Drausin Wulsin Interview

Terra Szuhay: So my name is Terra Szuhay. I'm here with my uncle, Drausin Wulsin, and we're here to talk about his experience during the Coronavirus pandemic for our oral history project called Bridging the Distance. So I want to thank you, Uncle Drausin for coming to speak with me. Would you state your full name and your age please ?

Drausin Wulsin: My full name is Drausin Foster Wulsin, and I am age 67, I think it is.

Terra Szuhay: Thank you. So today is April 7th. It's 10:00 in the morning and we're in the year of 2020. So I'm going to begin to ask you a little bit... a few questions about your early life. So would... you would you be willing to tell me a little bit about your family, our family, where you grew up?

Drausin Wulsin: Yes, so we, I grew up in a family of five and we lived in, sort of, an affluent 00:02:00suburb on the outside of Cincinnati which was... included several thousand acres of woods and fields of former estates that was contiguous to our house. And that was a great blessing and a great influence to me because I spent a lot of my childhood, as did a few of my siblings, not all of them, playing in the woods 00:03:00and riding horses and being close to nature and feeling the essence of that great kind of structural world that many people were not exposed to. So we had horses growing up and we spent a lot of time on them, and that taught me a lot about respect for animals and respect for others and how you have to place them first. So it... they had a great influence on me and-- okay so then you will you proceeded to ask questions Terra? Is that--

Terra Szuhay: Yes, I will. So would you talk a little bit more about what your life was like growing up in Spooky Hollow?

Drausin Wulsin: Well yes. Spooky Hollow was the name of the road we lived on. We had a privileged life and we went to camps and boarding schools and had horses. But the most significant experience for me was being in these woods with horses, and playing in the... playing there and letting my imagination run. I used to build huts and forts and love that whole world and there was so much for me to think about and dream about there. So that was my sanctuary. And in a big family, sometimes one needs a sanctuary. And when I was misbehaving in my big family as a child, I would go out to that sanctuary and find my solace. And that taught me about the power of nature.

Terra Szuhay: So who were your friends? Do you have specific mentors or specific teachers that you feel were especially important to your life now, to who you are now?

Drausin Wulsin: I think you know, growing up the primary mentors at least were my parents and various aunts and uncles. And they sort of shaped my life in various ways. But I 00:04:00never found, sort of a full mentor, which I think is probably the case for most of us. We have to take aspects of different people and piece together what it is we value. So my mother was a great great influence, of course as mothers are. And she loved family and home and food and gatherings and I love all those things, so I inherited that from her. She had a great sense of architecture in place and she had a wonderful wit. And my father was a... loved nature and animals, and I inherited that from him. So and then various aunts and uncles and teachers again were... aspects of them I admired and wanted to learn from, and 00:05:00did. I had a number of friends, fast friends, not a huge number. But then we went off to boarding school at such a young age that those friendships were... didn't reach full fruition. But I feel blessed with the number of friends that I do have.

Terra Szuhay: So that's really helpful. I love hearing about... I love hearing about your life. I like pairing that with what my my mom has told me. I'm going to turn now to the Coronavirus. Can you tell me a little bit about how you first heard about the virus? Or if you remember when you first heard, or how you first heard?

Drausin Wulsin: Well a good question. You know I presume that it was in the news in January when 00:06:00there was talk of it being in China. So I would presume that would be the first time I had heard about it. And then it slowly, you know... started migrating and it was like watching a bad accident in slow motion coming at us.

Terra Szuhay: And when do you think the Coronavirus... When did you start thinking that it might be a problem for you? Or might be affecting you and your lifestyle?

Drausin Wulsin: I think... so I think it was mid-March when we learned that we.. our farmers market in... where we go every Sunday was being closed thanks... due to the Governor of Ohio's stay-at-home orders. And so it was just for academic until then. And suddenly we had a mild business crisis. The personal crisis hadn't 00:07:00really hit us because we live on a farm and are quite isolated and don't have high degrees of interaction with people. That wasn't so much of an issue at that point. But the closing of businesses became an issue very quickly.

Terra Szuhay: Right that makes a lot of sense. um yeah because being in Ohio I remember when the governor closes and that all of those impacts and I remember thinking about your business and wonder is wondering how that has impacted you. Yeah so would you speak a little bit more about how that's impacted you professionally? As in like in your farm and in your business.

Drausin Wulsin: yeah um well we felt... we felt very fortunate in so many ways. We have been, I don't know if prepared is the right word, but we spent a lot of time over the 00:08:00past six years or so, six or eight years developing our website. And we've had three different iterations, each one more sophisticated than the previous. But it was really quite underutilized because our primary source of connection was face to face at these farmers markets. So we would get a few orders every week on the website. That was helpful, but it was just sort of token, and I couldn't help wondering if all the energy and money that had gone into developing the website was really misplaced because it was so little used. But once the face-to-face interaction was shut down, our orders on the website jumped tenfold. So we suddenly had-- we had a tool in place, an infrastructure in place 00:09:00to respond to this issue. Some of our fellow vendors, a good number of them did not, so they had to scramble at the last minute, or... and develop websites. And that's a hard thing to do. I mean it took me a lot of time to work with the right people and develop this all. And so ours was in place and it has worked very well. It has forced me to learn how to use it better, which has been a good thing. We still some little issues with it. We had a customer show up the other day at the market saying, you know, they had placed an order, and I didn't have the order, and I still don't have the order, and I still don't see the order. And so why did she get that impression? But that's all part of it. So in that 00:10:00sense I felt very prepared. I mean felt very grateful that we were rather well prepared. And so we have served a seamless communication going on. We're not communicating with as many people but we are meeting customers who we might have not met before through the website. So now when we go to the marketplace there's no interaction, really. It's just people drive through with their truck, their vehicles, and with their trunk open, and we put their orders in the back of their trunk and off they go. So it's sort of assembly line interaction. But it works. We have to prepare the orders in advance rather than doing spontaneously at the time, and that takes a lot of time, the preparation. So it doesn't save a 00:11:00lot of time total, these two different models of selling food. But one is safe in an epidemic and one is not. So we're grateful to have that in place. So on the other front professionally we are just profoundly grateful to have a business that's alive. It's just devastating to look out and see all the businesses that are, have folded. And all the money that's being lost, and all the lives that are being impacted, the suffering that is arising as a result. So for some foreseeable reason, that is not us. We are in a place of great demand, and we're suddenly facing more demand than we have supply. And that's a problem 00:12:00we've not had before. So that's a good problem. This whole thing is very intense professionally for us because I feel like we're not just delivering food to people we're delivering medicine to people who live on an island, and it's also critical, it's all so important. So I feel that impact. And I'm grateful to be able to respond. I also feel the impact of maintaining... making sure that we 00:13:00can support our employees through this, and our little community that we have. And I feel so grateful. I think we can. But it won't be easy, but I think we can do it. So as you see it's more emotional and complex than we quite realized. So it's poignant this whole experience is very poignant. And you know, profound. So we, you know, and we have a great team of people. There are sort of eight of us 00:14:00on our team. And we're trying to, well, we're continuing to work and do as we've always done. But how exactly do you do that with the social distancing in place? and it's... but we are. And we have to be careful. And my wife is.. has a compromised immune system. So the stakes are high. We have to be very respectful of that and of this force that we don't really understand. So I will stop right there if you haven any other questions.

Terra Szuhay: Yes, what are ways that you are all remaining connected now that you have to 00:15:00social distance? And especially on the farm, and with your... with your team?

Drausin Wulsin: Well with our team ii's, you know, we have our meetings but we have sort of stand up meetings and we try to do the social distancing as best we can. And so our connection there hasn't changed very much, our patterns of communicating haven't changed very much. But of course you know, as with everybody else we can't you can't reach out other than through this method to connect with people we care about, and that's-- that's a challenge. And, you know, one of the great ironies here is that that people who need the social interaction the most, these are the elderly and the isolated, can't get it. And that's a cruel situation. But yeah, so I've discovered zoom. I'd never heard of zoom before. So 00:16:00this is my third interaction with it, you know. And thank goodness. You know, so technology is here to support us in this situation, and that's wonderful. We would have no business without our website. But, you know, and in some ways technology is also responsible for this, this new phenomenon. But you know, so telephone calls, and this, and emails has been the means of communicating.

Terra Szuhay: Are you still writing your blog posts and sharing them?

Drausin Wulsin: Yes I have a blog and I've been writing that every week, and that's been a 00:17:00wonderful way to communicate. So yes, that goes out on a weekly basis, and I'm trying to update people, and share reflections, and keep people apprised of what we're doing here in the meantime. There will be more, more blogs to come out. So yes that's, that's a good way to connect with... we have about 2,000 people we send our blog to and... but you know not everyone opens it. But we have quite a high open rate, you know forty percent. And we get good responses from people, and that's heartening. Okay, I'm back.

Terra Szuhay: So you say you there is a way that people can respond to the blog?

Drausin Wulsin: Yes there is. They can respond, yes, through email to the blog, and the 00:18:00responses are, you know, usually quite gratifying. And then others... hear from a small number of people, at the moment. But over time I hear from people about how they enjoyed this blog, and that they forward it onto their friends, and that kind of thing. So that's gratifying.

Terra Szuhay: I'm going to change course a little bit and I'm just wondering are there other events that you've lived through that... or lived through like during your family's time... that you think are... have similar parallels or similar impacts to what we're living through right now? Or make you think, make you reflect on events, similar events?

Drausin Wulsin: Yeah, the only event that I've experienced would be the 9/11 event-- Should we 00:19:00go back to that question?

Terra Szuhay: Yeah, so, so you were, you were talking about, you were reflecting on 9/11 a little bit, and how that--

Drausin Wulsin: Yeah, so that's the, that's what I think back to when I think of something that impacted our culture and myself so significantly, something that came from without. But it was finite. It only affected us, seemingly, for days. And then, you know... it... the issue that it raised was up to, you know, our military to deal with. It didn't affect us personally much, so it faded away fairly quickly. 00:20:00Whereas this is so massive, and so inclusive. Not only in our country, but in the whole world. Nothing and that I'm aware of in history has ever been so pervasive in the whole world. So it is truly profound what is happening, and there's nothing to compare it to. The World Wars of the past were, you know, western... involved western countries alone, did not involve the rest of the world. This does, and so it's operating at a scale that we have never seen.

Terra Szuhay: My parents have also reflected on 9/11 when I ask them similar questions. What 00:21:00lasting impact do you think this moment will have on, I don't know, people? Society? Businesses? Do you have thoughts? There's no now you know at this point.

Drausin Wulsin: Of course, that's the big question. What will come out of this? I think that there's a great silver lining in this. That lots of structural changes that were deemed impossible before will happen. And that this truly is a, you know, the last word is with the people here. This is not something that power can manipulate very well. So I think in the end people will have much to say about how the new order is shaped. And I think, you know, the fact that, despite the 00:22:00inefficiencies of our government, and despite the ineptitudes of our leadership, there has been a concerted response to this challenge, which shows that concerted response can be mustered. And that's encouraging. And I think that will pave the way for concerted response to things like our climate issue. So I feel cautiously optimistic about the long run and the opportunity this crisis is creating. I mean it is shaking the foundations of our world order, and obviously they need to be, needed to be shaken, it seems, or they wouldn't be. So, but in 00:23:00the meantime there's so much suffering that it will go on. It will be very difficult.

Terra Szuhay: I agree. I've been also really wondering and thinking about the economy, healthcare, elections... like if that will change people's perceptions of the upcoming election, and what that will... but there's no way to know. There's no way to know.

Drausin Wulsin: Yes, I mean this points out in as vivid terms as possible that we need, you know, universal health care. And when people need care they need it 00:24:00and it shouldn't be debated and manipulated. So I think it's gonna move that agenda right to the top of the list. And in the whole issue of how we vote this fall and in elections up until this fall is in question. So there's much to be determined, but I think the issue of universal health care is being put to bed in a certain way right now.

Terra Szuhay: I hope so, well I hope that it-- I hope something happens from it. How do you feel that yourself and the farm and your business have been transformed as a result of the Coronavirus and the different responses to it? Or do you think it will go back to how it was before? Do you think there are trends, like buying trends, customer trends that might be changed as a result?

Drausin Wulsin: I think that, you know, running a business like this, producing food on a small farm, is a difficult task. And because you're competing with the great industrial food system, which is highly efficient, very low cost, and is pervasive, it's everywhere. So competing with that is very difficult. But the weakness of the industrial food system has been exposed, and it also is one that does not deliver quality. It delivers quantity very well but does not deliver quality. And so people... it couldn't be more clear that that food system is not 00:26:00supporting the populace very well. And in contrast, small ventures like ours offer a solution that people can support and believe in. And so, yeah, the question is as I mentioned, we have a shortage of supply now. So if we invest and ramp up to address that shortage of supply, will that be a temporary or long term phenomenon? Will people stay with us when this crisis is over? I think most of them will. I think this has been such a shattering experience that people will change their habits. But we have... so I feel a sense of optimism there. 00:27:00And we just have to be very thoughtful and very... act with, you know, utmost integrity, and be responsive and continue to do our best. We picked up... so for instance, we've picked up a few new wholesale accounts where we sell to a grocery stores. And you have to sell to them at a lower price so that they can sell at the retail price. So you make less money selling to them. And the question becomes, do we continue selling to them at lower profit margins and we're not going to have enough for our faithful customers who have been with us for years? And how do we allocate to this limited supply? So traditional economics says, well you just raise prices. That will slow down the demand. And 00:28:00we don't want to do that right now. But we're seeing this you know these huge orders coming in. So what what we've done is reduce the deep discounts that we would give for volume purchases, but we're maintaining the price level that we had on everything else. And so I feel, I feel pretty good about that. So if someone wants to buy a hundred pounds of ground beef they can do so, but they're going to... they pay the regular price rather than the discounted price that we would give them before. So in the long run I'm feeling just you know so grateful and humbly optimistic about the future of an enterprise like ours, and our farm in particular, if we can get through the short run, And I think that we have 00:29:00more opportunity to do that than most businesses. So we're profoundly grateful that we're in this position

Terra Szuhay: Could you just explain a little bit about your business and your farm for the sake of the interview? I forgot to ask you that earlier.

Drausin Wulsin: Well the purpose of our business is to produce grass-based foods. So that's primarily meat and eggs. We have a 100% grass-fed lamb and beef. We have woodlot pork and pastured poultry, which are both fed non-gmo grain. And then we have eggs, which also come through non-gmo grain, and they're always on pasture, so these great rich yellow yolks. And then we have prepared foods that we make in a 00:30:00certified kitchen. And those are foods like chili and beef barbacoa and pork ragout and short rib burgers... foods that are quick and easy to heat up and eat. So we don't grow vegetables because we can only do so much. And so our goal is to produce very high quality, local meat. And our products are frozen. We have to deliver them. And we do a little bit of shipping, not a lot. But typically we've sold them through the farmer's markets, and we still are, but now it's just the sort of ordering and pickup routine.

Terra Szuhay: Can you say the name of your farm business? And how you came up with the name? and the...

Drausin Wulsin: That's a good question. Our name is Grassroots Farm and Foods. That's our sort of, the name under which we do business. The legal name is Grassroots Graziers. And a grazier is a manager of a grazer, which are ruminants, or Monogastrics. But anything that eats grass. And we're interested in grass because it's a solar-powered perennial. And so it doesn't rely on fossil fuels. We used a little bit of fossil fuels for our mowing. But unlike annuals, such as grains, that you have to plant every year with tractors and herbicides and whatnot, it's a very ecologically based system. The perennials reseed themselves, and it's 00:32:00based on solar power. So we think ecologically it's the right place to to be and 00:33:00then nutritionally it produces fat, Omega fat, which is high in omega-3 fatty acids, that is comparable to fish fat, which is good for our bodies. And our bodies recognize this kind of fat, and they can digest it. Whereas the grain fed fats are high in omega-6 fatty acids and our bodies have more difficulty digesting that. So that's our theme.

Terra Szuhay: Thank you. How?... Can you speak a little bit about how you became interested in farming? And switching to farming from.... I know you were living in Cincinnati before you moved out to the farm.

Drausin Wulsin: Yes. So I did not grow up on a farm. But I grew up on a little farmette, and for 00:34:00whatever reason, despite, or maybe because of all of my extensive and formal education, I always wanted to be a farmer. It's what resonated with me since I was four years old. But I went off to schools that did not support that or encouraged that. But it's, it was the voice that was, has always been loudest in me. So yeah at various stages of my adult life I began doing farming to the extent that I could. And became a full-time farmer about 12 years ago. And moved out to our farm, which is 65 miles east of Cincinnati in a very rural area. And... to live this life and to give of myself to it. And I found some unusual 00:35:00phenomenons, well there are many of them. But one of which was that I was an English major in college, and I discovered that if you are going to be in business in, you know, in this era, you have to be able to deal with all this technology and you have to be able to send messages out all the time to people and you have to find... So I found myself writing stories in order to sell food and I'd never, I didn't expect that at all. But I found that I was enjoying doing it. And in fact my classic liberal arts education suddenly came into play was a great support in enabling me to write these stories. So it was an irony that going deep into the country I came closer to my educational background.

Terra Szuhay: Interesting, an interesting path. I mean I wouldn't think of a farmer, or many different types of businesses connecting to writing and liberal... I mean that's an interesting thing about liberal arts education is, it kind of, it prepares you to go and do whatever type of work one decides to do.

Drausin Wulsin: It does. It does. It is a great for the liberal arts education... you know, I increasingly appreciate it because it allows an individual to be who one is and to make sense of the world. And it also allows an individual to make sense of phenomenon such as we're going through now, and to look at it from historical and philosophical points of view. So it's, it's a wonderful preparation for life if you can stay with it long enough.

Terra Szuhay: Is there anything else that you would like to talk about that we haven't spoken about?

Drausin Wulsin: Well I, you know in general no. I think this is a very painful experience that everybody's going through. But again I feel very grateful, profoundly grateful that my own situation is centered the way it is. And I feel optimistic about what will come out of it, so that all these wonderful people who are suffering will have a better future.

Terra Szuhay: I sure hope that's the case.

Drausin Wulsin: It will be.Yeah. No it will be. Good things are coming.

Terra Szuhay: So yeah, it's, it's a very interesting time to living because there is no way to plan, and there's no way to know what is coming. And it's... I know I'm just living by the day and trying to keep up with what is, what is coming, and what is emerging, and try to respond-- and staying connected. Staying connected is for me the only way that I'm getting through it. It's helping so much.

Drausin Wulsin: Well I think you know this assignment is a very good one. You know, why not study this thing as it's happening?

Terra Szuhay: I mean it's it's so fascinating to document, and I think we're going to all want various forms of documentation in the future.

Drausin Wulsin: Yeah, Yeah. So you know, it's in a sense you're right in the right place at the right time in your life, even though it makes the next step rather daunting. But you're a mature, educated, thoughtful person, with all sorts of wonderful support behind you to think this thing through, and that's the virtue again of a liberal arts education. So I commend you. I think it's great what you're doing.

Terra Szuhay: Thank you. Well thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking the time to give this interview, talk with me, share your stories, share what's going on in... with the farm business. I've been thinking about you all throughout the whole, the whole last, well I guess it's been three weeks since Ohio closed down, since everybody had to leave Oberlin. I remember calling my mom, oh, probably a week after it all happened, and just asking how, if she had heard from you, and asking how your business was doing. So I'm thinking of all.

Drausin Wulsin: Good. Well thank you Terra. You've done a great job. I'm sorry I had to cry, but...

Terra Szuhay: We've all been doing a lot of crying. It's healthy. I fully support crying. Well thank you. I'm going to stop recording. um yeah, well thank you so much.

Drausin Wulsin: My pleasure.