This morning we received a very sad email from Sam Mogannam at Bi-Rite Market, alerting us to the news that last night a massive fire swept through Alexis and Eric Koefoed's Soul Food Farm in Vacaville (we profiled Alexis in the magazine last year). San Franciscans know Soul Food as the most excellent purveyor of chickens and eggs—just last week they announced that they were planning to start a poultry CSA. So it's with heavy hearts that we read an email from Alexis herself, detailing the extent of the damage to their Vacaville property: over 30 acres burned, 1000 baby chicks lost, their 1880's barn and old oak and plum trees all burned by a fire that reached "to the trees and caused a roar that forced us to shout to one another."

The silver lining is that their house was not lost, the laying hens are safe and that somewhere amidst the chaos three strangers appeared, "like angels" to help Alexis and Eric limit the damage to their property and flock. We'll post again when we have more information about how we all can help Soul Food Farm get back on its feet—in the meantime, our thoughts and best wishes go out to the Koefoed's.