Chickens, turkeys, roosters, dogs and children all contribute to the symphony of sounds in the backyard farm of the Paul Ferris family, who live in a middle-class neighborhood on Signal Mountain.
Mr. Ferris, 40, a special-education teacher and Boy Scout leader, and his wife, Ann Durham-Ferris, 44, a medical technologist, also grow crops and flowers on the Center Street property in Walden. They are practicing “on a small scale what we would like to do on a larger scale once our children are grown,” said Mrs. Durham-Ferris.
Their children – Alexandra Durham, 13, Sandi Ferris, 15, and Paul Ferris, 10 – are required to work in the garden and feed and care for the animals.
“So many children don’t know where or how their food is grown or raised, and we felt that this would be a good life experience for them,” she said, explaining that she and her husband want the children to have a hands-on experience of farm life.
“I felt that converting my backyard into an urban farm was a means to foster my personal values and bring my family closer together,” Mr. Ferris said.
The family grows a variety of fruits, flowers and vegetables, from apricots to zucchini.
“We try to grow year-round with floating row covers and had good success last winter even with all the snow,” Mr. Ferris said.
The family also has a menagerie of indoor pets including frogs, a cockatoo, parrotlet, rats, two fish tanks and a salamander.
The Ferrises have given the children a section of the garden that each is solely responsible for.
“Alex has pumpkins, Paul has sunflowers, and Sandi has watermelon and peppers,” said Mrs. Durham-Ferris. “We are planning on letting the children enter their produce in the county fair this year. They are very excited and working hard to have great entries.”
Neighbors have never complained about the urban farm, Mrs. Durham-Ferris said.
“I spoke to my immediate neighbors before we started raising the poultry to make sure they would not have any objections to a rooster nearby,” she said. “Everyone said that they wouldn’t mind, and I try to be mindful of the noise and ask every so often if the noise is bothersome. The answer I always get is how much they enjoy hearing the birds, especially the turkey.”
Most everything the family grows has a food value, she said. “But I do place a few ornamental (plants) around the yard.”
Meanwhile, the family is reaping what they sow.
“Not only is this a passion that Ann and I share, but it allows us to teach our children the value of honest hard work and the rewards such work can bring,” Mr. Ferris said. “In our instant gratification, text messaging, fast-food world, we feel it is our duty to teach our children teamwork, responsibility, self-sufficiency, patience and the value of planting seeds for tomorrow’s harvest.”
