Rodger Rawlings and Bill Pynchon
Rodger Rawlings and Bill Pynchon are the owners of You Bet Farms and have been close friends with Robyn and Arlo for many years. Rodger attented the California College of Arts and Crafts and played the violin for 15 years. Because he was not able to make any money as a musician, he came to the Ridge some years before Robyn and Arlo and was one of the first people in the area to specialize in organic farming. The three have always exchanged work experience, produce, seeds and often went to farmers markets together. Rodger is also a regular caller on Robyn's radio show 'The Garden Forum' and helps out when there are questions from the audience that she cannot answer. When Jeremy took over the farming duties from Arlo, Rodger taught Jeremy the basics of farming.
His partner Bill grew up in Hawaii and attended college in Yuba City, CA. He designed the farmhouse on the property of You Bet Farms.
Bill sitting at the dining table at You Bet Farms
Rusty met Arlo while working together in "doing" community service, and quickly became good friends. Arlo encouraged him to get involved in community work and he has since been an active contributor and member of different community boards (school board, community center etc.), and he has been a volunteer, among others, at the North San Juan Community Center.
Rusty often helped Arlo to pick fruit and visited the farm together with his son, Casey. Both of them still occasionally help out on the farm. However, since Arlo retired from farming, Rusty started spending more time with Arlo in the driveway to play cards.
Rusty at the NSJ Community Center (from The Union)
Sherry Ellison
Sherry lives in a van and travels across the USA. She used to live in the area and participated in women's gatherings, healing sessions or sweat lodge happenings that were held at Olala Farms. Whenever she is in the area, she pays a visit to Robyn and Arlo.
Sherry in the kitchen with Robyn
Larry is a retired archeologist who lives in Palo Alto, CA. However he is also of Swiss heritage on his mother's side and has recently become a Swiss citizen, and therefore spends a couple of months in Basel every year. He has known Arlo and Robyn since 1978 and regularly visited them on his way up to his family home, called 'Alpenhuesli', at Lake Tahoe. He is also a family friend of Selina's parents. In 2015, during one of his visits to Switzerland, he suggested that it would be interesting to preserve the incredible stories surrounding Olala Farms and the people living there which lead to our trip to the USA in the summer of 2015.
Larry has conducted decade-long archaeological research in Mexico and Guatemala and has taught at the University of Minnesota, Morris and at the San Francisco State University. His books, ‘A Dream of Maya: Alice and Augustus Le Plongeon in 19th century Yucatan’ (1988) and ‘Yucatán through Her Eyes: Alice Dixon Le Plongeon, writer and expeditionary photographer’ (2009) examine the photography and studies of the ancient Maya by Alice and Augustus Le Plongeon, who worked in Yucatán in the 1870s. Lawrence is a Senior Research Fellow in Archaeology at the Moses Mesoamerican Archive and at the Research Project at Harvard University.
He has an Archive and Blog about Archeology and produced short videos for Swiss Info.
Larry in a tipi at Olala Farms in 1985 (from Larry's archive)
Deborah is an artist and a musician who lived in Spain for five years. She has worked on organic farms and orchards in Texas and Arizona for about four years. She also was a restaurant manager for a bed and breakfast in Mendocino, California, for five years. She is the mother of three daughters and has nine grandchildren.
Arthur was born in 1940 and grew up around "spiritualistas" in south Texas. During the 1960s and 1970s he was heavily involved in civil rights movements and social programs as a journalist and political activist. He has earned a degree in journalism from the University of Texas. By the year 1979 he left politics to focus on mind and body wellness and the realms of the spirit.
Deborah and Arthur spent the summer of 2015 camping by the pond at Olala Farms and helped Jeremy and Ana with farming and assisted Robyn and Arlo in and around the house as well. Together they wrote a book called 'Time Seed' and also created a website about it. Time Seed was born from Arthur's personal experiences and observations of the guiding internal archetypes of the human mind.
Arthur in the Driveway with Ridgely and Arlo
Bill and Leta Rathbun live in Berkeley California. Bill is an expert on the Native American guessing game called 'Handgame' or 'stick game', which he used to play with Arlo and Robyn. He wrote a book about this ancient native-American gambling game called 'Whatever Happened to Professor Coyote. A journey to the heart of the handgame'. Leta is originally from Czechoslovakia and came to the United States to design jetplanes.
Both of them have known Arlo and Robyn for a very long time and have become close friends. They often stopped by the farm on their way up north to swim in the hot springs or in the Yuba River. They only visited for a short time and even though we have met Leta, she is not featured in any of the videos on this website.
Bill and Leta Rathbun
Bill at a handgame (from Facebook)
Patti Carballar met Robyn at a Harvest Festival, where Robyn was selling salves and tinctures. Shortly after, Robyn invited her to come see the farm. Later on, Patti heard Robyn's voice on the radio and told her husband Bob that they had met, and that she was going to visit Robyn at Olala Farms. When she got to the farm, she realized that Robyn thought that Patti wanted to work for her, which was not the case. They have been friends ever since and Patti sometimes helps out, by driving Robyn or Arlo somewhere.
Patti and Bob have lived in Sacramento before but decided to relocate to Nevada City a couple of years ago, because city life was too noisy and too busy. Today, they are glad to live in a more quiet area and frequently visit Olala Farms.
Bob and Arlo in the living room