Wild Woods Retreat & Farm keeps about 30 free-range chickens and, this year, a batch of roughly 10 ducklings, all with the run of the pasture. They're not a guest attraction we built on purpose. They're just part of what makes this a working farm instead of a property styled to look like one.

Most days they're scattered across the pasture, weaving around the walipini where we grow garlic and zinnias, around the developing orchard, around the 1947 Chevy truck Zac's fitting with shelves for a future egg-and-produce stand. Every so often one of them gets caught still long enough for a photo, like the one we just took: Jolene (RIP Dolly), a young hen, held up against a shoulder, not fully grown into her feathers yet.

We didn't add chickens because a business plan called for "authentic farm elements." We added them because we wanted chickens. That's the difference between a working farm and a themed one, and it shows up in small ways: the flock has its own schedule, its own noise, its own mess, none of it arranged around a guest's photo. It's just there, the way it would be if nobody was staying here at all.

If you're picturing your stay at Orion or Otter Beach Treehouse, picture this too: a pasture with real animals in it, going about their day, thirty acres away from anything that feels staged. Book your stay at wildwoodsretreat.com.