Today we’d like to introduce you to Sydney Fitzpatrick.
Hi Sydney, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I grew up in the South and always loved animals. I went to Ohio Wesleyan University, where I got degrees in Zoology and Environmental Studies. During college, I also started working at the Columbus Zoo, which set me on a path to be a zoo keeper, my dream job. After school, I worked at the Alaska SeaLife Center part time before finding my first full time job at the Kansas City Zoo. It was there that I met John (my future husband), another keeper who started the same day as me.
We spent 3 years in Kansas City before moving to the Houston Zoo. Zoo keeping is a career of passion and hard work. We cared of hundreds of animals across dozens of species; feeding them, cleaning up after them, providing training and enrichment and giving as high a quality of life as we could to those in our care. A large part of our job was speaking to the public as well. Sharing not only animal facts and stories, but providing a message of conservation and connection to the natural world.
We also had a shared love of birding, the act of going outside and finding birds. Identifying birds through sight or sounds is a never ending puzzle for your brain. This passion led us to many places in Texas, and beyond, and grew into an equal interest in native plants and habitat conservation. You can’t have birds without the specific habitats they need to survive in, and plants are the base of that habitat.
After 7 years, we realized we were ready for a change. We wanted to move closer to family, get out of the city, and try something new. I was working towards a Masters in sustainability and we knew that we wanted to continue engaging with people and bringing nature back into their lives. Leaf and Feather Farms first started as a name, combining our love of birds and plants. There were a lot of ideas and brainstorming that went with that name, which finally led us to the idea of an all-inclusive nature-based bed and breakfast. It combined our love of hosting, food, and nature.
John’s family is in Michigan and that seemed like the best place to start. It took us over a year to find the property that would be our dream, and we fell in love with it the first time we stepped foot on this land in 2022. The business has been slow to start. We began leading free birding and nature walks on property and in local parks and preserves. We networked with conservation organizations, neighbors, and our community and began to build a life in a rural town in Michigan we had no previous ties to. We are still in the process of building our first tiny cabin that will be our accommodation for guests. It will be rustic with basic electricity and a nearby outhouse with composting toilet. It will have access to our trails that go through 12 acres of woods, wetland, and prairie. Guests can meander the trails themselves or have us as private nature teachers.
The journey has been much slower than we imagined it would be when we decided to upend our zoo keeping careers 5 years ago. We have learned so much and continue to work towards our goal of environmental education and engagement in our community and the surrounding region. Slowly, Leaf and Feather Farms is turning into our reality, one that we want to share with everyone.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Zoo keeping is a hard career. It is physically demanding as well as mentally and emotionally. Keepers give all their energy and hearts to their animals to ensure a good life and seeing them get sick or die is part of that. I spent more time with my zoo animals then I did with my own pets. It is also a hard career to be in financially as the work does not often pay well. Deciding to leave the zoo field felt like a betrayal of everything I worked towards my entire life but every day was becoming a challenge to get through. But leaving that was like leaping over a cliff where the bottom was totally unknown.
For Leaf and Feather Farms: Finding a suitable property took a long time. We wanted something that was already a bit wild, not just a cornfield. We also needed something with a livable house. Deciding on the accommodations, and then building that has also taken a long time. We decided to go slow and learn about our land first before jumping into construction. This property has no flat land and there is a lot of water! We also needed to find jobs that supported us, but allowed us the time to work on the property, lead walks, and have time for all the many things we wanted to do in our community. We both juggle multiple jobs, always changing schedules, and the chaos that comes with that.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Outside of building Leaf and Feather Farms, I hold 2 main jobs. I petsit for pet owners in my area, taking care of dogs and cats, as well as farm animals of all kinds. I also work online for a pet transportation company that specializes in international pet relocation. My job as quoting supervisor is to figure out the logistics and cost of moving animals around the world with ever changing country and airline requirements. It is a fascinating and complicated industry that most people don’t think about. Each move is unique, and is based on the species, breed, size, departing country, arriving country, health requirements, and more.
I also sit on the board of a wolf sanctuary in Texas, our local Parks and Recreation board in our township, and volunteer and take odd jobs of all sorts. I am very detail oriented, organized, and good at managing a lot of projects and tasks at once.
Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
Leaf and Feather Farms hopes to collaborate with other local organizations, businesses, and home owners to provide nature-based walks and learning workshops in our area. If people have a spot they think would be good for this, we’d love to work together. We also would love to start hosting groups for the day at Leaf and Feather Farms to promote spending time in nature, experiential learning and skill building, and working together.
We also would like to host more volunteer work days, to help build our tiny cabin and outhouse, build and maintain trails, and other habitat restoration projects.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://leafandfeatherfarms.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leafandfeatherfarms/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leafandfeatherfarms
