No. 002 | April 2023

ISSUE 02

APRIL 2023

DRAX DIGEST A MONTHLY NEWSLETTER FOR THE DRAX COMMUNITY

Honeybees come to Burr Hall Farm! Their arrival stimulates ideas for a future honeybee sanctuary as we do our part in protecting their existence and well-being.

Michael Ennis | Publisher

DRAX PUBLISHING

Eleonora Fogg | Editor

DRAX

Intro

Table of Contents Don't hesitate to get in touch with us with ideas for future issues!

Eleonora Fogg | eleonora@svvl.net

Monthly Business Profile:

02

Burr Hall Farm Interview with Bram Yoffie Wellness+ Studio Feature

02 04

DRAX News Employee Profile BreadStory William J. von Liebig Foundation Movies and TV Shows Recipe of the Month Sustainability Feature

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06 07

DRAX

Monthly Business Highlight

Burr Hall Farm Developing with permaculture principles, Burr Hall Farm (BHF) aims to become a thriving and vibrant organic ecosystem. Permaculture is a holistic approach to agricultural development that integrates human activity with natural surroundings creating sustainable, efficient, and interconnected ecosystems.

Using regenerative practices to build soil health, conserve water, and promote biodiversity are all permaculture values.

BHF will create a thriving environment benefiting agriculture, people, and the planet by housing lavender fields, a honeybee sanctuary, a butterfly garden, chicken and goat pastures, produce, and orchards. We got bee hives (now waiting for over a million honeybees) to begin the journey to sustainable agriculture!

Interview with Burr Hall Farm's

Bram Yoffie

Man of many talents, Bram Yoffie, an organic farmer, baker, fermenter, chef, and stone miller, now our Farm Manager, leaves Portland, Oregon, on April 4th to join us on-site at Burr Hall Farm on April 15th.

Q: What inspired you to become a farmer, and what makes you passionate about it?

A: Well, before I had a career in farming and baking, I was an architect and real estate developer. But when I was a kid, I always had a green thumb. I was always taking care of my family's lawn and garden, and I loved listening to stories of what growing up on a farm was like. Though I loved it, I never considered farming as a career, given that I grew up in an urban environment.

It wasn’t until eight years into my career that I realized I wasn’t passionate about architecture. This realization led me on a life-changing adventure to Europe, where I fell in love with artisanal bread and couldn’t understand how something as simple as bread was blowing my mind and changing my life.

DRAX A few years after that trip, I met Yann, now the chef of BreadStory, in New York City, where he took me in and taught me everything he knew about making bread. I then moved to France, where I lived with a family on a small farm for under two years.

That is where I learned the beauty of looking to Mother Nature as a source of inspiration for how we as farmers could improve instead of seeing nature as a coworker we must harmonize with. Through my journey with bread and my time in France, I found the greatest inspiration to return to farming.

Q: What are you most excited about now with working with us at Burr Hall Farm?

A: Burr Hall Farm is incredibly exciting for me because we have an essentially blank slate with the ability to take land that's been reclaimed by nature and breathe life back into it as part of our holistic permaculture system to become agriculturally productive land benefiting the community and us.

I am also really excited to work with lavender. I distilled lavender essential oil in France, where they used it all the time, whether for zits or bee stings. I never thought I’d be working with lavender, and now I have a respect and understanding of how special this product is from its history to its medicinal value. It's not just about the lavender, other aspects like bringing sheep into the farm to clear between the lavender rows is also exciting.

Using the lavender in different products, establishing selfsustaining ecosystems via permaculture, and seeing how everything kind of coexist together, is what I think is gonna make Burr Hall Farm a really special place.

This is how I want to live my life: passionately working as a farmer with nature, with the land because of what it does for soil health and how it feeds people.

WELLNESS+ People are starting to flock to the studio on 980 Madison, including our very own staff!

Here are some, hopefully, inspiring photos of our team working up a sweat at Wellness+.

Wellness+ Studio 980 Madison Avenue Suite 203 New York, New York 10075

BreadStory Easter is one of the many vibrant holidays whose main character is pastry. Keep a sharp eye out for BreadStory's many Easter treats like rhubarb tarts, hot cross buns, and hazelpuffs (yes, hazelnut creampuffs!).

William J. von Liebig Foundation While WJVLF is laying low, take a look at our 2022 prize winner's website at gofar.dog and show her some support!

DRAX Productions Looking for something to watch while snuggled up with a cup of tea, coffee, or (more likely) wine? Daniel Biaggi shares a list of movies and shows that belong on your must-watch list!

GLASS ONION | Daniel Craig For a fun mystery 'whodunit' night.

THE MENU| Anya Taylor Joy For those loving dark satire/horror. (beware: has some gore scenes) TED LASSO| Jason Sudeikis For a lighthearted sporty TV series.

ROBERTA FLACK | PBS For a documentary night.

LUCIFER | Tom Ellis, Lauren German For fantasy/dark comedy.

DRAX News

Employee Profile Meet Julia Healey, one of Burr Hall Farm's livestock managers and DRAX Fine Art art registrar!

Julia grew up around animals all her life thanks to her dad's mini farm, which was home to goats, chickens, and her pet bunnies, turtles, and fish. She has always had a special place in her heart for animals and is so happy to care for those at Burr Hall Farm, including the geese, Peaches and Blueberry, who she raised from infancy.

Mrs.'s Egg En Cocotte with Sherry Serves: 1 Preparation: 10 minutes Cook Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients: 2 eggs 4 slices of Swiss or gruyere cheese 2 TB heavy cream (divided) 2 tsp sherry (divided) salt and pepper

Directions: 1. Preheat the oven to 375°.

2. Line the inside of a small ovenproof dish with cheese.

3. Add 1 TB heavy cream, 1 tsp sherry, salt, and pepper.

4. Add the 2 eggs.

April's Recipe

by Chef Christopher Varroux

5. Top the eggs with the remaining TB heavy cream, remaining tsp sherry, salt, and pepper.

6. Bake for 30 minutes in a water bath.

Sustainability Feature

Good News We are constantly bombarded with doomsday news about our planet, whether melting ice caps or the fact that unwashed recyclables are unable to be recycled and contaminate other recyclables! While awareness of facts like these is important, so is the need for receiving good news about what we're doing to help the planet and the milestones we've achieved.

Australia Blocks Coal Mine to Protect the Great Barrier Reef Home to thousands of marine species and animals, the Great Barrier Reef is one of the world's greatest wonders and most complex ecosystems. To protect the largest coral reef, the Australian government denied a proposal for a coal mine that would have been placed just over 6 miles from the Great Barrier Reef!

Ecosia Plants 171 million Trees

Scotland Helps Malawi

Ecosia, the sustainable search engine that plants trees as you search, just hit 171 million planted trees! A fully transparent certified B-corporation, Ecosia uses the profits from ads run on searches to plant trees around the world to foster a happy environment, healthy people, and a strong economy. Want to make a positive impact by doing something so easy you do it daily? Use Ecosia as your web browser and plant some trees!

Scotland's Climate Justice fund provides relief and support to people and communities that fall victim to natural disasters and nature loss caused by climate change. Scotland's funding of support initiatives is successfully building flood defenses in Malawi. This impact led Malawi's President, Lazarus Chakwera, to say that all countries should take Scotland's lead, as Scotland's Climate Justice fund is a strong example for other countries to follow.

Baby Seals Spotted In Record Numbers Off The Coast of Norfolk!

Scientists Power a Computer Using Algae for an Entire Year!

A new source of energy?!

Michael Ennis | Publisher

DRAX PUBLISHING

Eleonora Fogg | Editor