Back to Nature: Washougal couple leave jobs, commit to full-time farm life
Andra and John Spencer's Get To-Gather Farm will be part of Clark County Harvest Celebration Day farm tour on Saturday, Sept. 18
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Doug Flanagan
Andra Spencer (left) and John Spencer, show a recent harvest of fruit from their Washougal Get To-Gather retail farm stand.
John Spencer had an epiphany during a lunch meeting in the summer of 2019 when he suddenly realized that he wasn't content with what he was doing for a living and that something had to change. It all started with some wise counsel from a client and trusted friend.
"I told (him), 'My project for you isn't done yet. I just haven't been able to focus on it. I'm sorry.' He turns to me and says, 'Well, that's because you don't love what you do,'" Spencer said. "It was one of those classic light-bulb-over-the-head, launch-the-midlife-crisis (moments). Over the next few months I said, 'He's right. What do I love?' And what I came back to is (my farmland). The reason I wasn't getting that project done, the reason I wasn't focusing, was that I was out on the land all the time taking care of it."
So later that year, Spencer and his wife, Andra, decided to become full-fledged farmers, a radical departure from their careers as a business analyst/consultant and educator, respectively.
During the past year they've worked diligently to transform their Washougal property into a commercial farm, planting hundreds and hundreds of vegetable starts, fruit trees and flowers, and opening a retail stand.
To read more from this article, visit: https://www.camaspostrecord.com/news/2021/sep/16/back-to-nature-washougal-couple-leave-jobs-commit-to-full-time-farm-life/
