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The grandchild of philanthropist Warren Hellman, who founded the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival, Avery tells these stories both in music and through a podcast, \u201cWhere the World Begins,\u201d that brings home truths of rural Sonoma life, including interviews, thoughts on sustainable land use, even questions of identity and character.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like rural stories were not always fully represented, and even sometimes misrepresented,\u201d explains Avery. \u201cI wanted to affirm this way of living. I don\u2019t think that the people who make our art and our music come from just two cities on the coast. I just don\u2019t see it that way.\u201d<\/p>\n
To Avery, the land is a living character in their creative work, and so too are the many animals that live upon it. On the property are five horses, a pair of mini donkeys, dozens of sheep (both babydoll Southdowns and a rare breed raised by the Navajo for wool to weave rugs), 14 cattle, flocks of chickens and guinea hens, and \u201cloads of dogs\u201d including Guy, a grizzled and loveable Great Pyrenees mix who helps guard the livestock.<\/p>\n
Avery, who has been riding since they were a kid and has a rescue mustang in training for some barrel racing later this summer, says horses have a lot to teach about humanity: \u201cThey\u2019re such a great mirror for people. If they\u2019re not willing, if they\u2019re not learning why you\u2019re asking them to do something, then you\u2019re asking wrong. You have the responsibility to think it through and try to find an alternative path.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Spring on the ranch, says Avery, is an inspiring time for both people and animals, a time of massive expansion. \u201cThe sheep and cattle have so much to eat, with all of the new grass, and you feel so hopeful about all of the resources the land has to give. It just feels infinite.\u201d Avery forages for miner\u2019s lettuce, which grows widely, while wildflowers\u2014storksbill, poppies, lupines, even wild campanula\u2014blanket the ranch\u2019s steep, hillside pastures. And there are winter greens on offer in the garden, though it\u2019s still a bit of a leaner time, as heat-loving tomatoes and peppers haven\u2019t yet gotten going.<\/p>\n
And, of course, now is also lambing time, the fourth season they\u2019ve welcomed spring babies at the ranch. It can be busy, says Avery, especially if there are orphans needing to be bottle-fed three times a night, as there were last spring. \u201cSeeing the baby animals be born, and their resilience, is pretty remarkable. It\u2019s just so much fun to be around. The funniest thing is they\u2019ll go to the pasture when they\u2019re a week old, and instead of staying with their parents, they\u2019ll group together and run and jump all around as a crew.\u201d<\/p>\n
Avery views the property as playing a role in modeling sustainable land use, calling upon the knowledge of longtime ranching neighbors and local groups like the Sonoma Mountain Institute and the Sonoma Ecology Center. They\u2019re involved in researching new methods of grazing cattle and sheep to help pastures become more resilient, and they\u2019ve invited these environmental organizations to the property to help restore waterways and conduct bird population surveys. Ones they see often\u2014red-tailed hawks, Cooper\u2019s hawks, American kestrels, white-tailed kites\u2014are indicator species whose presence gives clues to the overall health of the landscape.<\/p>\n
For Avery and Andy, each day\u2019s creative projects\u2014songwriting and rehearsing or perhaps working on a video or podcast project\u2014are punctuated by calls to tend to chores with the animals and the garden. The two artists constantly feel the pull of the landscape \u2014 always inspiring but at times unforgiving \u2014 a feeling that takes a deep hold in their work. As the sun sets, there\u2019s time to circle back from work and pause for reflection. \u201cI\u2019ll go on a walk with my partner and the dogs in the afternoon, after most of the day\u2019s work is done, as the sun is setting,\u201d says Avery. \u201cAnd it\u2019s a time when you can just enjoy what spring has to offer, with that mixture of the moisture and the rain, and the work.\u201d<\/p>\n Avery Hellman has been interested in audio storytelling since high school, when they created a senior project inspired by the storytelling on the radio show \u201cThis American Life.\u201d Their new podcast, \u201cWhere the World Begins,\u201d is about the connection people make with the land, with stories set on Sonoma Mountain and interlaced with Hellman\u2019s own music as well as delicate soundscapes they recorded at the ranch.<\/p>\n Avery comes from a musical family. Their grandfather was a bluegrass banjo player, and their father is a drummer whose band often rehearses at the ranch. Avery retreats to the large sheep barn for songwriting sessions and keeps a studio in one of the other outbuildings, where they spent a few months making a stop-motion video for one of the songs on their new album, \u201cSongs of Sonoma Mountain.\u201d<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.sonomamag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/KimCarroll.com-_SOMAG-_AVERY-HELLMAN_536-scaled.jpg\")
Stories and songs of Sonoma Mountain<\/h4>\n