Andria Metrakos of Red Gate Farm lives the life she imagines

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By F. Josephine Arrowood
Sun contributor

As you slog through another work day in an office cubicle, at a hospital or clinic, retail store, restaurant or hotel, perhaps you look out the window and fantasize about the good old days of country living: bucolic scenery, a red Farmall tractor furrowing the earth, traveling a sweeter, slower pace. For farmer Andria Metrakos, the more holistic, satisfying life she began to imagine while working in Detroit’s auto industry has come to fruition at her Red Gate Farm, which occupies a verdant swath of land on Burdickville Rd about a mile west of Myles Kimmerly Park.

Unlike many people who live on the land, Metrakos did not come from a farming family. “Growing up in Phoenix, Ariz., I somehow always wanted a small farm,” she laughs. “I grew up watching ‘The Andy Griffith Show’, ‘Little House on the Prairie’. Friends jokingly call me Aunt Bea—I don’t associate myself with that, but!” For the record, the petite, vivacious farmer is much younger than her TV character counterpart, but shares certain qualities of bustling good cheer and efficiency—and the omnipresent baked goodies on offer at her farm stand, which include her signature cinnamon rolls. “I make homemade jams, pies, canning. I do homemade egg noodles. I love to quilt, sew up pillows. I feel like I should have been born 100 years ago!”

As with others who now call Leelanau home, Metrakos first established connections as a seasonal visitor, building memories and cultivating her dreams of a simpler life. “A friend of mine had a grandma on Glen Lake; grandma is now gone, but the family is still there. In the summer of 1995, I started coming up here, camping.”

“I’d worked in the auto industry almost 20 years. At some point in my life, I wanted to try something different. I’m not getting any younger. I didn’t think I could do this when I retired, and farming is something I couldn’t just do on weekends.” She took a buyout offer from Chrysler, and began to imagine what kind of life she might like to live. “I moved up here full-time from Rochester, hoping I would have an epiphany. I didn’t!” she says. “So I took a job in an auto-related industry in Traverse City for a couple of years, but it just wasn’t a good fit for me.”

“My dad died real young in 2008; he was 61,” she continues. “That really influenced me. After that, I decided, ‘I don’t want to wait—life is short.’ I had a very chaotic work life; I moved seven times in the last 18 years, Europe, L.A. It sounds exotic, but … as great as the job was, you work like a crazy person.” She sold her downstate house, bought her four-acre property on Burdickville Rd in June 2012, and worked on her vision of what she wanted to do. She got a USDA tract number to register as an “official” farm. In Country Living magazine, she read stories about people who take a hobby or passion and turn it into a business.

Creating Red Gate Farm also meant putting up fencing, creating a separate driveway for customers to access her business, planning and building a farm stand to display and sell her wares. She also painted signage with a group of artists, including Laura Moser, whose portrait of Metrakos’ house now graces her business card.

“I had purchased a collapsed barn in January, and would just go and pick up boards. A local farmer was very helpful; at the end of April, we put up the farm stand, and opened in mid-June. It’s been kind of a weird summer—with the cold spring, everything was late. Because we hadn’t any produce at first, I did the baked goods. Now we have a ton of green beans, snow peas, tomatoes. My tomatoes aren’t always gorgeous, but they taste so good! It’s been steady [business].”

Metrakos keeps a notebook at the farm stand to record customers’ comments, and has a Facebook page as well. “I’ve gotten good feedback from people,” she says. “I can’t tell you how many people tell me they are living vicariously through me,” a thought that both delights and humbles her.

What does a typical day look like for this self-described “control freak and Type A,” and former corporate culture refugee? Discipline comes from the inside out, rather than an office-style hierarchy with a boss. She describes a sample work week: “On Tuesdays, I do the farmers’ market in Glen Arbor, so typically on Mondays, I’m not open. I’m picking and washing vegetables or making cinnamon rolls and homemade egg noodles, things no one else is doing. Wednesdays again I’ll bake, and Thursdays I’ll bake for the weekends. What I don’t sell, I donate to the local food pantry in Burdickville.” She also creates and sells jewelry, and sews colorful throw pillows. What stitches each day together is the pleasure of doing and creating, integrated with her work. She named her business “Back to Basics Michigan,” and speaks frequently of creating a more simple life—but she doesn’t confuse simple with easy:

“If I knew then what I know now, I’d have saved up more money for expenses I didn’t expect, like the driveway culvert, and fencing for rabbits and deer. There’s a huge learning curve here—I went to the Small Farm Conference this year [held in February at the Grand Traverse Resort], I’ve seen small farms of five or 10 acres. This half-acre could be manageable. I’ve gardened my whole life, but not on this scale,” she says, as we tour the land under cultivation. Row after row of all organic, heirloom vegetables include 16 varieties of tomatoes, as well as green beans, snow peas, potatoes, and sweet corn stand proudly near sprawling squashes and pumpkins. Bright basil and needle-leafed rosemary grow alongside huge nodding heads of vibrant cosmos, zinnias, sweet peas, sunflowers and other annuals. Four old apple trees and a Bartlett pear tree grace the property as well, “Good for baking and making apple butter!”

Other than the cherries and peaches she sells that are supplied by another local farmer, she starts everything herself from seed. This is even more remarkable when considering the size of her tiny house, the lack of a hoop house, row tunnel or commercial greenhouse, and the plots whose placement and raised-bed construction are still in progress. “I’d love to have a cow and goats,” she muses, “and a high tunnel greenhouse, irrigation. Right now, my mom moves a green hose around! So many things I’d like to do.”

She points out the no-tech laundry line, where clothes flap in a strong breeze, and the 14 chickens who contribute the pastel-hued eggs she sells, contentedly pecking away in their fenced run. “I feed them only non-GMO [non-genetically modified] feed. I started out last fall with three original ‘girls,’—their eggs are the biggest ones in the cartons.” Recently, she had her first casualty, a hen who fell afoul of a hungry red-tailed hawk. “I have a soft spot for them, but they’re still chickens. I’ve raised them to be happy, with good food, space to run.” She shrugs philosophically, as seasoned in her outlook as any agricultural veteran, doing her best to care for the creatures that provide sustenance. Losses are inevitable, but countered by the many gains she’s made.

“People say, ‘I can’t believe you’re doing all of this.’” Yes, she is doing this by her own hard work. However, she emphasizes, she’s not alone. She credits her mother Jeanne Greene with boundless encouragement and practical assistance, and brims with enthusiasm when speaking of her deepening connection with the network of farmers and neighbors who share their labor and knowledge.

“The locals here have been so nice and supportive! They really, really want me to do well; they’re so positive. I connected with a couple of young farmers in this area who’ve been doing this for a while: Noel at La Casa Verde Produce, who works the farmers’ market, and Ben Brown at Sonny Swanson’s. Both in their different ways have been so knowledgeable, generous—just good, good guys. I met a great guy who lives on Bow Rd, Tom Van Zoeren—he’s been working on his amazing garden for 25 years! Sheila at Countryside Gardens near Cedar told me that cut flowers do well. My neighbor Bob Bufka tilled the garden; some other neighbors [long time organic mushroom farmers Bob Moses and Linda Grigg] know how to construct a high tunnel greenhouse.”

She ponders the old TV shows that mesmerized her as a child: “They had such a hard life, the pioneers. This area, because it’s not so heavily populated, I feel people here still have that pioneer spirit.”

Like family, friends, and neighbors who have encouraged her to “live the life you’ve imagined,” a philosophy reflected in her farm stand sign, she urges others to seek out alternate experiences. “You need time and experience to try out what you’d want to do, take a risk or take a chance. If you have a hobby or a passion, you should do it—at night, or weekends, or whatever, ‘til you’re ready to jump off. Find what in life is a balance for you and do it. My farm—I won’t be able to make a living at it this year. I might have to do some consulting out of my home. Last year I did a study of the North American brake market for a European company.”

“People who know me will tell you I’m a lot more mellow, relaxed. I’m still a control freak at times! What I [used to do], it gave me a really good training ground, as a buyer and negotiator: the art of the deal. Farming—it’s not for everyone,” she acknowledges. “I know I’m incredibly lucky to be doing this! I feel like it’s a small thing I’m doing, but it’s my pleasure and well-being to have a small farm. I hope people like to stop here. I feel honored by that.”