Why Farmhouse?

I love the word agency. Freedom, liberty, community, all that good stuff is worthless without agency. The agency I’m talking about is the feeling of confidence and having capacity to act in a situation. Going from “I wish I could,” to “I think I can,” to “I’ll try,” to “I did.”

Angela Lee Duckworth’s TED Talk focuses on grit: passion plus persistence. This is before grit. Overcoming self-doubt and fear.

Growing up on a farm, when you’re nine and told to drive a tractor, when you’re too skinny to push in the clutch, you figure out that if you pull up on the steering wheel, you can get the job done.

I used to think of projects like Farmhouse Soda as inoculating myself to stress, but realized it was the reward that kept me driven — the ability to bring something into being in the world through my effort.

The simple answer: Agle’s Farmhouse Soda was created in a farmhouse. When we were brainstorming names, I wanted something related to farm markets, to farm stands.

But as with so many agricultural innovations, the roots run deeper. Farmhouse represents self-reliance and connection — the good and bad of ownership and self-reliance. Stewardship of resources. Frugality. Beauty in function. Industriousness.

An old farmhouse provides endless work. It allows for valuing history, building on the experience of past generations, connection to community and reliance on those same things. Yeoman values, you might call them.

American yeoman values center on independence, economic self-sufficiency, and ownership of land or capital — the historic ideal of a farmer-citizen. These values emphasize hard work, civic virtue, and, in modern contexts, the resilience of small producers against corporate dominance, fostering a belief in liberty in pursuit of stability.

As fewer citizens were involved in the production of food, Americans lost sight of their link to the agriculture on which they rely.

Farmhouse hearkens back to a time when craftsmanship and quality, making something by hand, was inherently valuable — for both the product’s quality and the maker’s well-being. This translates to a food system that emphasizes artisanal technique and high-quality ingredients. Farmhouse is part of the local community movement advocating for sourcing materials and production methods tailored to the specific region.

Natural, simple, regional, seasonal: Farmhouse is my art.