Today we’d like to introduce you to Kimila Miller.
Hi Kimila, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Hot Spell Farm had its origins in a collaboration between our members Lis Stumpf and Mo Ryan going years back. They had been experimenting with starting a farm business using the backyards at their apartments when they were approached in mid-2023 by one of our original members, Hayley Wood, with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Hayley had a connection to the previous tenant of our land who was moving out of Austin. This led us to Jon Beall, our landowner, who graciously leases the land to us at no-cost.
The first year or so of the project was spent overhauling the space to set it up for production. Hot Spell’s first growing season commenced in early 2024. After experimenting with various direct-to-consumer outlets like pop-ups and local pre-order pick-ups, the business settled into a regular slot at SFC’s Sunset Valley Farmers’ Market. Along with our market outlet, we have developed a wholesale program where we work with various restaurants and grocery outlets in town. We also debuted our first ever CSA subscription this past Spring, servicing 60 subscribers. The team is currently preparing for the Fall. We hope to continue developing our CSA program and expanding our wholesale and market outlets where we can.
I joined Hot Spell at the start of this year to consolidate the administrative/financial duties of the business into a single role. One of the unique features of Hot Spell is that we are pursuing a legal “co-operative” structure, which in practical terms has meant we’ve been finalizing by-laws and decision-making procedures over the past few months. Our long-term goal is to provide meaningful employment and career opportunities for young farmers in Texas, particularly amongst QTPOC. That means trying to develop an actual business that has the infrastructure to support its workers, and provide people a path to ownership along the way. We hit a huge milestone this year when we started paying our first member to work at the farm full-time. Otherwise, everyone has been building the business without getting paid. My role currently involves figuring out our budgets, and I’m trying to pay 2-3 more members by the start of 2026. Our current team features four farmers (Lis Stumpf, Mo Ryan, Corrine Ramirez, Andy Lee) and myself, and we also get help from our friend Kim Jenkins.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
As I said before, we consider Hot Spell to be an immense opportunity in our lives and feel incredibly grateful for what it has brought us and allowed us to accomplish. However, with all the tranquility and beauty the farm can bring at times, “smooth” would not be amongst my choice of words for the experience thus far! For reference, I have no prior experience working at farms or doing things like starting or running a business. Beyond that, as I mentioned, we only started paying someone roughly 2-3 months ago. This still means that the other 4 members of Hot Spell (including myself) work at other jobs. There is a lot of very convoluted scheduling and coordination and planning that we have to do to stay on top of all these moving parts. And that’s not even getting into the actual work load everyone’s been sustaining for quite some time. Of course, this is all oriented towards collective ownership of a real-life farm business, which ultimately is a plan we all believe we can accomplish. So we’ve been putting up with the arrangement for now, but you can imagine that I’ve been scheming on how to pull off getting everyone else paid ASAP.
We have a cute sign with animal graphics in our barn that says “We might not have it all together, but together we have it all!” It lowkey keeps me motivated. While I wouldn’t describe Hot Spell as “smooth,” I’ve always really admired the “scrappiness” of the operation. Due to our lease agreement, we’ve been able to obviate a lot of the central costs associated with starting a farm. We didn’t have to buy land, we don’t have monthly rent payments, we have access to certain equipment like a tractor and various barn structures. We raised about $8k in community donations when we started the business, and members each contributed a couple hundred dollars upon joining. However, outside of that, the business has come together through a lot of creativity and while we don’t always have the most effective resources, we have a lot of resourcefulness. We just got electricity installed at the farm a few weeks ago. This is a huge step towards being able to develop on-site cold storage and a more effective greenhouse set-up. Again, I barely have any farm context when I’m watching what goes down, but it’s been incredible to see how much the team has been able to pull off with limited options and the various challenges they’ve had to face. And now that we’re expanding our capacity, it’s reassuring to think about how much we’ll be able to pull off as our labor and infrastructural consistency improves.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I would say that the Hot Spell team is a pretty talented bunch. We all have assorted creative and skill-based passions that we bring to the business in various ways, or try to pursue when the time allows. Our social media manager, Mo, is a super talented visual artist and I love the way she works that into the visual palette of our business, including with our online presence. One of our other members, Corrine, is also super talented with visual design and artwork and is working on developing some farm merchandise and branding currently. I have to shout out our team member Andy for being GOATed with the knitting work too. They stay making some crazy pieces. Even Kim Jenkins is a world-class drummer who has appeared on multiple generational classics. And I couldn’t even tell you where to begin with Lis Stumpf. That dude is for real an “if you know, you know” type situation, definition of a lowkey legend, dare I say renaissance man. As for myself, I have a dubious career as an indie electronica artist under the moniker kimdollars1. I also DJ under my given name (DJ Kimila) and write and interview musicians for my friend’s blog, Finals, from time to time. I’ve always enjoyed writing, so I try to bring that skill set to the business, like how I’m doing right now. Hot Spell is basically like a Roc Nation level endeavor in all of our lives.
What makes you happy?
Oh wow. Chilling, listening to music, going on walks, kicking it with my friends and loved ones, seeing them succeed, enjoying a nice meal. That’s all the tasteful stuff, but honestly with how crazy everything is lately, a girl’s gotta get her kicks where she can. I’ll buy mad beverages over the course of my day. Like. I’m talking two to three liters of seltzer waters, maybe two 28 oz Gatorade Zeros, maybe a CocoJoy Coconut Water, I got put onto those living here. I love the Kosmic Kombucha Sway Home Brew — that’s maybe my like platonic ideal of a refreshment. But honestly, all their flavors go crazy. Those Aqua de Kefirs that started coming out too are mad nice. I was raised Buddhist, which maybe inculcated a certain suspicion around ideas like “happiness.” But for real, I would say getting to spend time with my loved ones, especially Lis Stumpf, that’s my heart right there.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://hotspellfarm.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/hotspellfarm
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/kimilaa
Image Credits
The three professional shots (personal shots of Mo and Lis and then a photo of Lis on the tractor) are courtesy of Jane Cavagnero for Mad Agriculture.
