Before the sun rises, Gigi Meyer has already had her first cup of coffee and is out the door to check on her 20-acre Bend-area farm. She leads the horses and goats out to the pasture and feeds the pigs and chickens.

When that’s all done, she’ll check on her greenhouses, her rows of vegetables and the fields of flowers.

Meyer, 54, taught herself to farm organically, and bring that farm food to many Central Oregon tables, through her on-demand community support agriculture (CSA), Whole Foods Market and some local restaurants.

After eight years, Windflower Farm is about where Meyer wants it to be. She built all the paddocks and outbuildings. She laid underground irrigation and, though there’s always more to do on a farm, she’s settling in, as her experience as a farmer has given rise to a certain confidence.

We caught up with Meyer after the first part of her morning chores were already over; she took off her wide-brimmed sun hat, kicked off her Wellingtons and offered us a cup of coffee in her neat, white clapboard country farmhouse.

Meyer is a thin-framed woman, with ginger-colored hair and porcelain skin. Though small, she is far from fragile. Unless you see her in action on the farm, it would be hard to imagine how strong she really is.

She rubbed a dollop of sunscreen on her face and we were out the door again, following her fast pace around her farm, as she gave us a tour and explained why organic farming is hard and involves a lot of physical labor.

She doesn’t gloss over the difficulties of farm work on a single, middle-aged woman.

“I’ve been farming intensively for eight years, and it’s beginning to take a physical toll, and I need to start limiting the amount of heavy lifting, pulling and digging that I do. Fortunately I have an excellent crew and my main hand has been with me from the beginning and has (been) indispensable to me,” said Meyer.

Small organic farmers like Meyer are the true story behind some food. They don’t often get the accolades of gourmet chefs, but without these farmers there would be no locavores. Meyer is humble, and a little surprised when she was first approached about this article.

“I love my kitchen and my red sink, but to tell you the truth, I don’t get to spend that much time here, in my kitchen, because I’m so busy outside on the farm,” said Meyer. “I don’t want your readers to think that I’m cooking gourmet meals every night, because most of the time, I’m so tired I’ll just eat a peanut butter sandwich. That’s really what farming is about. It’s real hard work.”

Meyer will give you the real dirt on farming, but she wouldn’t trade this challenging lifestyle. She has already experienced many other careers before she came to farming and she’s perfectly clear — this is a career she truly loves.

“I’ve found a way to bring gardening, horses, writing and art, all the things I love, into one place,” said Meyer. “But honestly, I haven’t done much art here, since I bought the farm, because I’m too busy.”

Meyer’s workday usually ends well after the sun has set. Besides her hired hand and some interns, whom she enjoys mentoring, Meyer does much of the work herself.

Appreciating the wild

Meyer has always been a horsewoman. She grew up in Portland, but her father purchased a large ranch in Eastern Oregon, where she fondly recalls riding her horse bareback and exploring miles and miles of deserted ranch land from sun up to sun down.

While attending a private high school in Portland, Meyer persuaded her teachers and parents to allow her to camp alone on this land. There, she would study the region’s history, the geological timetable of the land, the wild animals and insects that inhabit this land and she would read Thoreau and Emerson, and write in her journal every day.

The only companion she had out there was her horse. She camped by a river for a school quarter, studied and learned to love living in the wild. It was there her independent and free spirit blossomed.

“This was a pivotal experience for me. I think it really shaped me into who I am today,” said Meyer, who eventually attended Bowdoin College in Maine.

After graduating, Meyer took a job in New York City as a freelance journalist for The New York Times and the Village Voice, which allowed her time to pursue her other passion: art. For nine years, she took to city life, and enjoyed all the excitement Manhattan had to offer. However, when she was offered a job in Italy, she jumped at the chance to take care of an estate and to write a freelance piece for the Village Voice on the Palio horse race there.

“I loved being in Italy. It was a magical time. The gardens on this estate were beautiful,” said Meyer. “The estate was halfway between Chianti and Florence. It was so bucolic. It had a rose garden, vineyard and a lavender field, plus a vegetable garden, where I learned so much from the horticulturist there.”

After almost a year in Italy, Meyer came back to New York City, but it wasn’t the same for her. She wanted more land and more open spaces; she was ready to come back to Oregon.

First love: horses.

Meyer came back to Oregon and worked as a horse trainer. She trained two horses to race, a decision she regrets. She eventually found enough money and bought the two injured racehorses from the owners and started looking for a farm.

Meyer is working on a nonfiction book, “Unsaddling Little Wing,” about her experience with contemporary horse racing.

Windflower Farm

Through a friend of a friend, Meyer heard that a couple was thinking about selling the farm and retiring.

In 2005, Meyer had herself a farm, and two retired racehorses.

“What did I know about farming? Nothing,” said Meyer. “But I’m a nerd and a quick learner. I hired Cora, who grew up on a farm, and she taught me a lot. What I didn’t know, I read and learned about on the Internet or in books. There’s so much to learn about different species of animals and plants; the learning curve is steep, it’s huge.”

As an example, Meyer says she bought goats because she thinks they’re total characters and they could eat the noxious weeds in the pasture area.

“But I had never milked a goat in my life. What did I know? Nothing,” said Meyer with a chuckle. “I’m addicted to goat milk now. My nieces named the goats: Chloe, Daphne, Simone, Sasha and Siggy. I know you’re not supposed to name your farm animals, but this is just the way I farm. All the animals are treated very well here.”

For sale

“We have rhubarb, raspberries and parsnip here,” said Meyer. “Some of the land I can till with the tractor, but there’s other parts where the irrigation was put in too shallow that has to be tilled by hand.”

Meyer pointed to her greenhouses and explained they give her an early growing-season advantage and, being a small farmer, she needs every advantage she can get.

She recently received a U.S. Department of Agriculture grant to buy another five greenhouses, which she refers to as high tunnels.

“It’s very hard to make a living hand farming,” says Meyer.

We passed her large and clean chicken house, where 26 chickens happily cluck about, giving her plenty of organic eggs to sell through her CSA accounts.

We walked 25 yards from the chicken house and came upon “the girls” as Meyer calls them.

“We are raising the pigs for meat animals. We’ll be slaughtering on site; it makes it less stressful for the animals,” said Meyer.

She originally bought her pigs because they could also eat the invasive grasses that were riddling her pasture.

“If you have six or seven feeder pigs, they can till and fertilize as they go,” said Meyer. “I think next year, I’m going to turn that field over there into a pig forage field.”

We passed the Cornish game hens’ house, where in a few days the Central Oregon Community College’s culinary school would bring out a class to slaughter the hens.

Just past the game hens are fields of flowers, where the Sweet Williams are just beginning to bloom. The local flowers are sold in bouquets to Whole Foods Market and to wedding parties during the summer.

Harvest time and slaughtering time is coming soon to Windflower Farm, and Meyer feels good about the food she can sell to Central Oregonians.

Meyer says she’s willing to bet the farm that real foodies will be able to tell the difference between her produce that was picked on the farm that morning versus vegetables that were picked weeks ago and hauled a thousand miles to grocery stores.

Meyer is confident there are enough people who are willing to pay a little more for food to be organic, pesticide free, and humanely raised by farm laborers who are paid a fair wage.

“People understand what quality food costs, and what it means to the environment, and there’s huge value to this, and I think people are willing to pay for it,” says Meyer. “It gives me hope. That is why I’m willing to work hard every day. Most small farmers don’t make much, but we believe in what we do — we have to, otherwise it’s just too much work. We couldn’t do it.”

What are the three ingredients you’ll always find in your home kitchen cupboard or refrigerator?

Strictly Organic Sumatran Coffee, Redwood Hill Farm Vanilla Goat’s Milk Yogurt or Windflower Farm Goat Milk in season, and red wine.

Favorite home-cooked meals you like to prepare?

Windflower Farm pork chops with Dolgo apple compote, and Windflower Farm mustard greens sauteed with garlic, lemon and tamari. Windflower Farm root vegetables roasted in chicken broth.

What is your favorite home appliance in your kitchen?

An espresso machine that a dear friend game me for my 30th birthday.

What restaurants do you most enjoy?

I don’t typically eat out — dinnertime is also dinnertime for all my animals who depend on me to keep them fed, particularly during the months when the pastures are dormant. I do trade sometimes with a friend, and once a month or so, I’ll feed early (and) run to town, and she whips us up the most incredible meal that includes produce and/or meat that I bring from the farm. When I’m hiring my farm crew in the spring, it always occurs to me that if I could hire a chef to cook for me, I’d be set.

Do you have a favorite cooking memory? Or favorite memorable meal you prepared?

This was a group effort — there were around 10 of us, gathered in France in October to celebrate a friend’s 50th birthday. A huge country kitchen with a stunning view, and all of us engaged in preparing multiple courses — a bit of a free-for-all. By the time we landed at the long table, we were already a little tipsy from the $2 wine of the terroir. It was a raucous evening among opinionated artists and writers. I hardly remember the food, but I do remember everything tasted great.

Favorite room you like to eat your meals?

When the weather conditions are favorable; the back porch, where I have a great view of the southern cut flower and veggie gardens and the forest to the west and, if I time it just right, the sunset.

Guilty food pleasures?

Chocolate truffles.

What do you like to do outside of the farm? In other words, what happens when the Wellingtons come off?

The riding boots go on. I have two young geldings that I bred and raised here on the farm, and they are my therapy. And when I can really get away, for two weeks or more, I head to France to visit my good friend who lives in the countryside southeast of Paris. We bicycle along the river and through the rolling farms and forests of ancient towns. We frequent the village and local street markets, get our milk (and) duck confit from the farmer down the road. Heaven.