Farm Owner Digs In While Neighbors Hold Their Noses

Linda Menary will be the first to admit it, with a chuckle: She’s an outlaw at worst and a San Fernando Valley anachronism at best.

Tanned and heavyset, her long, sun-bleached blond hair tied into a low ponytail, Menary strides across her six-acre spread on Winnetka Avenue with the easy gait of a rancher. The 55-year-old businesswoman runs The Farm in Northridge, which operates as a pumpkin patch in the fall, a Christmas tree lot in winter and a farmers market in spring. She also has a free petting zoo on the lot, where city kids get a peek at farm life.

Hollywood producers have filmed on the site, using the farm animals as extras. Movie backdrops, such as the wooden front porch of a western saloon, are scattered on the property.

There’s one problem, though: Neighbors say the place stinks.

Julie Nagin, who runs a preschool at the Cornerstone Christian Church adjoining the Menary Farm, said the neighborhood smells like a barnyard and flies are a constant annoyance.

“The kids can’t even eat a sandwich without biting into at least two flies,” Nagin said. “And you know where flies have been.”

Her husband, church pastor Ron Nagin, said the flies even disrupt Sunday services. “When we were having communion, the guy was holding the Bible with one hand and used the other one to swat the flies away.”

Owner Overcomes Legal Complaints

The farm operates under a conditional use permit from the city of Los Angeles that must be renewed annually. In 1997, a Municipal Court judge ordered Menary to perform 80 hours of community service for keeping too many animals at the Northridge farm in violation of zoning laws.

Earlier this year, Los Angeles officials determined that Menary was improperly storing wooden pallets and other items on the property. But Deputy City Atty. Don Cocek said the Northridge farm is currently in compliance.

City officials say they also have had run-ins with Menary over violations at another business she operates, a pony ride and petting zoo on Tampa Avenue in Reseda. But city zoning administrator Leonard Levine said that property is currently in compliance as well.

Menary acknowledges that she has had violations but says she always corrects them.

“They’d find problems and I’d fix them,” she said.

The latest example came last month, when the Los Angeles County Consumer Protection Bureau cited Menary for improper storage of food and composting of manure, according to bureau director Art Tilzer. But a county official said this week that the problem has since been corrected.

To Menary, the back-and-forth reflects a fundamental clash of lifestyles: rural versus urban, old versus new.

Years ago, the northwest Valley was horse country, said Menary, who has lived in the Valley since 1961. People expected their neighbors to have animals. Equestrians used to tie their horses to parking meters.

“What it boils down to is this: I’ve hung in there. Most of the people with stables have left. They couldn’t deal with the complaints, so they just closed down and moved--they may have been smarter than me,” she said.

“People figure they can just run you out of town. But I just won’t go. I’ve been a thorn in their side. And I’m not going to go.”

Still, Menary has thought about quitting.

“Sometimes I’m tempted . . . but once it’s gone, it’s gone,” she said. “Right now, we should leave it a farm. It’s something for the children.”

Children would miss out on a chance to experience a taste of the old rural life, she said.

Farm Offers Glimpse of Country Life

One example is Vanessa Gravani, 21, for whom Menary is like a surrogate mother.

Gravani said she has known Menary since she was 9, when she first visited the pony ride concession in Reseda. She and her sisters spent a lot of time there, helping Menary tend the animals and do chores. She still comes to the farm to help out.

“I don’t know what I’d be doing right now, or where I’d be, if I hadn’t met Linda,” said the Van Nuys resident, who sports multiple piercings and a tattoo.

Menary said she grew up on a family farm near Toronto that had neither electricity nor a tractor. When she wasn’t milking cows or helping with crops, she would read books by Laura Ingalls Wilder chronicling the adventures of a western pioneer family.

A western history buff, Menary hitches her horses to a covered wagon every year to relive the experience of Forty-Niners crossing Death Valley on their way to the California gold mines.

Menary has been participating in the 10-day trek for the past quarter-century, along with other pioneer-wannabes from as far as Texas, Colorado and Nevada.

“The purpose is to recreate the original wagon train, to keep the Old West alive,” Menary said, before embarking on this year’s trip with a vintage wagon bought at auction. “We sleep and cook by the wagons, the whole bit.”

During this year’s trek, however, Menary fell ill and was hospitalized. But she was back on the farm in a few days--with no plans to leave.

“The Valley used to be country,” said Menary. “This farm’s the last of it. I’m the holdout.”