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Farmer Sean "Peppy" Meyer, along with his herd of 50-some goats, is leading Jester King Brewery's renewable farming effort. (Emma Freer)
The goat barn at Jester King Brewery is home to around 50 goats and their guardian dog, an Anatolian Pyrenees named Sasha. Goatherd and regenerative farmer Sean "Peppy" Meyer, 33, also lived there for a year before decamping for "partial city life"—meaning a place with electricity—in 2019. But the barn and the 165 acres of Texas Hill Country surrounding it remain indisputably his.
It's where Meyer bottle feeds the baby goats, hosts farm tours, grows hemp and tends to the land in preparation for crops that will be used in beer and food production. Each evening, he guides the goats along the property for a graze, carrying a staff and quoting Temple Grandin to the young kids who ask to tag along. "This is my favorite part of life," he said.
(Emma Freer)
Divine intervention
Meyer worked in advertising before transitioning to farming but retains his knack for viral content and pithy slogans, referring to his herd as "the best goats in Texas." His career change occurred around 10 years ago, after an admittedly "woo woo" experience.
"I believe I came in contact with the mother or mother goddess," he said, switching into the present tense. "She tells me that it's time that I serve her and move to Texas and pursue renewable agriculture. I explain that I have no experience in farming. She says, 'That's the point. If you can be successful, then no one else has an excuse.'"
Meyer followed through, moving to Austin from Virginia and breaking into urban farming. Three years ago, he and his goats joined Jester King to support the brewery's farming goals. Renewable agriculture—also known as regenerative farming or permaculture—seeks to give back to the land while yielding its crops.
Jester King Brewery offers a beer garden, live music, on-site pizza, cornhole, goat sightings and farm tours. (Emma Freer)
Jester King Brewery offers a beer garden, live music, on-site pizza, cornhole, goat sightings and farm tours. (Emma Freer)
At Jester King, this starts with the goats grazing ashe juniper, a native species that has grown out of control due to the lack of bison and grassland fires to keep it in check. (It's also a cause of cedar fever.) The goats then produce natural fertilizer, which helps support healthier soil. The euphemized dung also promotes the growth of native grasses, which allow rainwater to permeate the Edwards Aquifer, an underground layer of porous limestone that stores water and feeds Barton Springs.
With Meyer at the helm, Jester King is restoring its land in the hopes of one day growing more food crops for use in its brewery and kitchen. "It's going to be a bigger, brighter stage to begin the talks of how we need to get back to systems that incorporate the strength of happy land, where it's able to take care of itself," he said. "It just takes awhile to get there."
Long-term plans
Meyer hopes to keep at this work, which he called "the most fulfilling yet painful profession on the planet," for the next 50 years. But he knows he'll need help, both on-site to scale up production and from others who are drawn to regenerative farming as a way to combat climate change and other ravages of global capitalism. "Not to be 'apocalypse boy' …but I feel we are ruining our ecosystem, which we sorely need to take care of us," he said.
In the meantime, Meyer has developed creative ways to support this operation—and perhaps spur others to consider a similar path. On Wednesdays at 6 p.m., he leads a goat walk, where participants can learn more about renewable agriculture and hear his yodel-like call: "Vac-luna," a mash-up of his first two goats' names—Lavaca and Luna—to which the entire herd now responds.
(Emma Freer)
Meyer is also growing his second crop of hemp, which is used to make Jester King Hemp Balm. Made with CBD oil, goat's milk, beeswax, duck eggs and plants, it's effective enough to soothe his own aches and pains. Both of these operations help support the goatherd and Jester King's renewable agriculture efforts, to which he has committed his life.
"I've lost the majority of my human relationships," Meyer said. "But I have to believe that this is an appropriate time of sacrifice, of which later in life there will be the gifts of rest."
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Popular
(Paxton Smith/Instagram)
Paxton Smith’s 2021 valedictory speech at Lake Highlands High School in Dallas wasn’t the same speech she had previously shared with school administrators. She dropped the approved speech and made a case for women’s reproductive rights after lawmakers passed the Texas "Heartbeat Bill.”
Her advocacy made news on NPR, YouTubeTV and in The Guardian. Just over a year later, the “war on (women’s) rights” she forewarned has come to a head as the U.S. Supreme Court voted Friday morning to overturn Roe v. Wade, ending constitutional protection for abortion access.
“It is up to the people to show up and show the courts and the politicians that we won’t sit back and let this happen,” Smith told Austonia Friday morning. “We will show up, we will fight back. Before, we were scared of them, now they should be scared of us.”
Now a University of Texas sophomore and abortion rights activist, 19-year-old Smith said she wanted to give the same speech in the “the most public way possible” to reach “as many people as possible who don't agree that I deserve this right.”
However, she says the response was “actually overwhelmingly positive” and supportive of her cause. According to a recent UT poll, 78% of Texas voters support abortion access in most cases.
The speech opened up further opportunities for activism: she advocated for reproductive rights at the International Forum on Human Rights in Geneva, interviewed with Variety magazine and spoke to tens of thousands at Austin’s Bans Off Our Bodies protest at the Texas Capitol in May.
Smith also serves on the board of directors for the Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project, a national nonprofit organization that helps fund abortions or medication abortion—like Plan C pills—in all 50 states. Most recently, Smith has been attending protests in Washington, D.C. leading up to the ruling.
“This is land of the free. This is where you get to choose how you live your life,” Smith said. “Overturning Roe v. Wade violates everything that we have come to believe about what it means to live in this country. I think a lot of people aren't willing to accept that this is a human right that is most likely just going to be gone for over half of the country within the next couple of weeks.”
Bracing for the next steps, Smith gave some tips for supporters:
- Find a protest to attend.
- “I would say invite somebody to go to those protests with you, invite a couple of friends, invite people into the movement,” Smith said.
- Talk about the issue on social media—use the platform you have.
- “Have these kinds of conversations where people can just talk about their fears and then find ways to go and advocate for yourself,” Smith said.
- Volunteer at a nonprofit near you.
“I feel like a lot of the reason things have gotten as bad as they have within the abortion rights world is that people are not making a scene, not protesting, not putting the effort into ensuring that the government doesn't take away this right,” Smith said. “I want to emphasize that if you're not doing anything, don't expect the best scenario, expect the worst because that's the direction that we're going in.”
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(Council Member Chito Vela/Twitter)
The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that guaranteed a constitutional right to an abortion, Friday morning. Moments later, Austin City Council set a special meeting for next month to pass a resolution aimed at decriminalizing abortion.
The GRACE Act, which stands for guarding the right to abortion care for everyone, is a twofold plan submitted by council member Jose “Chito” Vela. It recommends that city funds shouldn’t be used to surveil, catalog, report or investigate abortions. It also recommends that police make investigating abortion their lowest priority.
Council Member Vanessa Fuentes, who co-sponsored the resolution along with council members Paige Ellis, Kathie Tovo and Mayor Steve Adler, said the importance of the GRACE Act cannot be overstated.
“By introducing this resolution during a special session, City Council is doubling down on fighting back for reproductive health,” Fuentes said. “Items like the GRACE Act will promote essential healthcare while enabling individuals to exercise their bodily freedom.”
The act takes an approach similar to when former council member Greg Casar moved to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana. Ultimately, state law doesn't allow city officials to order police chiefs to adopt specific enforcement policies so the resolution would be a request to Police Chief Joe Chacon. In May, Politico reported that Vela is having "ongoing conversations" with Chacon about the proposal.
Austonia contacted Attorney General Ken Paxton for comment on the GRACE Act but did not hear back by time of publication. On Friday, Paxton celebrated the overturning of Roe and announced an annual office holiday on June 24 in recognition of the high court's decision.
In a press release, Vela said the Texas state government has a history of overturning municipal protections of human rights. Thirty days after the Supreme Court’s ruling, Texas will ban all abortions, with exceptions only to save the life of a pregnant patient or prevent “substantial impairment of major bodily function.”
Still, Vela expressed hope for the GRACE Act’s longevity. Council’s special meeting on it is set for the week of July 18.
“We know this resolution is legally sound, and Austin is not alone in this fight,” Vela said. “We are working with several other cities who are equally horrified by the prospect of an abortion ban and want to do everything they can to protect their residents.”
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