Hey, John, you there?
Yeah, go ahead.
These animals are in a terrible spot.
We're gonna move 'em all into a pasture that's safer.
They'll be fine.
Copy.
Breaking news in Southern California. Six major wildfires now.
John, what's going on? Are you coming with us?
Molly, it's still really far away.
But just get prepared in case, okay?
- Whoa. - Oh, my God.
There's fire over there on that side. There's fire down there.
And then there's a fourth one that's up that way.
As soon as you're done this, you guys can go.
We're gonna move the ewes and the lambs
all together in 16, and that's just one pasture.
John, I'm not okay with this.
I can see a lot of smoke out the window.
We're gonna go.
I never dreamed we could even get to this point
to have so much to lose.
But... I was wrong.
Okay, guys, you're gonna get knocked down.
But just remember, keep getting up and keep moving forward.
Look. She's not scared.
Everyone told us this idea was crazy.
That attempting to farm in harmony with nature...
would be reckless, if not impossible.
But what's crazier is that this all started
with a promise we made to a dog.
Hi! So I'm doing a scallop cook-off,
and John ate all the ones that I had already done.
But they were so good.
John and I were living in a tiny apartment in Santa Monica.
I just wanted everybody to see how I started my day.
Oh, he's still half asleep!
John was a cameraman working on wildlife projects all over the world.
I love these zucchinis, 'cause look how they're all different shapes.
Molly was a private chef and culinary blogger...
And the dense flesh makes for a really nice soup.
...specializing in the health benefits
of more traditional cooking methods.
Bone broths are rich in gelatin,
which supports the digestion...
And she knew an even deeper truth.
You know, the health of our food
is really determined by how it's farmed.
We promised each other that we'd build
a life of purpose together.
And there was no question for Molly
that we'd both find plenty of purpose on a farm.
But this farm would have orchards, gardens, animals...
Not just any farm.
We're talking like something out of a children's book.
We would grow apricots and peaches, plums,
nectarines, cherries, kumquats, grapefruits, guava, limes...
Her dream was literally to grow
everything she could possibly cook with.
This vegetable garden, it wouldn't be just any vegetable garden.
We would have flowers, herbs...
And we'd do all of this
in perfect harmony with nature.
Thyme, rosemary, oregano, basil...
Like a traditional farm from the past.
Fennel, strawberries, boysenberries,
raspberries, kale, broccoli...
Sounded like a meaningful life.
But our reality was so far away
from anything like a farm.
Okay, ready? Go ahead.
So I'm starting to get the red tomatoes.
Her excitement for food was infectious.
And that is my September porch garden.
But I couldn't see any way to make it happen...
Look, I've got these little wasabi sprouts.
...until one day, when we saved a life that would change ours.
I found myself filming an animal hoarder for work.
She had 200 dogs in one house.
Buster, quiet.
And the county was about to come take them all.
Hey, I like this guy.
That's where I met Todd.
Hey, buddy.
She kept him in a tiny pen with these huge
Great Pyrenees dogs three times his size.
Molly, this one right here. You see him?
Come on, John. For real? Bad idea.
Yeah, but look at his eyes.
Today, about 200 animals have been removed from a home near Tehachapi.
Many of the dogs had to be euthanized.
We had a baby.
Todd filled us with purpose.
Are you gonna do anything fun?
- What's he doing? - Rollin' on his back.
Roll over. Good.
Shake. Chair.
Speak.
Good boy!
We made one promise to him.
Our home would be his last.
- Hey, guys, this is Jacob from downstairs. - The problem was...
Your dog's been barking... ...if we left, he would bark...
...all day. ...nonstop for eight hours.
Yeah. We tried everything.
We got Todd one of those fancy LA dog trainers.
If your dog's an out-of-control barker,
then this program is for you.
- Actually, a couple of them. - That didn't work.
We got him a citronella barking collar
that sprays orange in his face every time he barks.
And when we got home, the whole entire house smelled like oranges,
and the canister was empty.
Then we got him this anxiety shirt
that was supposed to wrap around him and make him really calm.
That was the day he tore the carpet up.
Oh, and remember you even tried that service vest
so that you could take him everywhere?
Oh, man, Todd. This is so wrong.
We sensed it was coming.
The landlord called.
Todd had to go.
Moving to another apartment wouldn't stop Todd's barking.
We couldn't just give up on him.
And then it hit us.
Molly's dream could be the answer to everything.
We had a great idea
with no way to pay for it.
So we read every farming book we could find.
Cold-called old farmers.
And we drew up a business plan.
It was time to find an investor.
But first, we shared our vision
with our closest friends and family.
Old MacMolly had a farm
E-I-E-I-O
Yeah, they made fun of us.
With an oink-oink here And an oink-oink there
It's a long story.
But it worked, because one person told another person...
And the word of our dream spread and spread.
Until it eventually connected us to some investors
who actually saw this old way of farming as the future.
All we needed was a farm.
The apple orchard could go here.
And we need a lot of different kinds of chickens.
- We need to find a spot for cherimoya. - Yeah.
And over there, I saw a perfect spot for a garden.
- I wonder if we can grow bananas. - Oh, my God.
Come on, Todd.
Here we are.
Apricot Lane Farms.
There's Todd runnin' by,
the happiest dog in the world.
Molly's bold vision has landed us
on over 200 acres of
somewhat neglected land
about an hour north of Los Angeles.
Looks like what used to be
an old irrigation pond or something.
- To Todd, it was perfect. - Todd, come here!
Come on. Yeah!
Molly, look. It's a beehive.
- Man, they're all dead. - Oh.
It didn't quite have an abundant feeling of life,
yet not much around here does.
We're surrounded by these large-scale monoculture-type farms.
To our north, the ruins
of the largest indoor egg operation in the world.
Egg City once housed 3.5 million chickens,
laying about two million eggs a day.
To our west,
miles of red raspberries growing under plastic hoop houses.
And I guess this is what farming has become,
so that farmers can make a living.
And the farm we're on
followed a similar monocrop-type approach.
They were really only growing lemons and avocados.
So it's pretty clear that our plan for a farm
is way outside of the norm.
So, how long you been beekeepin'?
Forty-eight years.
Whoa. You ever been out here before?
Nope. So what do you think killed 'em?
How long you been doin' this?
Beekeeping?
This is what we're fighting.
It doesn't smash.
The soil was dead,
and we had no idea how to bring it back to life.
And worse yet, every other farmer
we've mentioned Molly's dream farm idea to
thinks we're crazy.
Consultant for traditional farming...
- Okay, anytime. - She was like, "Hey, John,
"this guy named Alan York is coming today to give us some advice."
Are there any questions?
He's like this world-renowned expert
in traditional farming practices.
And he shows up wearing all linen
and sandals.
I can't even... Get in an inch.
But there was this emphatic cadence to his speech
that made him sound believable.
This is devil weed.
By the end of the day,
you will have such hate for this plant
that you'll burn that stuff, man, as if it's a ritual.
Oh, Molly, here's another of my favorite plants.
Puncture weed. What does that do?
Look. Just grab a hold... Ooh!
Do you love it? No.
Wow, Molly.
You don't love it. I hate it.
Molly thinks he's great. Molly.
But his goal for the farm... This is your filter. Pour it through it.
...sounds almost too good to be true.
The objective is to emulate
how natural ecosystems work.
They regulate themselves through diversity.
So you don't get epidemics of pests and disease.
The natural ecosystem right now is in the middle of a record drought,
so to build a life here,
we have to rely entirely
on a finite source of water from our well.
Okay, Molly, you ready?
Here we go. Irrigation's comin' on. All right.
Whoo!
Shoot. John, it's barely comin' out.
Well, it's goin' somewhere.
Alan promised that farming in this way...
It just shut off.
...will eventually feel like surfing.
Found the broken line.
This feels nothing like surfing.
Oh, boy. So, we tried to irrigate our pastures,
and when we turned on the well...
- You should probably turn it off. - Okay, I hear you.
Alan didn't really care about watering the pastures.
He was more focused on starting over
with everything.
Where can we get rid of things that should have never been planted?
That opens up the opportunity to diversify.
We ripped out 55 acres of old trees.
We built compost piles.
To make money, we need to be growing crops,
and all we're doing is ripping the crops out.
Burn it!
We restored an old pond.
We fixed over five miles of irrigation.
Alan convinced us to build
a state-of-the-art worm compost facility,
which is essentially an oversized palace
for collecting worm poop,
what he called the holy grail of soil food.
And then we're gonna brew this poop into a tea
and feed it to our soil.
We've blown through the first year's budget in six months,
and we haven't even planted a single crop.
You know, we have a saying in the South,
"Never enough time to do it right,
"but always enough time to do it over."
- That's pretty good. - Barely.
Okay. All right.
We hired two guys, Flavio and Raul.
Raul had been on this farm since he was 14 years old
and has actually worked through five of its owners.
Oh, and two of those owners were the banks
that foreclosed on the farm when it failed.
But at least he knows the farm.
Flavio grew up on his father's thousand-acre farm in Mexico.
He brought some experience, but our plan would require more hands.
Come on, Todd.
"Come join us." So, Molly got back on the Internet.
"Traditional farm."
And it worked.
We had young people from all over the world
coming to learn how to farm, just like us.
You want to dig in at an angle and just let the stuff fall down.
Yeah, exactly like that.
We were shoveling weeds into the trailer and I saw movement,
and there's a tiny little newborn baby.
Oh, he's tryin' to hide.
Too much excitement for one day.
Aw!
We're finally ready to refill the old irrigation pond.
Go ahead, Maria. Enjoy your new home, little catfish.
We are adding the very first worms to the 40-foot
Apricot Lane Farms bin.
Whoo!
All right, Molly, open that baby up.
Whoo-hoo!
All right! We are compost tea-ing!
You introduced us to all of these things.
Plants build soil.
If there's no plants, there will never be any fertility.
We planted tons of new trees,
we seeded cover crop, dug culverts to prevent runoff,
turned a horse arena into a garden, planted natives and other...
The list went on for pages. Built chicken coops.
Every time I crossed something off my list, 10 more things went on.
Our goal is the highest level
- of biodiversity possible. - Got it.
And we took that literally.
The post office called us at what time?
5:30.
For this.
They're the cutest things I've ever seen!
What do you think of this, Todd?
Why are you so mean?
It was like every animal
you'd see in a children's book.
Each...
...with a purpose to contribute.
One hundred baby ducks.
It was everything that we had ever talked about.
I can hardly stand it!
Yay! We own a bull!
Whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa!
Presenting Caya and Rosie, our livestock guardian dogs.
Well... One day.
Molly and John are very happy about this,
but Todd is not.
He won't even look at us.
Here's the new chicken house.
There are some chickens over there.
And the sheep like the chicken house, too.
What do you think, chickens?
Why?
What are you guys doing in my office?
Oh, boy.
Poor Todd.
Back with Great Pyrenees again.
Their poop is our gold.
It's as valuable as a crop.
And now you can build compost
that is of very high quality.
The animals, compost and cover crops
all share the same goal,
to bring our soil back to life,
infusing it with a host of beneficial microorganisms.
I just hope it works,
because Alan said without the microorganisms,
our way of farming won't work at all.
How's it going, Josh? Every now and then, when you hit it with the hose,
you get a nice face full of...
- Come. - Get in there, Todd.
We had everything on the farm we could have ever wanted.
That's it. They went through that fast.
But we were missing something
that every real farm needs.
And the day she arrived, the farm felt complete.
She came to us pregnant,
but also with horrible diarrhea. Ugh!
And the only thing worse was the name she came with,
Ugly Betty,
which we quickly changed to Emma.
Oh, man, she pooped everywhere in here.
When it comes to the care of our animals,
I've begun to realize that there's really
only one thing that Alan knows about them.
You need animals for a farm to be healthy.
And that's it.
The only way she'll eat her greens is if we douse it
in a soaked-grain apple cider vinegar dressing.
How come you don't like oranges?
Her first contribution to the farm was
destroying our pastures
and wasting water.
But she knew what she was doing.
She was making the farm
her home.
We're a year in and Molly and Alan
still have one 20-acre orchard to plant.
I only suggested three fruit tree varieties.
But Alan is making this farm so complicated.
I feel like we're gonna be reliant on him forever.
We call it the fruit basket.
Seventy-five different varieties of stone fruit.
Plums, peaches, nectarines, cherries, apricots...
You may think it's a crazy idea,
and it very well may be,
but, diversify, diversify, diversify.
That's the link to the whole thing.
Are there piglets?
Good job, Emma.
How many do you think she'll have?
They said, like, maybe eight or 10, but she's pretty small.
Five? Is that gonna be the end?
She seems like she might be done.
If she stops now, I'd be good.
Uh-oh.
She's pushing again.
Seven?
Already ready to run.
Nine! Yeah.
I'm startin' to get a little nervous now.
- Another one. - Okay.
Oh, it's big.
Wait. Is that 11? I don't know. I lost count.
There's another? This is crazy.
Another one? Oh, geez, no.
- How many is that now? - I do believe we've hit a dozen.
How did she have room? She was so skinny. I don't understand.
Yes, but you've been feeding her well for the last couple days.
Oh, no. Another one? She's created a few more.
She knows what to do.
Oh, no. Oh, my God.
Are you serious?
Oh, my goodness.
- This is so fun! - I love our life!
Have you washed your hands, John?
Wow.
- Oh, there's 14. - Oh, my gosh.
- We're in a lot of trouble. - Another one. Oh, my gosh.
I think we're officially pig farmers.
- Hey, John, another one. - No.
John, please be careful.
I'm not sure when the moment is
that you actually feel like you've earned the title of "farmer."
Uh-oh. What?
Oh, my God.
Oh... Hey!
Each day still feels both terrifying
and magically unpredictable.
This is an abnormally large chicken egg,
and we are gonna crack it to find out
what kind of surprises are inside.
Another egg!
That's amazing.
It was an egg in an egg.
Oh, hi, Scissor Beak.
We didn't expect this to be our first breakthrough.
They line up at stores waiting for our delivery.
Fifty dozen sell out in less than an hour.
Literally fighting over them.
We're onto something.
So, we got a lot more.
Aw!
We're farming over 200 different things.
And Alan claims that all of this diversity
will somehow lead to simplicity.
The flywheel is being built,
so now it becomes self-perpetuating
and self-regulating.
So I picture this circle, full of life,
with plants, livestock, wildlife,
all working together,
pushing us forward, building our soil,
living in harmony.
That would be great.
Always you're looking for opportunities to integrate,
so that everything works in harmony.
For example, we've established cover crops
to rebuild our soil.
The problem,
this requires more labor to mow them.
But Alan quickly shifted our lens,
calling it a problem with an opportunity.
That cover crop is food for our sheep.
And then, the X factor.
As they trample the grass,
they leave behind their droppings and urine.
It all circles back
to the health of the soil.
We're entering a phase of regeneration
beyond just simply farming.
Intermixed among our animals,
the delicate wildlife is returning to our land.
The farm is becoming a habitat for them, too.
The trick will be to balance the needs of the farm
with that of the wildlife,
something Alan has encouraged from the beginning.
- You found all these around the pump? - Yeah.
Coyote.
How many did they get?
About a dozen.
We need to put up an electric fence or something,
so they can make it to the house.
I know I've got some neighbors who would probably shoot a coyote
for chewing an irrigation line,
but we're trying to figure out what beneficial role the coyote plays here.
I feel it's very humane
to try to prevent us from having to kill them.
Well, if we make it difficult for the coyote to kill the ducks,
it'll figure out another way to get some food.
You know, it's at least worth trying again. Yeah.
So now with the fence running all the way to the pond,
hopefully it'll give the ducks a chance to get inside.
It's working with the chickens.
"It's a simple way of farming."
That's what Alan always says.
It's just not easy.
In his own way, I think he's always been honest with us about that.
But today we learned about something
that Alan had been keeping from us.
Molly, it's Alan.
Can you please give me a call when you get a chance?
Apparently, he's been fighting an aggressive form of cancer.
I don't think he's feeling up to visiting the farm.
It feels like the ground has just dropped from beneath us.
And on top of that, we're starting to face all these new problems
that we just don't have the answers for.
Wait, wait. Are you talking about what happened
in the front valley or somewhere else?
No, no. I'm talking about the pig, Emma.
Okay. Let me go down to the valley first and see what's going on there,
and then I'll come to you guys.
There's no way this was one coyote.
The coyotes figured out how to
pull this wire open.
Went inside and...
They're all over the place.
Seventeen, 18, 19, 20. And then there's 10 in the truck.
Thirty chickens?
Yeah, 30. And now I'm heading down to meet Flavio,
because apparently there's something wrong with Emma.
Wait, what happened to Emma?
She's definitely got a fever. It's like 106.9. It's high.
Uh-huh. Right. Uh-huh.
All of her udders are hard on the topside.
Mastitis. Yeah.
You know, she ended up having 17.
Probably that litter size that did it.
We'll knock that fever down so she doesn't cook her brain,
and then just pray.
Maybe let's take the babies away.
Septicemia.
Rampant infection.
Over 50% of cases are caused by
gram-positive organisms.
You got her fever down, right?
Yeah.
But if she doesn't eat soon, she's gonna die.
Flavio to John.
I never see something like that.
What happened?
The intestines come out from the baby. Oh, man.
It's bad.
It's like a herniated umbilical cord or something.
I'm gonna have to put her down.
Just set her down here.
If nothing else, it's a little more water for her.
You gotta eat, Emma.
It's all, like, this slow disillusionment
of our earnest intent.
Intent alone is not a protector.
I've run out of ways to get Emma to eat.
She needs to decide if she wants to live.
Now they're puttin' them in.
I don't know. She seems excited.
Come on.
Good girl.
You're, like, moving every piece of lettuce out of the way.
You're such a finicky pig.
In trying to save the animals
that will one day become food,
it naturally develops this bond.
And that's not something I've fully processed.
I think I'm okay.
But this is a swarm of bees.
I can see why they're showing up.
Take a look at this place.
It's a 500% improvement compared to where it was when we first come out here.
I've never seen bees swarm to one spot like this before.
This is definitely a good sign.
They showed up at the perfect time, huh?
Looks like the fruit trees are pretty happy, too.
Yeah, right?
The fruit basket.
It's an important orchard
because of the rare and unique varieties,
and that's what's gonna give us an edge at the market.
As we enter into our third spring,
it's truly become a paradise.
I can see now why Alan pushed for this.
Looks like starlings.
Yeah. That's what I think, too.
- We lost almost 70% of the fruit. - Oh, my gosh.
We are feeding the birds.
Alan told us that things like this would eventually balance out.
I'm just not clear on how that's supposed to happen.
At the tone, please record your message.
Hey, Alan, it's Molly.
I was just calling to see how you're doing.
So, we're all thinking of you here.
Okay, take care.
Hey, Caya, stop!
Caya!
I guess I don't know what Alan's idea of a perfect harmony
is even supposed to look like,
because every step we take to improve our land
seems to just create the perfect habitat for the next pest.
Apparently, snails thrive in cover crops,
and they love eating the leaves of our citrus trees,
which directly compromises the trees' ability to produce fruit.
Alan would have known what to do.
But tonight we got the call that Alan had died.
In one way, I feel abandoned,
but I really just want to cry because I lost my friend.
Hey, John, did you see this?
Man.
Yeah, she's bloated.
I know she's got at least one baby somewhere,
but we'll have to figure it out in the morning,
'cause there's no way we're gonna find it now.
Ah, man.
I think that's the orphan right there.
The one that lost its mom last night.
I think so.
Well, we bottle-feed it three to four times a day,
or we see if he can work it out on its own.
Yeah.
It's a really weird feeling to be both heartbroken
and completely frustrated and angry
at the one who has died.
Obviously, Alan wouldn't have wanted this to stop us,
but it's also hard to move forward without him.
John, come here.
Oh, my God. I thought that was the trunk.
I mean, what do we do? This is too many.
So we can't put poison out. Nope.
So how do they expect us to...
I have no idea.
This feels overwhelming.
I don't even want to think about it.
Go on.
Three-twenty.
John, should we take Bart?
No.
A long dry spell across the central and western US
has now turned into a full-scale drought.
Farmers and ranchers across 11 states are struggling
with a severe lack of rain and snow.
Among the hardest-hit states, California.
As the drought continues,
there's no fresh rainwater for the pond.
And combined with excess nutrients from duck poop,
it has caused a toxic algae bloom.
Another problem created by us.
Everything on this farm must be contributing.
And when it's not...
What do we do with a hundred ducks?
I feel like Todd is constantly staring deeply
at these almost infinitesimal details,
like he's decoding how the world around him works.
So, I've started doing the same.
And I think I've figured out
what ducks love more than ponds.
In just a single season,
they devoured over 90,000 snails.
And better yet, they turned them into fertilizer for the trees.
So with every new problem that popped up,
I'd first take a step back
and watch it.
More cows and sheep, more manure.
To the fly, this is the food for their babies.
Maggots.
Oh, gosh.
But I realized maggots are just more food
for chickens.
This reduced the fly population
to a manageable level of coexistence.
It's not like they're just on one section. They're kind of everywhere.
Weevils in the garden, chickens.
Observation followed by creativity
is becoming our greatest ally.
Make sure you guys feed that rooster in with Emma.
Yeah, I got it.
With the piglets now gone from Emma's woods,
the farm's ecosystem has responded to this void
in a rather unexpected way.
We call him Greasy.
A beat-up and rejected rooster in need of a safe home.
Alan told me once that coexistence with land can't be forced.
It's more of a delicate, patient dance...
...with no guarantees.
Alan claimed each year would get easier and more predictable.
He called it the rhythm of farming.
Well, the dance might be familiar,
but the partners are always changing.
- You've never seen it this bad before? - Never.
The gophers are killing the trees.
The gophers loves the cover crop.
We can't get rid of the cover crop, though, Miguel.
It's the only way we can build the soil.
Oh. Uh...
So owls eat gophers?
Yep. Hold the bottom.
How do we know they'll come?
We don't.
At this point, it feels like
we're just growing fruit to feed chickens.
I think we both had always envisioned
that the markets would be this place
where we share the bounty of our methods.
Oh, man.
- They killed the rooster. - Oh, man, this guy has no head.
Go on!
Alex, how many birds should have been in that coop this morning?
There should be 260-something.
And how many were in there this morning?
Twenty to 30 birds I saw inside.
We're missing 230 birds. We just don't know where they are.
Our... Our fences don't work entirely.
Oh. Oh...
Oh...
So do you see where they grabbed her? Yeah.
Looks like it took, like, multiple bites.
I think we have to put her down.
John!
It's in with the chickens!
Where is it? It went to the next pasture.
Stay there.
Along with the coyote died part of my belief
in the power of an uncompromising idealism,
the very thing that got us to such a beautiful place in our life.
A place that we cannot control.
And just in case we forget that,
around here there's a fifth season,
the season of wind.
This drought has become California's driest period
in 1,200 years.
And as we attempt to conserve water on certain parts of the farm,
it exposes a deeper truth.
We are overly dependent on our aquifer,
a finite source of groundwater relying on rain...
...just like us.
Eighteen inches of rain.
All around us, on other farms,
topsoil was washing out to the sea.
But not here.
We were able to sequester over a hundred million gallons of water,
because what our plants and trees didn't use
went back into our aquifer
beneath the ground.
Our soil stayed.
But why?
It was the cover crops,
essentially soaking in all the rain
like a sponge.
I don't understand.
What's his plan? This is ridiculous.
I don't know. You gotta ask John.
I've created an expectation that to control the coyote
means to kill him.
God, there's so many.
Are we gonna just keep letting this happen?
All right. Let's give this a try.
Remember what we practiced. No chasing. Okay?
No.
Foley!
Corey!
That's not gonna work.
I either completely eliminate the coyote,
or we might as well abandon our entire egg operation.
Update on Emma the pig,
the day before she is to give birth yet again.
And then there's the
nervous boyfriend, Mr. Greasy.
A little somethin' for them
to reflect back on the good times,
when life was simple.
Aw!
Any guess what color the babies are gonna be?
Do these things see in the dark?
Mmm-hmm. How many are you setting up?
Um, one in each orchard and a few by the gate.
Then we'll see what's really going on out here.
So why is a coyote laying paralyzed in the garden?
The best I can tell,
the coyote was chasing a gopher along the fence
and hit an irrigation line,
breaking both the pipe and his neck.
Oh, Todd, come on. You can't let it suffer.
It's a heartbreaking realization.
The coyote might not be just a pest.
He may very well be our friend.
Whenever I look up at the Milky Way,
I feel so captivated by its complexity.
And yet it's easy to forget that Earth is a part of it.
It's almost impossible to grasp
that I actually spin inside
of that which I see.
Where's Greasy?
What?
I don't know if I can forgive you for this.
Look at you.
I don't think you understand, Caya, how bad this is.
And look, Rosie doesn't have anything on her.
This was you.
Sometimes I wish it weren't true.
But it's those tiny revelations that are born from failure
that act as a fuel for the engine of our ecosystem.
Here we are.
Day two.
Rosie, the chicken guardian.
And if I'm paying attention...
Good girl.
I get to use it.
Please don't eat the chickens, Rosie.
With Rosie the guardian dog protecting our chickens,
the coyotes are now focused on hunting gophers.
All pests, even gophers,
have a beneficial role.
For one, they aerate our soils.
But too many gophers, and the problems start.
Hey, look. See? The gophers ate all the roots.
How many?
In one month, I got 900.
Nine hundred?
So now, the irony is,
we actually don't have enough coyotes
to bring the gopher population back into balance.
Hopefully, there's more to this delicate dance of coexistence,
because as our farm flourishes,
so do the pests.
The healthier our row crops,
the more the aphids.
The better the fruit,
the more the birds.
Alan told us by the seventh year,
we would no longer be alone in our farming.
And he was right.
You will see things that you did not see before.
And as I looked closer at those aphid infestations,
the eggs of their predator.
You just tapped into a power of nature
that you can ride
without an extraordinary amount of effort.
It's exactly the same thing as surfing.
The flywheel in motion.
You're establishing this equilibrium.
Complexity,
diversity,
all supporting and enhancing each other.
You will see a web of life.
This year we counted 87 barn owls,
eating an estimated 15,000 gophers.
And it didn't stop there.
A whole host of specialized players
arrived to do their part.
Hawks attacked from above.
And from below, gopher snakes,
weasels and badgers.
And along with the coyotes,
even the guardian dogs became hunters, too.
Looks like Caya got herself a new job.
It hasn't even been in that long here.
That's from two inches of rain.
Todd, come.
Of all the things that have happened,
the thing Alan wanted for this farm the most,
the most difficult thing for us to achieve...
This cover crop looks great.
...was that which was happening beneath our feet.
This is what we're fighting.
It was dead.
Compacted.
Void of diverse life.
But not anymore.
Because as we added cover
and life on top,
a process billions of years old awakened,
and they returned.
Now, on this little farm,
there are up to nine billion microorganisms.
Nine billion microorganisms,
churning away at decaying life-forms.
Purpose-driven organisms,
alchemizing death to life
in just one clump of healthy soil.
Everything that dies gets broken down
into minerals and nutrients to feed plants.
Our farm is energized entirely
by the impermanence of life.
You might be an old guy now.
He's having fun today. You'll always be our first baby.
We not only have the support
of the wildlife and the soil,
we are surrounded by a team
who believed in this way enough
to make it real.
Oh, boy.
Come on.
One more.
Pull.
Come on. Come on. There you go.
Girl.
You got a boy.
Oh, my gosh!
He's so big.
It's no longer just about proving to ourselves
that this way of farming can work.
You're on the outside now.
It's for him.
You're a good boy, Todd.
Aw.
His name is Todd.
And he's a doggy.
By the time Todd died,
the question of who saved who
was no longer a mystery.
He had led us to this interconnected beauty
that surrounds us,
a place that he will now become a part of.
It was as if he knew his role in our lives was now complete.
These are the cherry trees,
and there are apple trees.
We now had someone else to be brave for.
Wow. Oh, oh, oh, oh!
Who's that? A ladybug!
You think so? Yes!
Tropic snow peaches, those are going to Erewhon LA.
We sold over 500,000 pounds of food that year.
These look great this year. Yeah.
$3.25. And that's when it happened.
It is now the largest wildfire on record in California.
Mommy, we gotta go!
Yeah, let's go.
I think we're surrounded by, like, three fires.
Well, these winds definitely aren't helping.
If something happens on these hills over here, then...
Well, then we'd be toast.
John, I can see it out the window.
Molly, it's still really far away.
We're just getting prepared in case, okay?
No, no, no. Oh, man.
This is how they start.
Okay, guys, another small fire has started.
It's on the neighbor's property, but if itj umps into those fields,
we're in trouble.
John, I just heard that. We're gonna go.
A massive wildfire raging in Southern California...
Our good intent towards nature... Let's go, go, go.
...won't shield us from facing her impermanence.
John, there's an electric wire. Careful.
As it consumes just about everything in its path...
I want my toys!
If we've learned anything, forward momentum and hope...
...that's what nurtures luck.
Which can look as simple as the winds changing direction.
Welcome home, guys.
This is all the stuff that she packed
when she decided she was gonna evacuate.
We have a back roller.
I thought we'd be stressed out. Yeah.
Here's one I like right here.
The Power of Myth, which I read about 20 years ago.
A gym bag. That's a...
I know. That's, like, how Mommy packed.
Here we go, guys. That looks so good.
I didn't expect that the hardships that we would face
make the actual dream itself feel so much more alive.
Hey, everybody, welcome to Apricot Lane Farms.
- Who came from the furthest? - Hong Kong.
Hong Kong?
India. India?
- China. - Texas.
Texas.
That is almost another country. Yes, it is.
- This is Emma. - Hi, Emma.
Her days of breeding have really come to an end.
Now her purpose is entertaining you all.
You're a good girl.
And this is Alan York Lookout.
It's named after our mentor.
- Amazing! - That is so beautiful.
Unfortunately, he passed away, uh,
at the wrong time.
Um...
I remember I asked Alan if he designed the contours of this block
to prevent water from running off.
And he would say, "Yeah. And...
""Cause it's beautiful."
The beautiful complexity of our land
is alive with infinite possibility.
We were never alone.
Not for a second.
Mornin', Bodie!
And if the whole thing from the beginning was to live in harmony with nature...
Morning, Mama.
...well, we made it this far
with a comfortable level of disharmony.
The ecosystem of our entire planet
works the same way.
You're a good girl, Caya.
And when I look at it like that...
...it's perfect.
So, what do you want to pick?
I want to pick some nectarines.
Okay. We'll pick some nectarines.
You made me happy.
We should have brought a paper bag.
Look how many there are. Oh, that one's gonna be so good.
What we are a part of
Is bigger than we know
And the height of our ability
Is further than we go
And fear is just another problem
We will figure out
Whoa. Hello.
And we will grow our garden
Come sun, flood or drought
Morning, girls.
How far into a dream
Would you follow me?
Come on, Emma!
And how sure of a thing
Does it gotta be?
In the most uncertain times of certainty
All that I am counting on is you and me
And what we are a part of...
I'm gonna pick five. You want to pick five blueberries?
Okay, just five, okay?
One, two...
You can count 'em when you start pickin' 'em.
One...
And here's one.
Hey, buddy, how many have you picked so far?
I have...
One.
And what we are a part of
Is bigger than we know
And the height of our ability
Is further than we go
And fear is just another problem
We will figure out
And we will grow our garden
Yeah, we will grow our garden
We will grow our garden
Come sun
Flood or drought