Opinion/Stead: 'I want my coffee with chickens'

We were there to see the chickens.

It was a beautiful Sunday and Snowy Owl Coffee Roasters in Brewster is one of the most relaxing places on Cape Cod. The coffee is great — my personal favorite is Captain Crosby, and if you like that kind of thing you can learn everything about every single bean in every variety including where it went to grade school. There is a Snowy Owl in Sandwich too, on Route 6A, but it doesn’t have the same vibe as the original.

The Brewster location looks a bit ramshackle but welcoming. In addition to the main building, there is an art area and a place to rent electric bikes for the Cape Cod Rail Trail, which runs just behind. The food isn’t elaborate. There are nice little pastries and a pleasant wooden interior with benches. There are also associated businesses like a really well-sourced gem and crystal store, and an herb vendor.

Sharing treats with the chickens

The real treat is to take your snack and walk around back into the gardens where there are gazebos, random tables and chairs, inviting rocks and stumps, and other areas to sit and sip and eat while enjoying the sun. But the best thing was the chickens. They roamed pretty freely around the property and gave a loud chicken harrumph if you were not promptly generous with your snack — the single beady eye turned towards you as they stand there and demand is very compelling.

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The chickens had been gone for a while. Rumor was that a coyote got the rooster, and the ladies were angry and perplexed, so they were caged for their own safety. We stopped by to see if all was back to normal.

But that day it was not to be.

Strung all across the gardens were ropes with signs saying — The gardens are closed; We are sorry. If you want to know why ask the Brewster Select Board (there is a complaint pending about the signs not being approved by the Old King’s Highway).  A meeting about this and other local issues was being held on the front lawn, but we stayed away as we weren’t Brewster residents, only chicken fanciers.

There is a licensing and permitting dispute, a septic issue, people living there unlicensed, etc. A cottage on the property was listed on the We Need A Vacation website. But there have always been random people living and working on the gardens and farm in buildings and trailers.

Years ago, I remember listening to a radio interview with the owner of the property at the time, outlining his vision for a small sustainable community of like-minded individuals, working on the land, creating herbal remedies, and sharing a common sensibility of the earth, the town, the land, and the people on it. And coffee.

A commune with marketing

The establishment has been ambling along for over 30 years without any ruckus. While the ‘compound’ began in 1967, it became the “Great Cape Cod Herb, Spice and Tea Company” on the summer solstice in 1991. They supply naturopathic doctors and herb users with herbs and plants grown in the gardens. It is what might have been called a commune back in the day, but with a more sustainable edge by using marketing and seeking out like-minded individuals.

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I know nothing of the septic and electric wiring issues. I do not support dangerous and life-threatening lack of adherence to town safety codes. I do not think the Brewster Select Board members are monsters unable to allow people to live peaceably and sustainably. But the danger to the public seems a little overdone. What does need to be avoided is the push to homogenization, the drive to make everything and everybody just like everything and everybody else.

Different and dangerous are not the same thing.

I realize that some may be frightened by a burly chicken sniffing and cawing, “You gonna eat all of that?”  But if that is not their cup of coffee, there are many Pink and Orange establishments catering to a less adventurous caffeine supply.

I want my coffee with chickens.

Cynthia Stead is a columnist for the Cape Cod Times and can be contacted at cestead@gmail.com. 

This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Opinion/Stead: Brewster Select Board rules out chickens, bohemian ways