market, many have become friends as well as customers, to our neighbors, the Coynes, who ‘got’ what we were doing right away and gave us positive support and money, and Tom Hines next door, who builds the bonfires at Holler Fest but also, as a retired construction contractor, was (and still is) our partner in crime building much of the Holler Fest infrastructure and road management, to Tom Huber, another builder responsible for some big projects (the kitchen!) and some invisible (who, along with Tom Hines helped us move from electrical cords laying all over the ground to buried wires), all of the hundreds of Holler Fest volunteers—many who have now graduated to staff—and who come back every year to give up a lot of time being at the festival to instead be in the festival. There are too many to mention but believe me, we all know that we wouldn't be here today answering questions about how awesome we are if we didn't have hundreds and hundreds of folks supporting our crazy ideas.

I do hope that the farm and festival can continue to be a crucible for folks to find their creative path. We see it happening with former interns who now have their own farms, and Holler Fest staff who have grown in the skills and interests they bring. We don't ‘train’, we don't really ‘instruct’. [Just] as we did with our homeschooling approach, we provide a beautiful (and hopefully inspiring) setting, provide support and resources where we can, and stand back and let the creative juices flow!

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