CULLMAN, Ala. – West Elementary second-grade teacher Kelly Hayes’ no. 1 passion is teaching, but from an early age, nutrition and the love of all things natural have also been particularly important.
Besides having a degree in elementary education and a master’s degree in exercise physiology and nutrition, Hayes is a Master Gardener and the owner of Urban Farm and Forage in Cullman. Teaching full-time and maintaining a farm might seem like a ton of work for most, but for Hayes, the latter is what she considers her “downtime.”
Hayes, a 1995 graduate of Cullman High School, received her teaching degree from Athens State and started teaching in 1999, but after marrying her husband Jonathan (also a CHS grad), the couple moved to Birmingham. She taught at Vestavia, then took a break from teaching when her son was born. She is now at West Elementary in Cullman for her eighth year.
Teaching seems to be a family affair. Hayes’ sister is a teacher at East Elementary, her father was a principal at Cullman Middle School and her husband is a teacher and coach at Cullman High School.
“My dad always told me two things growing up,” Hayes laughed. “Don’t grow up to be a teacher and don’t marry a preacher! My husband is not a preacher, but he was a youth minister when we first got married.”
Said Hayes, “I taught for a while and went back to school and I did my graduate work in nutrition at UAB and I worked for a while at the nutrition department at UAB. The farm stuff- I’ve always enjoyed being outside. I’m an outside person and nutrition has always been super important to me. I know I started my first garden when I first got married at 21.”
Now, at age 44, she runs Urban Farm and Forage on the family’s property in southwest Cullman.
“The chickens came because I wanted my own meat and egg source. Then the bees came because I like honey. I make a lot of homemade salves, medicine, propolis, and wax is important in that,” she smiled. “I want to say that chickens are my gateway drugs!”
Next came goats named Blueberry Cobbler and Nutmeg for dairy.
“We have two dairy goats and I make a lot of soaps and lotions out of the goat’s milk because it’s really healthy for you, and of course, we consume cheese and that kind of stuff,” said Hayes. “I’ve always just been a total geek about nutrition and that’s always been so important for me and my kids. I wanted them to grow up knowing where their food came from and giving them the healthiest source of organic always. Even before organic was cool. I have been an organic gardener and composter for 20-plus years.”
Hayes credits her grandparents for her passion for gardening. Her parents didn’t garden, and Hayes’ mom often jokes, “It must have skipped a generation.” Hayes’ grandmother always maintained a huge garden and loved to can vegetables.
“I love to can, too,” she said. “My favorite thing to do in the winter is open the pantry and I have meticulously lined up all of my canned tomatoes and green beans. I remember my grandmother doing that and enjoying it so maybe I got it from her.”
Hayes also recalls a book she read in the seventh grade that played a role in shaping her future.
“It was my first book on nutrition, and it was about the evils of white flour. I laugh about it now, but it made such an impact on me when I read that first book in seventh grade about the connection of what we eat and put in our bodies and our health,” she said. “I have always been fascinated with how nutrition works in the body and how the body uses vitamins and minerals.”
Some people prefer homegrown veggies because they taste better, and although Hayes agrees that they do, indeed taste better, she said that isn’t the motivator for her.
She laughed, “Most people do it because it tastes better, but I’d eat it even if it tasted like garbage if I thought it was good for me- but it does taste better.”
Hayes grows tomatoes, peppers, lettuces, carrots and other typical vegetables, but she also grows medicinal herbs and flowers including calendula. Calendula flowers are good to use for skin care.
“I make body butter and lotion after I have dried the flowers,” she said. Her Urban Farm skincare products are popular with people who have dry skin and eczema.
She grows horseradish and other herbs to make her “Fire Cider” in the winter.
“It’s a winter tonic with stimulating winter herbs of ginger, horseradish root, rosemary, thyme, parsley, sage and garlic that I infuse with my raw honey,” said Hayes, who explained that the Fire Cider is considered a “cure all” for winter flus and colds. She also makes elderberry syrup.
McSwain’s Pharmacy in Cullman sells many of the products made at Urban Farm including the line of skincare products.
Hayes talked about how she came about acquiring her original flock of chickens, saying it was after spending more than 10 years begging her husband to build a chicken coop. When Hayes’ son Asa, 15, who has Asperger syndrome, was in fifth grade, she said, he wanted to do a 4-H project with chickens.
“He begged for chickens, so I told Asa that we are going to double team up on dad because I have been begging for 10 years and now you want to do this project,” she said. “That’s how we got our first flock of chickens.”
Hayes said the animals have been great therapy for Asa, and daughter Evy, a fifth grader at West Elementary, chose bunnies as her 4-H project this year. She received two pedigree Holland Lop rabbits for Christmas.
With the addition of the two bunnies, the farm has chickens, goats Blueberry Cobbler and Nutmeg, 500,000 bees, a mini Australian Shepherd named Lola and the farm cat, Cole.
For her birthday, Hayes’ husband commissioned portraits of the goats from local artist and family friend Laura Walker. The now famous goats have been featured on the cover of Hobby Farms magazine and her chickens on the cover of Backyard Poultry magazine.
About her love of being outside, Hayes said, “Working in the garden is my downtime. It is my stress relief and my therapy. I do not watch TV. I’m not a TV watcher and I never have been. I have always wanted to be a no TV, no screen house, but I am the only person in the family that is weird like that. They are all like, ‘Oh, we are already Amish.’ Asa always says he gets made fun of at school because they say, ‘Y’all are so Amish! Your mom won’t let you do anything!’ When he was little, I was very no video games and none of that. We are going to be playing outside, and that is my philosophy with kids. I am constantly challenging my students at school to go home and play outside and play in the dirt as their homework. I always tell my kids and my students, ‘If you don’t leave a ring around the bathtub at night, you have not played outside enough, and you haven’t played hard enough.’
She continued, “I am a very big advocate for children’s nutrition, exercise, and part of that I consider being in nature. I think there is a really big disconnect right now between children not spending enough time outside in nature. That’s really where you develop an appreciation and an understanding of basic respect for life and life cycles. I think our kids are missing that and replacing that with video games that are often violent. I just think we are in a really bad pattern. I was determined when I had kids that we were going to be outside playing and growing. That’s really where I feel my greatest connection to God and my faith- when I am outside appreciating what he has made, and it never ceases to amaze me that anything we find in nature- from the tiniest flower to a blade of grass- is so much more wonderful and beautiful than man’s effort that we have put into our best creations. The Pyramids or whatever are just not as beautiful and wonderful as the tiniest flower we can find in nature. That is kind of my life philosophy.”
Hayes has also introduced her second graders at West Elementary to gardening and the happiness that comes from planting, growing, harvesting and preparing their own food. As they harvest the vegetables, students are sent home with the day’s harvest and a recipe to try at home.
“Educating kids is really important to me. Being a teacher is my first love,” Hayes said.
More about the farm
“We have about 3 acres at Urban Farm. Really, you can be self-sufficient, grow enough food for your family with a mini milk cow or goat on half an acre. It’s kind of a false notion that you can’t be self-sustainable on a small amount. I have 3 acres and I have way more than I need to grow and do everything. I even have a mini apple orchard.”
She smiled, “I try to do everything as close to the way God created it in the Garden of Eden as possible. I try to keep it as natural as possible. I try not to force my weirdness on my kids. We go out to eat. We eat birthday cake, and we order pizza. It’s probably not on a regular basis as much as other people. I do cook a lot. I love to cook, and when you grow your own food, by golly, you better eat it because it’s a lot of work to grow all of that food!”
Urban Farm and Forage products can be purchased at McSwain’s Pharmacy at 1910 Main Ave. SW in Cullman.
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