The simple life

Around 1950, Poppen’s father gained inspiration from a book he read titled “Living the Good Life” by Helen and Scott Nearing. His parents decided to move out of the suburbs of Chicago and buy a farm.

“My father realized he was happier in his overalls than in a suit and tie,” said Poppen. “Having been affected by the cultural revolution of the ‘60s, my parents wanted to get their own farm. I was raised on a 40-acre farm. My father grew nursery stock near Chicago. When I was 12, we moved to Indiana. I recall it as being a very flat place with very good soil. Both of my parents were horticulturists. They loved plants, and because they had a landscaping business, my father spent a lot of time doing landscaping around our place too. There was a lot of love of plants.”

Poppen grew up watching and learning how important that life was, not only to his family, but to the world.

“In 1972, my brother bought a piece of land here in Macon County,” he said. “That piece of land eventually became Long Hungry Creek farm. Land was a lot cheaper. The people were friendlier, and the climate was much better than up north.”

Poppen points out that back then, most people had gardens, and he was no exception.

“I started a homestead here at the farm, and we lived for 25 years with no electricity,” said Poppen. “We cooked and heated with a wood burning stove. My mission was to live without money as much as possible. I didn’t want to support a system that I saw as oppressive. I believe that the world’s resources should be divided among people according to need, not because of power or status.”

I decided to make a living by selling things I grew,” said Poppen. “I had a nursery business here for awhile. That went OK, but then I decided to sell vegetables instead. That was in the late ‘70s early ‘80s. There were no organic farmers anywhere around here. You could say that I rode the organic tide of the organic movement. My farm became popular as an organic farm.”

In the ‘90s, Poppen had a friend, Jim Durham, who at one time had worked for the Macon County Times. Durham started his own paper, The Macon County Chronicle, in Red Boiling Springs.

“He asked me to write for his paper,” said Poppen. “I told him I wasn’t a writer, and wasn’t going to write for a newspaper. A few months went by, and Jim once again came to me and asked me to write an article and that he’d give me ten dollars, so I had him an article the next day. That went on for awhile, and I called the article Small Farm Journal. Jim didn’t like the title, and after a short time, he changed it to Barefoot Farmer. That’s where I got the moniker. I had never written anything before, and ever since then I’ve gotten paid anytime I wrote for anyone.”

Poppen would go on to write hundreds of pieces and publish three books.

When Red Boiling Springs began hosting an annual folk music festival, Poppen was involved.

“I’d make salads and give them away at the festival,” said Poppen. “One day a lady came up to me and asked if I’d be interested in doing a segment for her TV show called Volunteer Gardner. A couple named Malcolm and Mary Rust, who were the shows creators, interviewed me. That was somewhere between 1996-98.”

A couple years passed and then Poppen was once again contacted by the Rusts and asked if he’d be interested in doing a regular segment.

“I’ve done a hundred shows, and at first I didn’t pay much attention to the people filming,” said Poppen. “I would just go about things as I normally would and describe what and why I was doing it. After a few segments, a director named Greta helped me in streamlining the subjects for each show. I wrote and directed the segments, but she really pulled it all together.”

The show is featured on PBS and is geared towards backyard farmers. It still airs and can be seen on Channel 8 Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 9:30 a.m. Aside from everything Poppen has excelled at, he is also a musician.

“In 1964, A Hard Day’s Night came out, and I went out and bought myself a $20 Sears Silvertone guitar,” said Poppen. “I’ve been playing ever since. I had a band, and we played down on Second Avenue in Nashville. We were called the Loose Change Band. That was in the ‘80s and ‘90s. The jam band was once called Organic, but since the government required you to be certified through them to use the term organic, after 15 years, I dropped my certification and dropped the band name as well.”

Poppen and his band will be playing at the Bull and Thistle Pub in Gainesboro April 20.

He also has a fourth book coming out next month.

When asked why he went barefoot, Poppen simply said, “I was born this way.”