Website: https://www.newstoryfarm.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NewStoryFarm/
About the farm:
Our farm is located where the tall grass prairie met the big woods back in the day, in Hutchinson, Minnesota.
The land here would have been an oak savanna for thousands of years, known by biologists to be the most productive ecosystem, in terms of biomass production, on earth. It would have been grazed seasonally by herds of buffalo numbering in the thousands in their far northern arc of their migration pattern. We intend to mimic this system, as best we can, by planting a diverse perennial forage interspersed with masting trees and shrubs such as oak, hybrid chestnut, hazelnut and black walnut; fruiting trees such as apples, apricots, pears and mulberry and a host of berries and other woody perennials. We “mob” graze the land with cattle, pigs, chickens and turkeys to approximate the energy cycling that went on for millennia here.
We acknowledge those who came before us, the Mdewakanton, Dakota Sioux tribe. We honor the Mdewakanton people by stewarding this land and all of the beings on it with the deepest respect and greatest care.
The owners and their ethos:
Simplicity, honesty, compassionate communication, just being are how we strive to live our lives.
We are two 40 somethings who have traveled the world, lived in intentional communities and on a variety of farms. Wise elders with life and practical skills, as well as spiritual and ancestral knowledge have shaped who we are today. Our mutual vision may sound idealistic but wanting to live a regenerative life while fostering an agrarian community rooted in the old ways shouldn’t be regarded as radical, rather common sense for what modern society faces.
Stephanie is quite adept at wildcrafting and makes us teas, medicines and delicious meals from what naturally abounds here. Her passion is Holistic Animal Husbandry and she most often can be found out on pasture with animals. She enjoys helping people find natural solutions for their livestock and educating folks about the wild abundance of food and medicine all around us. She endeavors to carry on studying and practicing mindfulness in myriad of ways such as: meditation, NVC, Co-Counseling, the Law of One, youth nature connection education, breath work and yoga. Stephanie is also a certified Death Midwife; more info can be found here: www.thresholdguide.com
Daniel grew up on his family farm, where we now call home, producing hay and “grass fed” beef before that meant anything. He moved to Australia in 2001 and came face-to-face with the seedy underbelly of the industrial food system in a two year stint as the compliance officer for chemical spraying in Tasmania. He has been involved in small scale food production for many years since, both in the US and Australia, with a particular interest in Agroforestry. He is a generalist who has worked in such varying jobs that most people think he’s joking when he talks of his career history, but this breadth of experience has allowed him to become a systems thinker who can see connections where others only see disparate issues. Daniel’s many skills include welding, fabricating, building & fixing everything from plows to tractors and trucks. He is keen on creative problem-solving for our needs on the farm and makes sure we create near zero waste.
We share the farm with Daniel’s parents who have much knowledge to share as they have lived and worked this land for 50 years.
We will be building a greenhouse, a smokehouse, a food dehydrator and a root cellar. It may sound like we are preparing for end times but we are not doing these things from a place of fear but instead, choosing to live this way because we believe it is honest and fulfilling to know where all of our food comes from.
To wrest our sovereignty away from “the system” and relinquish it to the community of people and plants and animals we share this geographical space with.
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