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Of Hogs and Hugels: Creating a Perennial Food Forest
As regenerative farmers, our top priority is to sequester carbon into the soil. There are many methods to do this—and the most effective method for a piece of land depends upon the makeup of the land being regenerated. Since our farm is mostly pasture, we use sheep and poultry to holistically manage the land’s water, […]
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2017’s Vermont Regenerative Soils Program
I’m excited to tell you that, earlier this month, Senator Campion introduced a revised and updated version of our regenerative soils bill to the Vermont legislature. The bill is S.43: An act relating to establishing a regenerative soils program. (Full text here.) It is currently with the Senate Commitee on Natural Resources and Energy, and […]
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Personal Thoughts on the Upcoming Vermont Regenerative Soils Program Legislation
Today, Senator Brian Campion will introduce to the Vermont Legislature our second attempt at a bill that, if passed, would incentive the responsible stewardship of our state’s ecosystems through the regeneration of our state’s soils. I’m immensely proud of this bill and will publish a post tomorrow with the nitty-gritty details and text. For now, […]
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The Regeneration at Studio Hill: A Slideshow
I had the pleasure of presenting the story of our farm—from it’s roots as a dairy in the ’30s right up to it’s current iteration as a regenerative farm—at this year’s Vermont Energy & Climate Action Network (VECAN) Conference at the beautiful Lake Morey Resort in Fairlee, Vermont. I was joined in our workshop by […]
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Jesse Discusses Regenerative Agriculture in this Upstream Podcast
This spring, Mark Phillips, on a tour of regenerative projects in the northeast, was kind enough to stay in our area for a night and spend the day walking around our farm. In the afternoon after our tour, I had the honor of sitting down with Mark in the studio on top of Studio Hill and talking about […]
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Our Public Comment on Vermont’s Required Agricultural Practices
We submitted the following letter to the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food, and Markets on the last day that they were accepting public comment on the Required Agricultural Practices—or RAPs. Now that the rule has been formally submitted by the Agency, we thought we’d publish our final comments. See the bottom of this post for an […]
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Room to Romp, Room to Roam with Studio Hill’s Pasture-Raised Pigs
Last week was a big one for our pigs—they graduated! Assured that they had reached a good size to fend for themselves and were sufficiently trained on the electric fence, we let them out of the training paddock of their piglet youth and into the 5 acre parcel of pasture and woods prepared for them […]
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Economy, Ecology, & the Launch of a Regenerative Food CSA
Farming is slow. It’s not often “relax-in-the-sunshine-with-a-frosty-beverage” slow. It’s more like “your-mortgage” slow. Or, “walk-in-ski-boots” slow. Or “build-the-pyramids” slow. Farming requires tremendous repetitive effort. And, the progress produced by that effort is incremental and, often, imperceptible. But every once in a while, after years (and generations) of planning and work and preparation and building and […]
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Our Response to Vermont’s Proposed Required Agricultural Practices
I applaud Vermont’s Agency of Agriculture, Food, and Markets—herein referred to as “The Agency”—for trying to move the state’s water quality in the right direction. When our wonderful Senator Campion stood in my barnyard one morning a year or so ago and asked me my thoughts on a hypothetical program, I was all for it. […]
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Hope in the Face of Climate Change…and a Quick Look Into The Science of Grass
Most people—as I did for over 30 years—overlook the importance of grass. It has been relegated by modern society to suburban lawns, soccer fields, golf courses, and strip mall embankments. Though our modern ways too often prevent grass from doing so, this unassuming little plant plays a vital role in the management of the earth’s […]
