“As a diverse farm, every single day, we’re doing animal chores,” East said. “Every single morning, we’re moving chickens, moving turkeys, feeding pigs, moving sheep. Seven days a week, no matter what.”

Wild East Farm sits on 44 leased acres in Marion, NC, with roughly 12 to 15 acres actively farmed. East and a team of five employees manage the operation, along with a resident who lives and works on the property. The farm’s busiest seasons are spring and fall, when planting and transplanting overlap with the daily demands of animal care, harvests, markets, and customer fulfillment.

“In the shoulder seasons we’re doing these big pulses of garden work,” East said. “I might move animals and then go seed in the greenhouse and then pack our CSA boxes.”

Much of the job also happens behind the scenes.

“A lot of farming, honestly, is computer work nowadays,” East said. “Before our call, I was updating our online store with all of our chicken restock. A lot of email communications with customers.”

East also handles photography and communications for the farm, documenting harvests and daily life online while managing employees and coordinating workflow.

“I think a huge part of our farm’s success is having a really strong outward communication,” East said.

The slower winter months offer a different pace. Employees reduce their hours while the farm focuses on winter markets, infrastructure projects, and maintenance work. East said the farm prioritizes supporting workers year-round, even during slower production periods.

“I’m really proud we still pay our employees full-time all winter, even though they go down to 20 hours a week,” East said.

East did not initially set out specifically to become a farmer but said the profession eventually became the clearest way to combine personal values and passions.

“I always knew I needed to be outside as much as possible,” East said. “I was very food oriented very early on, and so once I realized that I could blend everything I cared about into one profession, there was just no going back.”

Just 29 years old, East is part of a younger generation of farmers working to build careers in an increasingly difficult agricultural landscape. Rising land prices and development pressures, East said, make access to farmland one of the industry’s biggest challenges.

“As the older generation ages out, there unfortunately isn’t a consistent mechanism for farmable land to move on to a younger generation of farmers,” East said. “Farmland is just getting grabbed up by people that aren’t actively in relationship with growing food.”

Still, East described the farming community—especially among younger farmers—as deeply collaborative.

“We’re just going to figure it out together,” East said. “I think there’s a really beautiful communal aspect to it.”

East said two skills are especially essential to the job. The first is observation.

“You just really have to be looking and feeling,” she said. “It’s a full sensory experience.”

The second, East said, is the ability to constantly adjust.

“These are all living systems, not Excel,” East said. “They’re growing and changing and dynamic, and they have their own heartbeat.”

That means plans rarely stay fixed for long.

“You have to change your mind all the time or change your plans all the time,” East said. “Decision fatigue is so real because it’s just always changing all the time.”

Despite the unpredictability, East said her work feels deeply meaningful.

“I was in one of our gardens the other day, just picking some stuff for my dinner,” East said. “It was the golden hour, and the sun was slanting in, and I stood up from picking and I was just like, ‘Wow, I’m just in Eden right now.’ Living in a place completely surrounded by food all the time is so dreamy.”

Wild East Farm sells its products at the River Arts District Farmers Market in Asheville and the Black Mountain Tailgate Market. Learn more at wildeastfarm.com. Read East’s monthly column, “The Farmer’s Table,” in The Laurel of Asheville magazine.