Our work is to re-imagine a collaborative working landscape that takes care of the soil, microorganisms, plants, animals, farmers, neighbors, and community that depend on this land. Through this work, we engage all members of our community in real and meaningful ways. We provide healthy, ecological food and products as well as joyful experiences that reaffirm our connection to each other and to our environment.
Core Principles
We work collaboratively with all the humans who are part of the farm team honoring each and every role and our past, current and future generations.
We honor the history of the land and surrounding landscape including the past, current and future owners and neighbors of our land.
We constantly ask questions of the land and ourselves as to what are good ways to work with the land and animals and people who are living here.
We make decisions about land and animal management that hold the highest level of respect and reverence for the soil, plants, and animals.
We are repairing and building a multi-generational community so that people at all stages of life have a place and a role on this land.
Collaboration
To continue to succeed in our simple yet ambitious work, we are evolving to organize the connected businesses and projects that operate from the farm-hub. Central to our farm community is the stakeholder team - our business owners, enterprise managers, key partners, and family members. Our team meets regularly in an iterative process where we practice active listening and transparency to vision and make decisions about our shared direction. In this, we aspire towards cooperative ownership and decision making, while also protecting the autonomy of our individual people and businesses so that they can freely collaborate, lead and shine. We also see our team work as part of supporting each other’s whole livelihood, which includes our personal emotional, spiritual, physical, and financial goals, relationships, and well being.
In addition to our farm families living on and off our land, there are currently three core businesses that operate from the farm: Bread & Butter Farm, Music for Sprouts, and Blank Page Café. There are several enterprises within each of these businesses (e.g. education, Burger Night, vegetables, etc) that, together, support the experiential, educational, and habitat regeneration goals that we share. We also partner with several off-farm organizations, including Nancy Winship Milliken (artist in residence), Wild Faith Herb Farm (herbalism classes), The Schoolhouse Learning Center (Farm Food Forest program), UVM's Farmer Training Program (beginning farmer education), 100 Years of Sun (tree nursery), Vermont Farm Tours (cheesemaking classes), Vermont PBS and the Mister Chris & Friends television show, and othersseasonally.
This entire constellation of businesses, enterprises, and families shares land, space, resources, and customers, and works to build a solid foundation of community and financial health that allows for change and growth as we collectively and individually evolve into our goals and visions and plan for generational succession.
