The journey to being an organic, Community Supported Agriculture operation began innocently enough.

“We bought a few meat goats through the Home Magazine,” said Joe Domeier, who with his wife, Liza, operate Pehling Bay Farm. “It just kind of went from there.”

Today, they have some 50 sheep, goats, cattle and chickens roaming the pastures on their farm on the south shores of Swan Lake, just west of Nicollet. Settled by Joe’s great-great grandfather, it has been in the family for more than 160 years.

On a recent afternoon Coughlan Cos. employees Beth-Ann O’Halloran, Marcie Spence and Lisa Hanson spent time working in the vegetable garden and took some time to watch a goat being born.

They are part of a group of employees from Coughlan who purchased shares in the farm for the year, allowing each to get a portion of the products grown on the farm. Those who agree to perform a certain number of hours of labor on the farm pay less for the shares than those who don’t.

Spence chose the working share for a reason other than cost. “I have kids who want to garden but I can’t grow anything to save my life. This way they can come here and help,” Spence said.

While they’ve always had a good size garden, this is the first year the Domeiers are selling shares in the garden. They have more than 20 families signed on. They’d previously direct marketed their livestock via the Internet. The grass-fed cows, goats and sheep feed on the 30 acres of grassland pasture that makes up most of the farm.

With both working full-time, the Domeiers said the CSA approach works better than trying to find time to market vegetables at a farmers market or other ways.

Liza worked for Drummers Garden Center in Mankato for several years and is the clay center coordinator for The Art Center of St. Peter. Joe is a watershed manager, administering an EPA grant to improve water quality and sustainable agricultural alternatives in the Blue Earth River Watershed.

“We can drop (vegetables) off and being paid in advance helps with the cash flow,” Joe said. They drop off food in Mankato on Tuesdays and people can come to the farm on Saturdays to pick up products.

This story is featured in the June Minnesota Valley Business magazine.