All Roads Lead to Mulberry Lane

MYSTICAL LAND

Forty years ago, the land where Mulberry Lane Farm now lies was bare—but the owner was a self-taught botanist and collector who, after studying the microclimate of the property, built it from his own research and travels, filling it over the last four decades with exotic and rare, mostly tropical, fruit trees from Australia, China and other places around the world.

His health was deteriorating so he had to leave his beloved farm. Sadly, he passed on the day the Meiers moved in, leaving many mysteries as to the origin, care and harvesting of plants on the property.

Karen spends her days learning from the land, tasting fruit that has fallen from the trees, checking them for ripeness, identifying them by researching on the Internet, meeting people at the market and reading dusty books on horticulture left behind in the farmhouse. “There are so many different cultures represented here,” she says.

Besides the groves and orchards of familiar fruits such as bananas, papayas, mangos, figs, persimmons, pomegranates and Asian pears, Mulberry Lane Farm brings an entirely unrepresented collection of fruits to the table—all from just six acres of land.

There are Malabar chestnut trees that grow alongside Chinese wampi berries and pomelos. There are Malaysian guavas, Peruvian apple cacti, dragon eye fruit from tropical Asia, Asian loquats and Pakistani mulberries. The finger limes, lilly pilly berries and bunya trees are Australian.

From the cherimoya fruits on the farm, native to the South American tropics, that grow easily up to three pounds each, to the tiny Sichuan peppercorns of China, there is an abundance of fruit throughout the year in quantity and variety. Mulberry Lane Farm takes Karen on a seemingly endless adventure, which she wholeheartedly embraces. But it’s only the latest in a series of adventures.

FINDING HOME

After delivering her fifth child, Steve, in their car, on a freezing night in Michigan, she felt as though she had just participated in an incredible miracle. But the next morning she was told he had Down syndrome, and that her best options were adoption or an institution—or she could bring him home and hope for the best.

Without hesitation, she did just that, and embraced the miracles she knew would follow. Two years later, an orphanage contacted the couple through an online Down syndrome support network they belonged to, and they adopted their youngest son, Tom, also with Down syndrome.

They raised their six kids in the Midwest until 2016, when Ron’s job at General Motors moved the family from Illinois to California. The Meiers’ four older children were living on their own, and Steve and Tom were both approaching the cutoff age of 22 for their special education through public schools.

The family needed to find a home, a high school for Tom to finish his senior year, and a post-secondary education program for Steve within a 20-mile radius of Ron’s new office in Westlake Village. They had moved before, but Karen says this was the first time she found everything she needed and even what she wasn’t expecting to find.

Just a week after moving to Moorpark, they walked on the campus of Padre Serra Catholic Church in Camarillo and it immediately reminded Karen of the feeling and look of the foothills of the Andes, and the places where she had school picnics as a child in Venezuela.

Then, what she describes as a friendly herd of parishioners rushed over to them, including folks like Bill Routolo, a 49-year-old with Down syndrome (who regularly works at Mulberry Lane Farm now), and his sister, Lisa, who took custodial guardianship of Bill when their parents passed. For the first time, they had found a community of families they could share life with who understood the challenges and blessings of Down syndrome.