We strive to nurture individuals & community through food, experiences, and cultivate minds to always stay curious.
The Dormouse Women
Dormouse Farm is a mother & daughter team. Both Cindy & Morgan are passionate about bringing quality food and education to southern Oregon. With nearly 50 years combined farming experience: Cindy works the magic in the kitchen creating baked delights and scrumptious shrubs, vinaigrettes, jams, and in the greenhouse nurturing heirloom varieties of flowers, herbs and vegetables. Morgan is the designing wiz, and magics hot sauce and pasta late in the night to delight and tease your taste buds. She is also the resident graphic novelist/watercolorist and art teacher. Visit her art studio on the farm!
The story behind the name.
“So, why did you pick Dormouse for your name?” This question is perhaps our most frequent. Usually followed with, “And are those cinnamon rolls as good as I have heard?” (Yes. Yes they are.)
Why Dormouse? Why not? We have a history of naming our farms after animals as all of us in our family are nature lovers. But the Dormouse brand holds a very special place in our hearts. And the bulk of it is thanks to Rock-n-Roll. As a native born Seattleite, music and the arts are a load bearing pillar in Morgan’s life. So when Morgan and Cindy were pondering a name for their new farm (which didn’t exist yet, by the by), they asked themselves a challenging question:
“Is there a name, word, or creature that could encapsulate who we are, what we love, and what we do?”
Now, mind you, the Krepky family started this brainstorming activity in 2020, while sitting in Cindy’s abundant city garden, listening to good old Rock-n-Roll and sipping local wine.
COVID-19 was the catalyst that started this search for farmland. And this was not the first time that the Krepky family desired farm life. In fact, Morgan and her brother were raised on the family’s first farm in Western Washington, Dog Mountain Farm. Est. 2000-2016
And this pendulum swing was one of the complicated aspects that the Krepky women wanted to capture in their brand. “What would fit a family as a brand, who’s journey started as city folk, became accomplished farmers, retired and moved to a new city, and then wanted to go and farm once again?”
This was unprecedented. And you would think that finding a name with such criteria would have been laborious. But, as it turned out, it wasn’t.
Excellent wine, a vast blue sky with soft cotton clouds, the dance of bees in the garden, and the inspiring thrum of the radio delivered an answer to the question.
On came Jefferson Airplane, with Grace Slick belting the ballad of, “White Rabbit.” And suddenly, the answer crystallized with exuberant clarity.
The line, “Remember what the dormouse said, ‘Feed your head!’” resonated so strongly, with mother and daughter, that they posed the question: “Well, how about Dormouse Farm?”
So, Dormouse, it was! However, an obvious question would be, “How does dormouse actually fit?”
Well, as the good Lady Slick explains, the dormouse’s line to “feed your head” is about feeding your curiosity and to keep learning and experiencing new things. The dormouse is that little voice in our soul that challenges and nurtures, and tells us to keep asking questions and to keep challenging ourselves and society while giving shelter to whimsy.
And this fits the Krepky women as a perfect archetype. And what a cute, approachable mascot, too!
“Welcome to the nest!”
But, did you know? The dormouse is a tiny native of Europe and Asia. They are endangered in the UK, and this small mammal is actually more closely related to a squirrel than a mouse. And they hibernate!
Want to do more to support dormice in the wild? Consider donating to the (PTES) People’s Trust for Endangered Species.
Baptism by Dirt By Frank X WalkerFor ShaunaAll believers know about the power of water though not enough about the power of dirt. My mama used to walk barefooted in our vegetable garden, get down on her hands and knees and almost pray in the dirt. My wife and I and our two-year-old built and planted three raised-bed gardens. Watching her dip her fingers into the dirt to coddle what will feed us reminds me of mama and then.What is it that women know about nurturing a seed into a piece of fruit, about believing in the power of dirt and suns and water?I return from our labor with sore knees and back, fingernails and hands caked with dirt. She floats back into the house cleaner, somehow less burdened, as if she spent the weekend burying all her heavy things, as if she whispered to something sacred and it whispered something back.Notes: “Baptism by Dirt” is reprinted from Masked Man, Black: Pandemic & Protest Poems (Accents Publishing, 2020) and is part of the folio “Frank X Walker: Kinfolk.” Read the rest of the folio in the January/February 2026 issue of Poetry.Source: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/1749621/baptism-by-dirt