Heaven found on the farm: A Valley family is realizing a dream at Gray Owl Farm

Down a short stretch of gravel road, nestled between tall birches and a lush field, is one family's haven. Chickens cluck, a few beef cows lazily munch grass, and two large, commercial greenhouses let the sunshine pour in through their roofs.

This is a place where, even in the coldest, darkest days of winter, Craige and Kathy Baker and their grown children can find a piece of the land and life that seems inextricably woven into their past and future -- it seems to be in their very blood.

Gray Owl Farm, located just up the Glenn Highway from the Musk Ox Farm and across the highway from Wolf Country USA, has attracted more than a few tourists who are hoping to catch a glimpse of some elusive night birds.

"You can almost tell which ones they are," Kathy Baker said. "We call them 'owl lookers.'"

The tourists pile out of their RVs, pull on their windbreakers and, looking a little confused, ask, "When does the tour start?"

The Bakers have joked about putting out a few stuffed owls to keep these mistaken visitors content as well.

But the family isn't raising owls. Instead they are in the "sprucing up business," as Craige calls it -- flowering baskets, garden starts, bedding flowers and Nugget Blue Grass sod.

The farm earned its name when the Bakers were living on Point MacKenzie, assisting another farm venture, and they watched a family of wild gray owls raise two seasons' worth of chicks.

"We liked them so much we decided if we ever had a farm, we'd name it after them," Craige said.

It would be several years before Craige and Kathy would find a piece of land and have the means to purchase it and begin living their dream.

The two work as teachers to support their family, including two sons and a daughter, but farming has never been far out of reach. For a while, the family helped run the Musk Ox Farm, and for a time Craige drove a delivery truck for Matanuska Maid.

"Craige and I grew up on farms," Kathy explained. "Our natural inclination was to at least have a piece of land of our own."

In 1991, Gray Owl Farm was born.

"We were looking for a place like this for a long time," Craige said. Sitting in one of the greenhouses among petunias and begonias, he gently rocked his infant grandson as he talked.

In order to farm sod -- strips of grass that can be transplanted to create or mend lawns -- the Bakers needed flat land with deep soil. They found the perfect 40-acre spot off Mile 51.8 Glenn Hwy.

It was an old Matanuska Colony farm. The barn has long since collapsed and been removed, and the Bakers have built two large greenhouses and several other outbuildings, but they live in the original 1930s home.

Getting the farm up and running took the Bakers several years.

"Farming is so difficult in this country, I don't see how new farmers can get started," Craige said. "You need a stake, just like in the old days -- either cash in hand or you have to work to support it somehow."

For the Bakers, that stake has been teaching. But the farm is growing stronger each year as dedicated customers return and new customers arrive, and soon the Bakers hope they will be able to devote all their time to it.

"This time of year, we can't wait to have just one job," Craige said of he and his wife working as teachers. "And eventually we'll retire." But the concept of retirement applies only to teaching, not Gray Owl Farm.

"This is the sort of work, with strong guys like Scotty around, you can do even when you're old," Craige said of farming. Scotty is the couple's youngest son.

His wife shares his view of the future.

"I think this is home for us … We enjoy our teaching, but we like working together, doing something together as a family," Kathy Baker said.

This connection between family and farming has remained strong for the Bakers. All three of their children helped build the farm from the ground up, constructing the greenhouses and getting the sod field ready.

Scotty spends every summer harvesting sod and helping in the greenhouse, running the entire farm during the first part of the season while his parents are working as teachers.

Their daughter, Jenny VanderWeele, married into another local farming family and this summer brings her newborn son to Gray Owl Farm so she can help in the greenhouse as well.

Jenny says it is an indescribable feeling, this desire to work the land, but one she can't resist.

"It's a lifestyle," she said. "It's this feeling that you can actually see what you've gotten done … You see the results."

Both Jenny and Scotty say they can't imagine ever leaving farming, in one form or another, behind.

"You learn to love what you're around," Scotty said. "I've always enjoyed being outside, working."

There is no doubt that it is a challenging life, however. It is a life of worry, over weather, the economy, the crops. It's a life of 12- or 14-hour days, seven days a week, during the short, intense growing season. And it's a life of labor.

Sod farming, in particular, is hard work and requires cutting, rolling and loading heavy strips of grass and dirt, which then have to be unloaded and unrolled at their new location.

Even greenhouse work is largely manual labor. But Kathy says she is soothed by working the dirt and caring for the plants.

"I find it is very therapeutic," she said. "And when the snow is howling by … and we get into the greenhouse, it is a nice little oasis."