Healdsburg pair puts community first at Noble Goat Farm

For new farmers Shalie and Jeremy Jonkers, creating a symbiotic community with other farmers doing the same thing has helped them do more with their bucolic flat land, rich in topsoil, at the near end of the Dry Creek Valley, on Kinley Lane. Their farm, Noble Goat Farm, came into being during the pandemic.

By building community, person-to-person and organization-to-organization, their nine-acre parcel is a dream in the making.

Four of those acres are invested into farmland. Part of the orchard of original pomegranate trees are still standing and the budding farmers harvested two tons of ruby red pomegranates for Farm to Pantry last season from 400 trees. In addition, they planted specifically to offer produce to the organization.

They continue to plant and harvest for Farm to Pantry, and to grow their farm. The couple has two children, Hadley, 4, and Hollyn, 10 months. They also have a farm dog, Wyatt. Plus four hens named Ruth and Violet, after Jeremy's’ grandmothers, and Pearl and Wanda, after Shalie's grandmothers. They will be adopting small goats, to be named after their grandfathers, as soon as their goat enclosure is finished.

Jeremy is a busy man and he doesn’t sit still much. He answers a question, then he’s off pulling weeds and gathering them for the hens. As he tosses the grasses in the hen run, the four chickens run out to feast, excited to have more fresh food.

‘It feels like coming home’

Both of the Jonkers grew up in agricultural communities, in small towns in Kansas and Ohio where soybeans and corn were aplenty.

They came to Healdsburg to stay in May 2020. They had been looking for the right piece of property for a long time, they said. They had discussed continuing to rent in the Bay Area, specifically Emerald Hills on the Peninsula, or to buy since 2015.

They visited what they felt was the “quaint” town of Healdsburg and fell in love with the area immediately.

“We mean quaint in the best way,” said Jeremy. “The plaza, the farmers, it’s an agricultural community.”

The “noble” in the farm name comes from Jonkers, which is Dutch, and it means specifically a young noble. Shalie's surname is Gaskill, which means goat herder, so they blended the two names and created Noble Goat Farm.

“It feels like coming home,” said Shalie. “We’re creating what we grew up with in a more intentional manner with more diversity.”

The Jonkers both work in tech and were seeking out more balance in their lives. She works at Google Maps and he at Paypal, until recently. Now, they’ve changed how they spend their time to still include working, but also, farming, hunting, fishing, golfing and other outdoor activities.

“We knew our neighbors in Emerald Hills, but we weren’t involved with the community,” said Jeremy. Now, they are growing exclusively for Farm to Pantry, though they plan to create a farm that will sustain itself.

The farm is now their permanent home.

Farmers lend a hand to other farmers

They were traveling at the beginning of 2020 when the first COVID-19 cases hit. While they didn’t know then exactly what the illness was, they were told to isolate, so they came to Healdsburg and they haven’t looked back. She’s now working remotely, and he created his own investing fund, Infinity Ventures, in April 2021.

The Jonkers provide fresh produce specifically for Farm to Pantry. Farm to Pantry now harvests off some 400 properties in the county with 500 volunteers helping glean the produce, according to Duskie Estes, the organization’s executive director.

One of the ways farmers are getting more involved is by mentoring new farmers.

When Bruce Mentzer and husband Anthony Solar, created the nonprofit, Farm to Fight Hunger four years ago, it was the first farm in Healdsburg dedicated solely to producing for Farm to Pantry. They were originally mentored and advised by Melita Love, who founded Farm to Pantry in 2008. When Mentzer and Solar learned of Noble Goat’s plan to do the same, they stepped up with suggestions and even some vegetable starts for planting.

“We’re located in the beauty of it all (the area around Healdsburg),” said Mentzer. “It’s incredible magical.”

On April 16, the Noble Goat Farm will be regulars at the Healdsburg Farmers' Market, too. The Jonkers will begin selling microgreens, peas, beets, other greens, radishes, carrots and turnips during the spring season.

Keep an eye out for their spiffy new truck. Shalie’s father helped the couple purchase a 1946 Chevy Dually, paid to get it fixed up and he built wooden sides for it. The truck will be used on the farm and will serve as an emblem when it's parked at the market.

Growing together

In addition, to the olives that line the driveway up to the house and the pomegranates, they have planted plum, peach, pluot and Asian pear trees.

They’ve added a hoop house to be able to increase the amount they produce. Last season they planted tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuces, tomatillos, pumpkins, lettuce and more. They also had a winter garden with brassicas, onions, garlic and flowers to attract pollinators.

In addition, friends can gather in the Grove at Noble Goat Farm. It’s a bucolic area dedicated to picnics and play, with an area for children, created with gleaned redwood from trees that had fallen on another property, and designed and created by workers from C&G Landscapes. They bought the redwood picnic tables from the Sonoma County Probation Camp.

They hosted the transitional kindergarten class from Sonoma Country Day School at Noble Goat Farm to glean with Farm to Pantry. The children were also able to taste pomegranates and vegetables, and learned how to plant.

According to Estes, Noble Goat produced over six thousand pounds of produce for Farm to Pantry, which amounted to 24,968 servings of food. Yet, there’s still need for more in the county.

“We’re crazy grateful. It’s a complete community effort. Everyone can make a difference in someone’s life,” said Estes.

She also talks fluently about the benefits of farming and gleaning to both sequestration of carbon in the soil, as well as to eliminate food waste.

Noble Goat Farm hopes to find new ways to invite the community onto the farm to enjoy its pastoral elements.

“We have a responsibility to do the right thing for both the community and the earth,” said Shalie. And Jeremy added, “there’s an element of opportunity to give back, so we should take hold. Each person has a chance to do that — to give of their skills, place or talent.”

In the end, for all these community members, it’s about exactly that … creating and feeding the community.

“It’s about dignity and love. Working with Duskie and Corazón Healdsburg and Shalie and Jeremy doing the same thing makes all the difference. And, there’s still more need.” said Mentzer of Farm to Fight Hunger.

He goes on to say, that he’s been here for seven years and this is, “the community I have always wanted to be a part of. In some places nonprofits are siloed but here, they worked together to nourish community.”