Homestead & Farm
Impact
Landstewardship
InWorlds Both Big & Small
“Our food choices impact the world around us...”
Shorter Supply Chains, Fewer Emissions, More Accountability...
Local
Shopping
Typically our food comes from all over the globe and that means that what we eat impacts communities of people we may never meet, and the byproducts that are required are contributing to global changes that impact all of us.
The closer our products are to home: the less our food choices impact the world around us: the fewer fossil fuels burned for our full bellies; the more sureness we can have around the human impact of our favorite foods; and the more nutrients that make it to our bellies.
Your Own!
Growing
Less Stress on the Surrounding Systems...
If an overwhelmed, agricultural system/supply chain is one of our biggest concerns leading to 2050 then our proximity to "homegrown" may need to be on all our minds as the system struggles to feed all the mouths that depend on it...
For us homesteading is a commitment to grow our own and to sell locally; and we are learning and expanding on that everyday. In doing that we are buying fewer and fewer things produced by, or circulated in, the global system of agriculture and although we may never be 100% independent of it, if all of us tried to grow some, and a few of us most of what we needed, there would be fewer and fewer mouths dependent on a system that perhaps has always failed some of us, and may begin to fail most of us in a not so far future.
Homesteading, gardening, learning to eat what’s seasonally available around you, and learning to preserve your seasonal surpluses for later use can be great ways to not only support the global system, but also make sure that our families aren't hit as hard if and when it can no longer support us.
“Welcome to our way of life”
Nutrients Eaten & Not Lost...
Fresh
Picked!
It is becoming more and more known that from the moment produce is picked, whether that be fruits or vegetables, that beyond and before the rot we see and smell at the end of its life, they also begin to lose their nutritional value: taking only 3 days for up to 30% of their nutrients to be already lost.
Most of us have gone our whole lives without knowing: the farmers that grew our food; when our food was harvested; how long it's been in refrigeration; or how long & from how far it has traveled to make it to our grocery stores, and then finally, our own refrigerators where we sometimes leave them for an additional week before they ever make it to our plates and bellies.
At a homestead, you pick what you need when you need it, ensuring you get the maximum nutrient density possible, and when you buy from our homestead you get that same, same-day, farm to table experience that we get living here.
Fingertips!
Food At Your
Food Security ...
Although we didn't have the diversity of vegetables we are growing today, when the pandemic started and we were all confined to our homes, for us, it meant we were confined to not only our living rooms, BUT also to our land and so to a food forest that had already been feeding us for generations. When people were beginning to go hungry in city centers because they weren't able to work, or did not qualify for aid, or there weren’t enough trucks in the supply chain to move food products where they needed to go, and so food was more scarce or more expensive; this land continued to take care of us.
In moments where the systems around us aren't able to care for us, or are stressed beyond capacity homesteading provides a buffer. We had food security at a time when many did not and we were very fortunate to not have to feel the impacts of the pandemic in the ways that many did, and it was in those moments of reflection & gratitude, that we realized…this way of living was something worth sharing.
Access!
What We Can't Afford, WE Grow...
Turning seeds and cuttings into food allows us affordable access to:
Sustenance
...as a basic human need, the ability to resolve one’s own hunger by way of land stewardship
Biodiversity
…that the grocery store doesn't have the ability to carry, or the commercial farmers to grow, allowing us exposure to more diverse: varieties, colors, flavors, nutrients, phytochemicals, and anticancer causing antioxidants.
Rare Fruit & Longer Seasons
…when you are growing your own you can take risks on varieties that “don't normally grow here” or “can’t be grown at this time of the year” commercial growers often need to calculate risk, loss, and productivity into all that they grow and because of that may stop growing certain items sooner, start certain items later, or avoid certain varieties all together. Whereas, as a family YOU can grow a few of any varieties you want; experimenting, and adjusting your expectations accordingly. Maybe growing a few instead of a hundred is all you need so you can risk growing a super delicious, but less productive variety or risk growing certain things as close to the first frost as possible, or risk a few extra early seedlings in the spring.
...buying Organic can be pricey, hard to come by, and not always available locally; growing organically changes that.
Organic
Destigmatizing land stewardship for people of color
& Falling Back
Love
In
With
Land
The
Reconnecting
With
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No one walks enthusiastically through a door shrouded in shame and trauma
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Building trust with the idea starts with an example
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We believe that land stewardship is a way to create health, wellness and access for ourselves and our families, BUT because our histories are so filled with trauma in connection with land stewardship many people of color have fled from it to escape those traumas, and as a result have distanced themselves generationally from the practice as a whole.
For healing to begin...
It isn't enough to see people that look like us do it, we need to see/experience people that look like us thriving, empowered, and liberated while doing it...
Love
Vitamin
Love As an Added Benefit...
We can’t explain the science but it just tastes different, and we hope the people that eat at our tables, and serve what we grow at theirs, get to experience produce that was grown with the Love of a family: continuing tradition together, learning together, dreaming together, growing together; AND we hope that IF we inspire you to grow your own that you will experience the same from your own hands with the people you call Family.
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We know that we can’t just tell you: that all of the above makes it worth the toil; that it feels like home; or that you should JUST FEEL proud returning to the land. Healing trauma and fostering reconnection takes time, you have to see it and feel it for yourself.
An Invitation of hope & Reconnection ...
So we invite you to come learn from us, feel what it’s like to feed your friends and family with us; taste the difference; see people that look like you empowered; and feel the sense of pride in knowing that although it took work, and probably perseverance, you fostered life & food where there wasn’t; and it feels like home because our people once lived freely in closeness and communion with land that sustained us; and that reconnection feels familiar for positive reasons also...
"We hope to be a place that fosters that reconnection"
Immersive land-stewardship opportunities foster...
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Hands-on experiences in land-stewardship help re-build the bridge to connection, access, & equity in food security
