Welcome to new farmers at Stone Coop Farm!

We are happy to report that we have two new employees at Stone Coop Farm this season! Here is a little more about them:

Troy DeBruhl

Where to begin?

Well, it all started back in 1993.

I was born in San Francisco, son to a married couple that had a passion for adventure, and what an adventure raising me would be. I guess from an early age my parents Joannée and Perry have instilled a very strong love of the outdoors, and through that I've always remembered eating organic food in our house. As I've gotten older and become more aware of the world around me it's apparent that things need to change. I think a great start to solving the problems this country faces is through local farming. Not only is the food better for you nutritionally, it also keeps the money in your local economy instead of it being shipped all over the country like normal produce. If we support our local businesses and farms, everyone in the area benefits.  So when I was given the chance to help be a part of that change and work on my Mom's local organic farm, I couldn't say no.  I'm an 18 year old kid who wants to make a difference in the world with my life, and the best place to start is on an organic farm.

Ryan Peterson

Growing up, sustainability has been something that was always on my mind. I saw the way that we treated the earth and its resources and I knew something was wrong. From using resources in a non sustainable way I knew that it would be only a matter of time until problems would occur. I began thinking about sustainability with renewable energy technologies. I was researching night and day everything about wind, solar, geothermal and so on. With this I subscribed to many different websites and one day I received an email about a sustainability project in Highland Park, Michigan. I didn’t know what to think of it but knew that I needed to get out there in the real world and use my knowledge instead of just researching all the time. The project talked about Permaculture, something that I knew nothing of at the time. I decided to take the plunge and see what would turn out from this. I learned that Permaculture is a sort of “permanent culture” that works with nature instead of against it. When we started using this concept in our project things started making sense very quickly. I learned that large majority of our natural resources are used in industrial agriculture business and by staying small scale and local you could cut away these inefficiencies. This took my attention to less of a renewable energy focus (although still a very important piece) to a more local food based focus.

With this a friend of mine that I met from the project in Highland Park started up a club at my school called the Washtenaw Community College Permaculture Club. In the club we talked about the problems that we have got ourselves into with modern agriculture and the steps that can be taken to make them better. We talked a bunch about what can be done to make the earth more sustainable and it made me ever more eager to get out in the field and get my hands dirty. This led me to the desire to working on a local farm to learn everything from the ground up. With problems I see opportunities, and I am excited to be working with the farmers at Stone Coop farms to make this planet a much healthier sustainable place. 

Hoop House Build: April 21st

We are having two hoop houses and our greenhouse delivered tomorrow, and we will start putting together sections of the hoop houses the first week in April.  The big build date is scheduled for April 21st. Us and a group of enthusiastic volunteers will be installing the hoops, securing all the purloins, baseboards, hip boards, etc. and pulling/securing the plastic that day. The houses are 30'x144', larger than the hoop house we built last year. We will need many, many volunteers, so please get this on your calendar now and let us know if you can help. You can come for an hour or all day, but the more the merrier! Please pass this on to any of your friends that may want to partake in this fun filled event. We will be proving snacks, drinks, lunch and dinner. 

If you don't want to build we also will need help with the food.  Please send Joannee an email if you are interested in helping with the the build and/or with food. 


-Joannee

House Design is underway!

Pardon me, I'm barging in on Shannon's space for just a few lines.

For those of you who may not have known, Stone Coop is building a residence on the new property.  In keeping with the farm's goal of minimizing their impact on the planet, they will be seeking LEED certification for the home.

And you may ask yourself, what is LEED?  And you may ask yourself, why would they do that?  The answers to these questions and many more can be found here: Stone Coop Farm and LEED.  I'll be talking about our progress, and setbacks as we move through the design and construction process.  We are also investigating the possibility of relocating a couple of old barns (I've looked at a couple of 1860's 70's barns, way cool), and constructing a straw building on the property as well.

I hope you will stop by and check it out.  I'm still figuring out this whole blogging thing, so the site is definitely a work in progress.  Sometimes I prefer my old clay tablet.  Anyway drop in and be sure to leave comments.

-Perry