Portraits of Love on the Land

PORTR A ITS OF LOVE ON THE LAND

Wisconsin Women in Conservation W i s c o n s i n Wo m e n i n C o n s e r v a t i o n

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P O RT R A IT S OF LOVE ON T HE LAN D Wisconsin Women in Conservation

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© 2023 Portraits of Love on the Land is a project of Wisconsin Women in Conservation Written by Kriss Marion, designed by Brett Olson and edited by Jody Padgham

Many thanks to the partners in this collaboration: Michael Fields Agricultural Institute, Marbleseed, Renewing the Countryside and Wisconsin Farmers Union. The Wisconsin Women in Conservation project team is grateful for generous funding and support from the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service.

Many of the women featured in this book have been interviewed on the Queen Bee Session podcast.

A QR code on their page will send you to the podcast.

For more information on this project, visit WiWiC.org or connect on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest or TikTok.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Just like our landscapes thrive in diversity, the Wisconsin Women in Conservation project has bloomed thanks to many helping hands and visionary leaders who brought this all to life. We wish to express deep appreciation to Wisconsin Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) -- without their support none of this would be possible.

Additional special thanks to: Wisconsin Women in Conservation Team

Esther S Durairaj, Program Director, Michael Fields Agricultural Institute Lisa Kivirist, Outreach Coordinator, Renewing the Countryside Jean Eells, Research, E Resources Group Rebecca Christoffel, Research, E Resources Group Kriss Marion, Communications Lead, Wisconsin Farmers Union Sara George, Coordinator, Renewing the Countryside Elena Byrne, Coordinator, Renewing the Countryside Stephanie Coffman, Coordinator, Marbleseed Noemy Serrano, Coordinator, Michael Fields Agricultural Institute Kirsten Slaughter, Coordinator, Wisconsin Farmers Union Heather Gayton, Coordinator, Wisconsin Farmers Union Kara Komoto, Database Specialist, Renewing the Countryside Conservation Coaches

Advisors

Additional special thanks to:

Harriet Behar Stacey Botsford Rachel Bouressa Bree Breckel Valerie Dantoin Ayla Dodge Sally Farrar Janet Gamble LaDonna Green Mariann Holm Kirsten Jurcek Angela Kingsawan Lauren Langworthy Lindsey Maas Jennifer Nelson Patti Schevers Stephanie Schneider Rose Skora

Eric Allness, NRCS Angela Biggs, NRCS Una D VanDuvall, Michael Fields Agricultural Institute Dr. Annie Jones, University of Wisconsin Extension Margaret Krome, Michael Fields Agricultural Institute

Melissa Bartz Katie Boland Sarah Broadfoot Ingrid Daudert Tonya Gratz Lynn Grooms Alejandra Hernandez Rhia Holden Efueko Landry Kristin Loock Krisann McElvain Bonnie McKiernan Joy Miller Katie Nicholas Britta Petersen Julie Peterson Alicia Razvi Brandi Richter Lauren Soergel Bonnie Warndahl Coral Weinstock Venice Williams Gretta Winkelbauer

Partner Organizations

Perry Brown, Michael Fields Agricultural Institute Jan Joannides, Renewing the Countryside Julie Bowmar, Wisconsin Farmers Union Lori Stern, Marbleseed

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A GUIDE TO THE ACRONYMS USED IN THIS BOOK Taking care of soil, water and wildlife are important environmental services that landowners, farmers, and conservation professionals provide to all Americans, and to the planet.

The United States Department of Agriculture provides a variety of support services and funding opportunities to those doing this important work. The State of Wisconsin also has a number of programs and funding sources to encourage conservation on private land. Many of the women featured in this book have worked with federal and state agencies to achieve their conservation goals, and those collaborative projects have been noted so that readers may get a sense of what assistance is available to them. However, the names of the agencies and programs have been shortened to conserve space. Please refer to the list below when you encounter acronyms throughout this book.

For more information on how to get assistance from federal and state agencies, reach out to info@ WiWiC.org or 608-844-3758.

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USDA - United States Department of Agriculture, a federal agency with a number of subsidiary agencies NRCS - Natural Resources Conservation Service, an agency within USDA that is charged with supporting efforts to protect soil, water and wildlife by providing technical assistance and cost-share funding to landowners FSA - Farm Services Agency, an agency within USDA that helps farmers buy land and equipment through loans as well as provide programs that support farmers in the event of disasters.

WiWiC - Wisconsin Women in Conservation, a collaboration of four agricultural non-prots funded by NRCS to help WI women landowners and farmers take advantage of USDA conservation resources CSP - Conservation Stewardship Program, a USDA program for working lands that helps growers

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enhance existing conservation efforts while strengthening their operations CRP - Conservation Reserve Program, a USDA program that pays farmers to replace certain kinds of cropland with perennial grasses, prairie plantings, or trees EQIP- Environmental Quality Incentives Program, an NRCS program that helps farmers, ranchers and forest owners integrate conservation practices onto working lands WI DNR - Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, a state agency charged with protecting and enhancing the air, land and water; the wildlife, sh and forests; and the ecosystems that sustain all life in Wisconsin SARE - Sustainable Agriculture Research Education, a service of USDA that helps farmers conduct research and share research about innovative practices to improve sustainability

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“Women are nurturers ...of their families, of their land, of the earth.

Women are also change makers and transformers. By bringing conservation to the doorsteps of women of today, imagine the changes we can bring about in conserving the natural resources for our future generations.”

Esther S Durairaj

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Dr. Esther S. Durairaj is the Program Director for Wisconsin Women in Conservation. She is a Research Agronomist at Michael Fields Agricultural Institute with more than 20 years of sustainable agriculture experience in both India and the US. She has a doctoral degree in agronomy.

In addition to leading the WiWiC Team, she is currently researching cover crops, industrial hemp, millet and mung beans with the goal of developing production practices that encourage diversity in organic cropping systems.

Greetings!

This book is a small snapshot of three years of eld days, land walks, webinars, coaching sessions and 100+ Learning Circle events with the Wisconsin Women in Conservation (WiWiC) project. As I reect on these busy 36 months of WiWiC programming, it gives me great pleasure to thank my team of Regional Coordinators who’ve played a BIG part in the success of this project, reaching over 2,500 women thus far.

Wisconsin Women in Conservation (WiWiC) provides outreach and education designed specically for the women landowners, farmers, urban growers, and absentee landlords of this great state. We help women connect to one another, learn in a peer-topeer setting, and become aware of resources available for conservation.

We provide free technical support for conservation plans and facilitate local

community networks to better steward the land. WiWiC is led by the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute, working together with Marbleseed, Renewing the Countryside, and Wisconsin Farmers Union. Launched in 2020, this project was funded by the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) for three years, and has been extended through 2025.

University of Wisconsin Extension educators and private technical service providers are all important partners.

NRCS Resource Conservationists have played a big role in the project : presenting soil texture demonstrations, rainfall simulators, and slake tests, in addition to explaining the alphabet soup of federal conservation assistance programs.

The WiWiC leadership team of Regional Coordinators makes programming decisions on an everevolving basis, tailored to participants’ needs and desires, as identied by the research and evaluation work of E Resources, LLC, who survey at every event. WiWiC Conservation Coaches, who are experienced practitioners, provide personal support to participants - sharing their experiences and opening their farms for women to learn while exploring together. Pheasants Forever Farm Bill biologists, County Conservation Department staff,

Over the course of this project we’ve had the privilege to hear the stories of hundreds of women - landowners, professional conservationists, volunteer citizen scientists, gardeners, farmers, and academics - whose love for the land and impact on the earth is inspiring, encouraging and downright amazing.

This book is our love letter to them.

May you be inspired and encouraged in your own efforts to care for land, water and wildlife.

Hope to see you at an event soon, —Esther S Durairaj

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Invitation to Circle This “Invitation to Circle” is offered by the Wisconsin Women in Conservation project, in collaboration with Professor Annie Jones, Organization Development and Tribal Nations Specialist, University of Wisconsin Madison – Division of Extension, to plant seeds of reection around how we can together do better in caring for our world and each other.

The Invitation to Circle is read in community, by multiple voices, at the start of Wisconsin Women in Conservation events, which generally begin with a Learning Circle. For more information on Wisconsin’s American Indian Nations, please do open the QR code.

We are all caretakers together of our land, sharing the role and responsibility of fostering a community of women

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stewarding soil. We remember the many people and cultures who have stewarded this place before us. We draw on the Indigenous teaching tool of the Medicine Wheel and the 5 Key Components (in circles to the right) to gather us. The universal imagery of a circle, important to diverse cultures over the centuries, reminds us of how we are all connected to the land and each other.

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Dr. Annie Jones, an enrolled member of the Menominee Nation, has been and continues to be a friend, coach, and mentor to the Wisconsin Women in Conservation team. She is a professor of Organization Development and a Tribal Nations Specialist with University of Wisconsin - Madison’s Division of Extension. She is also afliate faculty to the departments of American Indian Studies and Community and Environmental Sociology. Jones has worked with Extension for nearly 25 years, serving in a variety of capacities including associate dean, special assistant to the dean for strategic directions and as a community development educator based in Kenosha County. Jones holds a Ph.D. in human and organizational systems, a master of arts in human development, a master of science in curriculum and instruction from UWWhitewater, and a bachelor of arts in geography and social science from Carthage College. She co-leads UW-Madison’s Native Nations effort and was named one of Wisconsin’s Most Influential Native American Leaders of 2023 by Madison365 magazine.

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P O RT RAITS PORTRA IT S PORTRAITS OF LOVEOF ON LOVE ON LOVEOF ON T HE LAN D LAN THE THE D LAN D

May I feel my two feet grounded in this place. (pause to breathe)

What gifts do I bring to my work as a steward of ourland? How can I use my strengths, abilities and resources to nurture our Wisconsin landscape in a way that ensures her healthy future for many generations to come?

May we remember that we are all on a beautiful, continuous conservation journey in community. Though the work is never nished, the tasks become lighter as we draw strength from this circle today and the generations of women who have loved this soil before us.

May I remain gentle on myself in this work. There will be times when the work of protecting and stewarding our land feels lonely and insurmountable, at which point let me remember this circle and know I am not alone.

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Like the rivers that ow through Wisconsin, may the ever-moving water remind us that we, too, are continually evolving - growing through new ideas and challenges. May the teachings of our elders expand our mind and world view.

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May my physical body reect the healthy ecosystem we are co-creating around us, respecting the value of healthy, sustainable foods, fresh air, and movement. May I delight in the ability I have to align myself and truly become a part of the land around me, in collaboration with those gathered here.

PORTRAITS OF LOVE ON THE LAN D

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Rachel Bouressa at Bouressa Family Farm in New London: A Legacy Grazier Taking Pasture, and People, to the Next Level With cows behind her, people in front of her, boots on her feet, and a microphone in her hand - Rachel Bouressa is in her element. “My favorite thing to do is talk to farmers about farming,” says Bouressa.

Few people visibly enjoy teaching others as transparently as Bouressa.

Whether it’s welcoming fellow farmers to eld days on her pasturebased beef farm, standing at a podium for a GrassWorks conference, or patiently walking reporters through the virtues of soil health - Bouressa is here for it.

Her comfort with the subject matter and her poise in front of the public makes sense. She’s from a groundbreaking Wisconsin dairy grazing family and she grew up tagging along to eld days and pasture walks with her parents. But while Bouressa was in college, her parents moved to Australia where grazing was already a well-established agricultural practice.

Then - the dairy barn burned on

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the home farm. Boursessa made a life-changing decision to leave the university, and the pursuit of a graduate degree in agroecology, to start something new on the family land - beef.

She bought heritage breed British White Park cattle, that are known for their ability to nish well in grass-based systems and to be docile, which is ideal for Bouressa’s onewoman, daily-move, electric fence management style. She rotationally grazes about 60 cattle on 120 acres of the family’s 360 acres. The pastures are a mix of perennial grasses, legumes and forbs - a cocktail of seeds Bouressa is constantly adjusting in partnership with conservation professionals, researchers and local seed dealerships.

“Forbs are considered weeds in many cropping systems, but provide a great benet to nutrition and diversity within a pasture-based system. I move my cattle daily or more often, and am always making observations and adjustments based on what I see or don’t see,” explains Bouressa. “With grazing, it’s never not interesting.

Every day during the grazing season you’re making decisions that impact production - with regard to the pasture, as well as the animals. I change duration, density, rest periods, and time of day for moves to maximize the potential.”

“I manage with a ‘biology brings biology’ mindset,” adds Bouressa.

“I make adjustments with providing habitat for benecials and wildlife in mind. The underground soil biology is also included in that careful consideration.”

Bouressa has worked with local conservation organizations and the USDA to design and nance her grazing systems. She has used three NRCS EQIP contracts and two 5-year CSP contracts.

“Bouressa moves fast,” said a reporter in a recent television piece about her, and nothing could be more true. When she’s not moving cattle to new pastures, she’s getting her two young kids to school or driving to a conference. Bouressa is also determined to keep growing her grazing lands.

“My goal has been to double my pastureland every 3 years, and I’m happy to say that I’m more or less hitting those marks! I do this for the sake of my operation, as well as for the community. I’d really like to have enough land in perennial cover in my neighborhood so that our wells are no longer way above the standard for nitrates,” says Bouressa.

Top Conservation Tip: Don’t be intimidated.

If you want it, get it!

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guide: “Spending every day on different waterways in countries all over the world gave me a clear view of the effect of irresponsible farming and industry. I saw what was happening in the water and to the communities that lived downstream, and it felt like an emergency that couldn’t be ignored.”

After ten years as a river guide, she decided to become a farmer because she saw a future in being part of the solution. “Farming responsibly is arguably the most powerful thing we can do to protect human health and our ability to continue living on this planet,” says Botsford.

Stacey Botsford at Red Door Family Farm in Athens: Farming to Become Part of the Solution Stacey Botsford rst became interested in conservation while working as a whitewater river rafting

“It had been farmed conventionally by renters who didn’t consider the longterm effects of their methodology. Our intention was to heal a piece of land and show the potential of sustainable farming while being nancially successful,” says Botsford. “The rst

Top Conservation Tip: Don’t be afraid of trying. Don’t get caught up if it can’t be perfect. Get a mentor!

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Botsford, and her partner Tenzin, basically traded one adventure lifestyle for another - since neither had any experience in farming. But they apprenticed at an organic vegetable farm in Oregon before returning home to Central Wisconsin and purchasing 36 acres of corneld outside of Athens. From the beginning they have worked with their county NRCS staff. Over the course of the 9 years they have been there, they have used CSP funding to plant windbreaks, plant pollinator habitat, plant all beds on the contours of the land to reduce erosion, and plant cover crops.

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3 to 5 years we struggled with the repercussions of buying abused land, but around year 5 we saw an immense shift. Every year seems to be getting better as we learn more about our soil’s needs, how our water moves throughout the farm, and how to work within the restraints of a quick and intense season.”

Now, Red Door Family farm has about 10 acres in organic vegetable and cover crops, and 6 hoophouses for more delicate crops. They sell to local towns through Community Supported Agriculture shares, as well as restaurants, grocery stores and farmers markets.

Botsford serves as a WiWiC Conservation Coach, mentoring other women landowners in land stewardship. In 2021 she hosted a Wisconsin Women in Conservation eld day on her farm. “I nd this group to be inspirational, and it reminds me that I’m not alone in this ght,” she says. “I feel that it’s rare that you have the opportunity to talk about something you’re super passionate about to an audience that’s willing to listen.”

“Conservation is important to us all because we live on this land, drink this water, and eat this food. As a farmer, I take my role as a steward of the land very seriously,” says Botsford.

“It is absolutely an honor to have such a great responsibility.”

Patti Schevers at Our Thunder Moon: Planting for the Future with Roots in History Patti Schevers is the fourth generation on her family’s 100-acre Century farmstead in Oneida, Wisconsin and the third woman to manage the property, which is situated in the heart of the Oneida Nation Reservation.

“The original farm deed was in my great-grandmother’s name after my great-grandfather passed in 1922,” she said. “It then transitioned to her son, my grandfather, and then to my father and mother in 1989. After my father’s passing in 1997, my mother and aunt have been the primary property owners since then. I’m proud to be the next generation of women to steer the property into the future.”

The Schevers family came from Holland in 1914, and purchased the land from Seymour Land Company.

Schevers was born and raised there on the property, as were her father and grandfather. But she left the farm for over a decade - adventuring and working in 12 countries, 4 continents, and 46 of the 50 United States before returning with a passion for conservation and a new career direction. She headed to Northeast Wisconsin Technical College and completed an individualized program focused on conservation/ecotourism,

then transferred to the University of Wisconsin Green Bay. “I have been a naturalist at heart since I was a child, playing in our drain ditch in the eld and running barefoot out in the cow pasture to pick clovers and daydream. This was a really fun place to grow up,” says Schevers. “I want this to be a fun place to be for my son - now the 5th generation on the farm - and my entire family.”

Schevers - with the blessing of her mother and aunt, who both still live on the farm - began the transition of the family’s conventional cash crop operation into a conservation restoration with over 90 acres of prairie and pollinator plantings, 3 waterfowl ponds and 10,000+ shrubs and trees. The entire project began in October 2020 and was completed

by November 2021, with the help of Schevers’ husband Brad Berger and their extended family. Pheasants Forever Wisconsin and NRCS provided technical assistance and cost share. Schevers has participated in several EQIP programs, as well as CRP and CSP through USDA. Schevers and Berger both work full-time off the farm at University of Wisconsin Green Bay where Schevers manages Camps & Youth Programs and Berger manages University Inventory. Schevers is a WiWiC Conservation Coach and the Volunteer Coordinator for the Oneida Bird Monitoring Project. They have re-named the farm Our Thunder Moon, and got married there in July

2023, under a full Thunder Moon.

“I believe women landowners have and will continue to impact conservation and agriculture in a positive way,” says Schevers. “It is a natural instinct women possess to nurture our families, communities and the ecosystem around us. I believe that women naturally apply a holistic approach to management, conservation and agriculture based on these innate abilities.”

While family history plays a big part in Schevers’ land story, she also carefully considers the First Nation people and families that preceded her ancestors’ arrival. “I truly respect and think fully about the people that were the stewards before my family arrived,” says Schevers, “The land which I call home is the ancestral homeland of the Menominee Nation, which was ceded to the Oneida Nation. This land is sacred, historical and a signicant place to those that came before me.

My actions are inspired by those that were stewards prior to me.”

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Rebecca Christoffel at Mary Sackett Prairie: A Place of Her Own Where the Wild Things Are Those who know Dr. Rebecca Christoffel affectionately call her “The Unhuggables Ambassador” and most can’t think of anyone who is more passionate about the earth’s less-than-cuddly wild creatures.

“I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t interested in wildlife conservation,” Christoffel says, recalling that she cried for days as a child after learning that ivory-billed woodpeckers were extinct and whooping cranes were likely to suffer the same fate. “I was raised in Chicago, a city girl, but we were always taken to the Brookeld Zoo and Field Museum every year.

Those two institutions exposed me to a lot of rare wildlife species. I also read all of the animal species accounts, including recently extinct forms, in the Golden Book Encyclopedias. I never lost that love for wildlife and making sure that there were places left for wildlife to live.”

Christoffel wasn’t encouraged to attend college and worked several low-paying jobs while going to junior college at night to try and gure out a career path. It was only after leaving an abusive relationship and being

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Rebecca Christoffel is most often spotted with a clipboard in her hand and a survey on the clipboard. She is the lead on-site evaluator for the Wisconsin Women in Conservation project, but she also owns Christoffel Conservation, a business dedicated to helping women implement conservation on their properties.

encouraged to pursue a life where she would thrive, not just survive, that she at last dove wholeheartedly into pursuing her passion. At age 30, she went back to school to earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees from UWMadison in Wildlife Ecology and a Ph.D. from Michigan State University in Fisheries and Wildlife. She went on to serve as the State Wildlife Extension Biologist and faculty member at Iowa State University. More recently she moved back to Madison and works with E Resources Group, a business that provides educational outreach and program evaluation on agriculture and the environment. In this capacity, Christoffel is the on-site evaluator for the Wisconsin Women

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in Conservation project.

She wrote a series of three books for young readers, published by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, on the state’s reptiles and amphibians. She founded the Snake Conservation Society and Christoffel Conservation, a business helping women implement conservation on their land. She’s the co-director of Turtles For Tomorrow, an

Top Conservation Tip: Don’t decide on conservation goals and objectives until you know your land.

organization dedicated to protecting Wisconsin’s rare turtles through habitat management and landowner education. But through all of her years in wildlife academia and conservation practice, Christoffel never owned a piece of land. Then in 2018, she and her husband were given a prairie.

Mary Sackett Prairie in Laona Township, Illinois, is a 26.5 acre piece of a family farm belonging to the couple’s friend George Johnson.

Johnson took the parcel out of production in 2001 to restore it to prairie. Rebecca and her husband visited the land and helped George with some insect and reptile work.

George enrolled the land in the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). When Johnson, who is 97, realized he wasn’t able to keep up on the physical labor of maintaining the prairie, he gave the land to Christoffel and her husband, knowing they’d take great care of it, and help see his vision of a source of seed for local prairie restorations come to fruition. And of course, they have.

“I spend any time I possibly can working on that property,” says Christoffel. “The prairie restoration is now 20 years old and is very

beautiful. We plan to get rid of all the non-native trees and shrubs and replace them with native species such as Iowa Crabapple, nannyberry and hazel, among others.” The couple is constructing a snake hibernaculum on the property, and purchased 3 acres next door where they have built an amphibian pond, and have plans to build a chimney swift tower, a bat box, and other shelters for “unhuggables.”

“I believe that everyone has a role to play in conservation and everyone has a stake in conservation,” says Christoffel. “Anything you do makes a difference. It’s up to you whether it’s a positive or negative difference.”

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Lindsey Maas at Morning Scape Farm in Spring Valley: From Garlic to Grazing, Choices that Make a Difference

supports an abundance of vegetables, animals, and trees.

Scapes are the curly, springy, spicy ower stems of garlic plants that shoot from the underground bulbs as they develop. They are edible, and very welcome when they arrive in June - a rst taste of summer in the garden as the rest of the crops begin to mature.

In this way Morning Scape is a perfect name for the farm Lindsey Maas stewards with her partner Tony and their two young boys on a ridgetop in Western Wisconsin. Garlic was the rst crop they planted here as they renovated the soil - which now

Maas says her conservation ethic comes from her dad, who always encouraged her to get out doors and do things that would benet the environment. “We lived along a creek and we would go canoeing in it. One day, the neighbors decided to mow the vegetation in their back yard all the way up to the edge of the creek. But my dad left the grass, brush, and cattails as they were,” Maas recalls. “Each spring the creek would swell and ood and as I grew older it was clear that the land was eroding faster where the neighbors had mowed all the vegetation. That land was home to all kinds of critters like deer, raccoons, foxes, rabbits, and more.

We also noticed less of those critters around. That’s how I learned that our choices make a real difference.”

“Every year we plant trees! Some make it and some don’t. It can be discouraging at times, because some seasons hardly any of them take, but we just keep planting more anyway,” says Maas. “We love trees for so many reasons. Each little tree that takes off is a joy to see.”

The family has been on these 16 acres for 8 years, and rents another 20 acres.

Most of the land had been in corn, soy, or alfalfa hay production, so they started by planting cover crops and pasture grasses. With the help of their local NRCS ofce, they were able to access EQIP funding for pasture seeding, fencing, water lines to pastures and a

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hoop house for vegetable production.

They also got NRCS CSP funding for pasture seeding and tree planting. In 2021, they got a Menomonie Market Food Shed grant to build a second hoop house.

Now, most of the land is in pasture for cattle, which the couple manage in rotations and sell directly as grassfed beef. They grow vegetables on about an acre and in the hoop houses, utilizing minimal tillage and compost from the winter animal barns, for Community Supported Agriculture shareholders and farm markets in the Twin Cities area.

Maas serves as a WiWiC Conservation Coach to mentor other women interested in implementing conservation and working with USDA programs. “We can create a space for women to exchange ideas and experiences related to sustainability.

I hope that more women will be inspired and empowered to integrate conservation practices,” she says. “As a farmer, I don’t view conservation as an add on or optional. It is essential that we, as stewards of the land, work to improve the condition of soil, water and habitat for wildlife.”

Top Conservation Tip: Don’t be afraid to take action. You might not do it perfectly the first time, but you’ll learn and be able to share your experiences with the next person.

We only get to be caretakers of this land for a short while. It’s our responsibility to respect those who trod upon it before us and to leave it better for those who follow.

Danielle Endvick

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The land was here long before my ancestors came to this continent and claimed some of it. The land provided food and space for the animals, plants, microbiome, and people who needed it. The land can continue to provide enough for everyone if we are thoughtful about how we use it.

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Mariann Holm at Holm Girls Dairy in Elk Mound: From Small Beginnings to Big Impact Mariann Holm is leading a eld day at her gently rolling 100-acre farm in Dunn County. She stands in the middle of a lush pasture, a portable microphone in her hand, while her adult daughter Rachel demonstrates the operation of moveable electric fence lines that bisect the elds and forests of the property. The women gathered in front of them laugh as the cows begin to lumber out of the trees, eager for a bite of the new forage on the other side of the wire.

“Our family purchased the farm 26 years ago from relatives of my husband who were descendents of the rst European settlers in the area. An original part of our dairy barn was built in 1912 - the year the Titantic sank. Our barn was the rst barn my husband ever stepped foot in as a teenager and later in life he vowed to resurrect the structure,” says Holm.

When they did purchase their farm, they knew they needed mentors and advice. The local farmer-run grazing groups and the assistance of the county NRCS staff and programs were invaluable.

“When I rst read about rotational grazing in 1995, I was intrigued with

the thought of moving cattle around the land like chess pieces. It just made so much sense,” says Holm. “I had never owned a cow, but in 1996 attended a Grassworks conference.

The conference and local pasture walks with River Country RC&D - often attended with several of my children in tow - drew me solidly into the world of a regenerative systemsbased approach to raising livestock.

We have never looked back.”

Holm Girls Dairy is a certied organic grass-based farm that raises organic heifers for local dairies. The heifers are moved across the farm during the growing season in an intensivelymanaged rotational grazing system.

All elds are in a perennial cover of pasture and hay, which keep soil covered year round while attracting endangered grassland birds and pollinators. NRCS’s EQIP and CSP have helped fund fencing, waterway projects to reduce erosion, and seeding to increase biomass.

About 20 acres of the farm is in managed forestland enrolled in CSP, providing diverse habitat for wildlife.

EQIP also funded a hoop house to grow vegetables.

“It is my belief that the land, the animals and people all need each other and that none can survive without the other. Conservation is mostly thought of in terms of the water, soil and air quality, but to me, conservation provides the basis for all creatures and people to thrive,” says Holm. “Our

collective connection to the earth cannot be overstated. We are meant to be caretakers of the natural world.

By doing so we bring balance and restoration to ourselves and in turn to our physical environment.”

Holm believes we learn best when we are engaged with a group of like-minded folks who are guided by research and experienced experts, while staying grounded in everyday experiences. Mariann has sat at hundreds of farm tables as an organic inspector and is a Conservation Coach for Wisconsin Women in Conservation.

Top Conservation Tip: Don’t despise the day of small things. We can read, talk and dream but sometimes we just need to start.

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Harriet Behar at Sweet Springs Farm in Gays Mills: From NYC to Organic Queen Bee Harriet Behar has visited thousands of organic farms across the upper Midwest in her role as an organic inspector. She has been a conservation educator for over 40 years and certied her 216-acre farm as organic since 1989. She helped start Organic Valley and was the chair of the National Organic Standards board in 2019.

You might say she is the Queen Bee of organic agriculture in Wisconsin.

Yet Behar was born and raised in New York City. Family summer vacations to the wooded and secluded Catskill Mountains awakened a love for wild places. But Behar said her passion for

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conservation was ignited at the very rst Earth Day, celebrated nationally in 1970 when she was in high school, which opened her eyes to the need to protect natural systems. She went to college at University of Wisconsin - Madison and then nally found her wild place in Crawford County at Sweet Springs Farm in 1981 with husband Aaron Brins.

The property is 216 acres of open valley and ridge lands, and hilly woods, in the Driftless Region of Southwest Wisconsin. The Behar/ Brins have diversied vegetable elds, a chicken egg CSA and sell honey from their beehives. They grow and sell bedding plants out of an earthbermed greenhouse, and harvest medicinal wild plants to dehydrate.

Behar grows plants to dye skeins of wool yarn. The farm is solar powered.

But all that really just scratches the surface of what happens at Sweet Springs Farm.

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“Over the years, we have improved the greater ecosystem of the farm, encouraging native plants for a healthy diversity,, as well as continually improving the soil in our elds. We focus on growing cover crops that have multiple benets, those that can improve soil tilth, provide nectar and pollen for our honeybees, provide pasture for our chickens, and legumes for nitrogen,” says Behar. There are 50 acres of prairie on the property, some remnant and some they planted and steward, and many springs that feed the trout stream, which is home to native naturally-reproducing brook trout. “Our farm is full of perennial owering native plants from very early spring to late fall, and our kitchen table always has a bouquet of wildowers, as we track the progression of the growing season.

We are rewarded with abundant crops with very little disease or pest pressure, both from our elds and wildcrafted, as well as having diverse wildlife which are mostly in balance with our production.”

Top Conservation Tip: Do not underestimate the power of incremental change. Making small changes, little by little, year by year, is not as overwhelming as trying to get everything done all at once. You can also tweak your plans over time, as you learn what works best for your situation.

“A healthy landscape is a beautiful and enriching place to call home,” says Behar.

Behar has participated in multiple government programs - and has also worked to educate the NRCS that prairie and woodland management can be done without herbicides. The rst year the Behar/Brins were on the property, they planted evergreens on steep cropland. Instead of using the recommended herbicides to control grass around the trees, they requested a variance to use sawdust mulch. Now they have a tall stand of trees! They

have worked with NRCS to fund the prairie installations without the use of herbicides and enrolled them in the CRP. They have used NRCS stream bank and habitat improvement practices to improve the trout stream, and installed ponds for frogs with CSP funding and engineering. They used the EQIP to investigate and implement a great diversity of cover crops.

As a Conservation Coach with WiWiC, Behar helps other women landowners navigate the opportunities offered by NRCS and she hosted a WiWiC eld day at Sweet Springs

Farm in 2022. Behar also does land walks and interviews with WiWiC participants on their farms, to prepare free professional Conservation Plans to guide their work. So far, she has prepared over 30 plans. For her efforts, Behar won a Queen Bee Award from Wisconsin Women in Conservation in 2023.

To obtain a site visit and professional Conservation Plan for your farm, reach out to Wisconsin Women in Conservation at info@WiWiC.org.

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their conservation dreams, she’s also working toward her own on the family farm outside of Green Bay.

Julie Peterson with Pheasants Forever Wisconsin: A Childhood Land Ethic Spawns a Career and Calling “When I was a young child, growing up outdoors was not an option but a way of life,” says Julie Peterson, a Pheasants Forever Farm Bill Biologist who helps landowners in Northeast Wisconsin implement more conservation practices that improve wildlife habitat. “Taking care of land was something that was instilled in me as a kid - from ‘leaving no trace’ in my wilderness adventures to cutting hay every summer with my grandfather on his beef farm. Growing our own food and harvesting wild rice, sh, wild game and various species of berries was something that my parents taught me at a young age. This way of living connected me to the land and fostered my career in conservation.”

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Landowners who have worked with Peterson certainly recognize that connection to the land. She has been instrumental in Pheasants Forever outreach to women landowners since 2015, when she began leading a series of on-farm conservation education gatherings called Women Caring for the Land with Wisconsin Farmers Union. That program ended in 2018, but Peterson has been involved in Wisconsin Women in Conservation events since 2020.

“We’ve been able to share Pheasants Forever’s mission to preserve habitat.

But most importantly, we’ve had the honor of empowering women to make decisions on their land which better reect their land ethic,” shares Peterson, who was instrumental in planning the restoration project undertaken by Patti Schevers, told on page 15. “The women-only settings invite discussion, promoting positive energy and action.”

While Peterson is working across the state to help other landowners achieve

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“My sons are the 5th generation on my husband’s family farm, which we inherited when my father-in-law died ve years ago,” says Peterson. On the 200 acres, 91 acres is tillable and 40 is in conventional agriculture. 37 acres are being renovated for pasture, 8 acres are hay elds and 3 different pollinator plots have been planted on 6 acres. The couple stewards 98 acres of woodland comprised of white pine, cedar, aspen, red maple and swamp hardwoods -11 acres are wetland.

Peterson continues to convert the smaller elds on the farm into “Pollinator Patches” with technical support through NRCS, using CSP funds. Most recently, she applied for an NRCS EQIP grant to get a forestry plan drafted and mark the timber in preparation for a harvest in Winter 2023.

Peterson is highly regarded by her colleagues in agriculture and conservation. In 2018, she won the Friend of the Family Farmer Award from Wisconsin Farmers Union, and in 2023, she won the Queen Bee Award from Wisconsin Women in Conservation. Her advice to young conservationists and landowners: “Follow your passion and your hard work and positive attitude will help you to succeed!”

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It’s not OUR LAND, but OUR TURN to take care of it so future generations can enjoy fresh air, clean water, and diverse wildlife populations.

Julie Peterson

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If the land is in your care, it is your responsibility to take that seriously, get the best advice on caring for it, and get to work Beverly Pestel

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Jean Eells with E Resources Group: On a Mission to Empower Women to Protect Land Dr. Jean Eells is an absentee landowner, and she recognizes that gives her a lot of power. Along with her siblings, she manages the family’s acreage in Iowa - and is highly directive when it comes to inuencing the tenants’ agricultural and conservation practices, through written leases and open communication.

“My brother really led me into conservation - he’s 6 years older than me and when he went off to college to study wildlife biology he came back and taught me cool things,” says Eells.

“He gave me a copy of A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold when I was

a junior in high school, and I was hooked. Between that and him getting me in on my rst prairie burn when I was a sophomore in high school, I knew what I wanted to do.”

years,” says Eells. “I am committed to reaching women with information and pathways for them to enact their dreams, which always include protecting the land.”

Eells has worked in the eld of conservation for 44 years, on projects as diverse as forestry, prescribed re in wildlands, wildland urbaninterface for re prevention, invasive species control and all things prairie.

But serving a stint on the local Conservation District board made her realize that many women landowners don’t understand the power they have to improve and protect it.

Eells work guides the Wisconsin Women in Conservation project, for which she provides evaluation and training through her business, E Resources Group, a founding partner.

In particular, Eells has trained team members how to run Learning Circles and facilitating peer-to-peer education opportunities.

“I saw that even though women own nearly half of our working lands, very few came through the doors of the local conservation agencies. I decided to nd out why,” says Eells, and that question became a mission to understand how delivery of conservation resources to women inuences the likelihood of their implementing conservation.

Her research in that eld has led to many accolades - in 2021 alone she won Conservation Professional of the Year from the International Soil and Water Conservation Society, Conservationist of the Year form the National Organization for Professional Women in NRCS, and Iowa Conservation Woman of the Year from the Conservation Districts of Iowa.

Top Conservation Tip: Start with a small step and just keep going. No one knows all the answers when they get started, but there’s room for land stewardship and conservation on every operation.

On the home farm, Eells and her siblings grow corn and soy, but have added oats into the rotation. They have enrolled a small number of acres in CRP and used state cost share programs to plant cover crops. Eells helped their tenant farmer sign up for EQIP to implement cover crops and strip till. She found additional cost share for the tenant through Practical Farmers of Iowa, and now the farmer has applied for CSP.

“I have listened to the stories of more than 3700 women landowners across many states for more than 14

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Hmong cuisine - like lemongrass. The matriarch of the family, Bea Lor, is famous for her cut owers - she even puts dried lemongrass leaves in her incredible bouquets - and she loves to bring blooms to happy customers.

Several generations live and work at the 14-acre property in Dunn County, Wisconsin and Lor Produce has been able to expand their offerings both on-line and to the Red Wing Farmers Market. In typical entrepreneurial fashion, the family is always looking to make the business better, and that’s why last year when she noticed that someone had tomates earlier than theirs at the market, Bea went to the grower to nd out how it was possible.

“Bea saw that I had early tomatoes, and she wanted to know how,” said Sara George, the grower, who is also the Red Wing Farmers Market manager. “So I invited her to come see my high tunnel where I was growing the tomatoes, and I also took her to a neighbor’s farm to see what they were growing in their high tunnel.”

Trisha and Bea Lor at Lor Produce in Elk Mound: Mother and Daughter Grow a Market Legacy For a decade, the Lor family has been making a name for themselves at the Wednesday Wabasha Farmers Market in Minnesota - setting up beautiful displays of asparagus, blueberries, raspberries, melons, squash, potatoes, carrots, kohlrabi, cucumbers, beans, tomatoes, onions, peppers, and lots of vegetables and herbs valuable in

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George, who manages multiple farmers markets and on-line market hubs, is also a Wisconsin Women in Conservation Regional Coordinator - tasked with helping women farmers access technical support and funding through the USDA, including funding for season-extending high tunnels.

Bea and her husband Shawn attended the construction of an NRCS-funded high tunnel with George at the farm of Yi and Shoua Her (see page 33).

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Then with George’s guidance, the Lors applied to NRCS for funding for a high tunnel in 2022. George, who has lots of high tunnel experience, spent a day helping the family erect it in the fall. Shawn, an accomplished builder, constructed wooden edges and installed black plastic mulch across the entire inside soil surface.

Bea and Trisha turned out to be incredibly successful high tunnel growers, already producing bumper crops of zucchini, summer squash, tomatoes, cabbage, cucumbers and scallions in the spring of 2023. “Ha! We just learned from what other growers were doing,” says Bea, laughing as if to minimize her skill and effort. Trisha smiles and teases her mom in Hmoob.

George continues to mentor the Lors on what other federal cost-share programs might be applicable on the farm, like a drip irrigation system or cover crops in the alleys between rows. Bea always sends George home with owers, herbs or chicken, and her signature smile.

Top Conservation Tips: Ask questions wherever you go.

Don’t be afraid to try new things.

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worth it for the lively discussion on grazing philosophy and the destination at the end: Langworthy’s handsome Highland cattle ruminating peacefully in a forested paddock at the property’s high point.

Lauren Langworthy at Blue Ox Farm in Wheeler: Building Soil and Community for Animals and People Lauren Langworthy is leading a group of women up a steep eld road into the bluff-top pastures that overlook the waving grasses of her 153-acre Blue Ox Farm and the rolling hills of the northern Driftless Wisconsin landscape beyond. It’s hot and it’s dry - most of the state hasn’t had rain in weeks. But the women nd the hike

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“When my partner and I decided to get married and start a farm, it was important to us that the land we cared for have wild spaces and “room” for our wildlife neighbors,” says Langworthy, articulating the intention behind their management choices. “The land was here long before my ancestors came to this continent and claimed some of it.

The land provided food and space for the animals, plants, microbiome, and people who needed it. The land can continue to provide enough for everyone if we are thoughtful about how we use it. Managing our woodlands and

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using rotational grazing methods have given us many exciting opportunities to make space for bears, badgers, foxes, bobcats, coyotes, hawks, eagles, owls, endangered grassland birds, and monarch butteries - while also providing a wonderful life for the domesticated animals in our care. To me, the interplay between conservation and “working lands” that produce food is an essential part of the puzzle of rural life.”

Lauren Langworthy and her husband Caleb have been on a fast-track to gure out that puzzle since they purchased the land with a FSA loan in 2012. The nancing allowed them to invest in long-term conservation strategies to help build soil resiliency on the sandy land - to grow vegetables for market. While expanding to 5 acres

of production and offering produce through Community Supported Agriculture shares, farmers markets and wholesale accounts, the couple began to add fencing, waterlines and pasture improvement with the help of funding through EQIP. They started purchasing sheep and cattle, and moving away from annual-tillage vegetable production. In 2017, they made the leap into grass-based animal production as their primary farm income. They participate in CSP, which also provides some income.

Throughout this journey, the Langworthys have been mentored by “hundreds of peers and presenters who have given freely of their ideas and experiences to help us continually improve our farm and life,” and they

are eager to give back. Building community around land stewardship and farm mentorship is woven into the fabric of the family, which now includes 2-year-old Lumen. Lauren has an off-farm job as the special projects manager at Wisconsin Farmers Union and she is a WiWiC Conservation Coach. Caleb is a technical service provider with the Savanna Institute.

The farm is regularly opened for educational events like pasture walks and invasive species tours.

“It is perfectly acceptable to start small and build toward your ideal. It can feel absolutely overwhelming to bring mistreated land back into health. It can feel nancially or socially impossible to go from where you are to where you want to be,” says Langworthy. “Don’t

let the idea of ‘perfect’ get between you and all of the small improvements you can make. One small intervention or success can start a snowball into years of achievable shifts that will ultimately bring about decades of improvement.

Starting ‘small’ and ‘now’ will bring about so much more positive change than waiting until you can implement your ideal.”

Top Conservation Tips: Start small and build toward your ideal. Don’t let the idea of “perfect” get between you and all of the small improvements you can make.

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The Farm Buds volunteer group help Yi Her’s family erect a high tunnel, which was purchased with a grant from NRCS. The Her family finished it over six more weekends of work.

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with the high tunnel when it arrived on pallets from the manufacturer, with minimal instructions! George then connected the family with Farm Buds, a group out of the Twin Cities that gathers interested participants to show up at local farms and do projects in exchange for a shared meal and knowledge. The Farm Buds and lots of Her’s family started the high tunnel, with direction from George, which was nished by the family over the next six weekends. Now Her has applied for another grant to build a second high tunnel, and is also working with NRCS to get cost-share funding to put cover crop seed in between their plasticulture rows.

Yi Her in Glenwood City: The Second Generation Builds on a Hmong Farm Legacy Yi Her is just starting to get ripe strawberries from her new plasticulture patch, and she’s impressed. “They taste good, I think!

Here, have some more!” she says, lifting handfuls from small plants arranged in a tidy grid on black fabric.

This technique of planting into plastic mulch is new on the farm, something Her learned from Amish neighbors.

Her and her husband Shoua live in St. Paul and work for the public school system: Yi as a paraprofessional and Shoua drive a bus. But on weekends and in the summer, you can nd them with kids and grandkids at the 40acre farm in North West Wisconsin where Shoua’s parents, Hmong immigrants, grew vegetables for market and raised livestock for family.

When their parents passed away 15 years ago, Yi and Shoua began to buy the land parcels from his siblings.

Now they are growing vegetables on 4 acres to feed the family and eventually sell at market, but are still very much learning. Their latest experiment is seeing whether bitter melon, a Hmong specialty crop, can be reliably transplanted from seeding in pots.

and friends. During the COVID years, she found herself with some time on her hands and watched a lot of YouTube farming videos, including an on-line farming webinar about high tunnel hoop house construction offered through Renewing the Countryside and the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). When she reached out to get more information, Her was connected to Sara George, a nearby market grower and Wisconsin Women in Conservation Regional Coordinator with a specialty in high tunnels.

George came out to the Her property and answered many questions, eventually guiding Her through the process of getting an NRCS grant to build a high tunnel.

Her is a tireless learner, asking questions of neighbors, market growers

Though the Hers got the funding, they weren’t quite sure what to do

“We are so grateful for the help we got from the government. They were wonderful to work with,” says Her, who has invited interested neighbors over to look at the high tunnel and learn about USDA programs to help market growers. “They have so many resources and grants to help us farmers better our land and our farming.”

Her advice to new growers: “Just keep asking questions and searching, even if you don’t know what you really want. That will lead you to where you want to be.”

Top Conservation Tip: Don’t be afraid to work with the government. Take advantage of federal and state agencies’ technical assistance and cost share funding.

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cover crops to improve soil and seeded pastures. We planted trees, perennial ground covers and native grasses.

Over the years we added meat rabbits, egg layers, meat chickens and now the goats and sheep. The animal presence has added health and fertility to our land, and fed our bellies.”

The family isn’t growing the farm operation, however, with the new animals. Rather, they are scaling back from a schedule of planting, cultivation, harvest and deliveries to Twin Cities customers that had become unsustainable and unhealthy. Nelson contracted Lyme disease while working in the elds and was suddenly forced to slow down the pace.

Jennifer Nelson at Humble Pie Farm in Plum City: A Full Farm Life in Transition After nearly 15 years as an organic vegetable and cut ower grower, Jennifer Nelson is once again a beginning farmer. This time, though, she’s learning to graze Katahdin hair sheep and Nigerian Dwarf milking goats in managed rotations on her 16acre farm in the Northern Driftless Region of Wisconsin.

“We bought our sweet sixteen acres in the Eau Galle River Valley in 2015,” says Nelson, who previously lived with her partner Michael on an organic community farm. “Flowers, perennials, and veggies brought an abundance of benecial insects and birds and diversity of soil food to our thriving land, which we took out of commodity crop farming. We planted

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“The earth has a deep wisdom that we humans understand a little. We are all inextricably connected, and only as healthy as the land, water, and our animal neighbors. As we trust the wisdom of nature, we learn to trust ourselves and make choices that benet the health of humanity and our ecosystem,” says Nelson. For her, that meant growing less, grazing more, and spending more time enjoying nature and the beautiful ridge-top views of the farm with her partner and their ten-year-old son, Earl. Both partners have taken some off-farm work for income that allows them to spend more time appreciating the farm. “We look down on the green valley below us from about 1100 feet, and the view of the big sky at both sunrise and sunset is why we fell in love with this land.”

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“Conservation is deeply rooted in my love and connection with nature.

It all started in my backyard in the suburbs - my mom’s garden, the maple tree, the grape arbor, the lilac bushes.

When we began stewarding our acres, conservation of resources was a nobrainer,” says Nelson. These days, Nelson is working with the NRCS in Pierce County to develop a grazing plan for the land that will help control invasive species while building soil and lush pastures for her grazers, including the goat kids born in July 2023 from her Nigerian Dwarf does Willow and Holly. She expects that plan will include cost-share funding for rotational grazing fences and water lines in 2024.

Part of Nelson’s work now is with Wisconsin Women in Conservation, where she is a Conservation Coach.

On this hot day she welcomes other women to gather in a big circle under her maple tree and participate in the stewardship lessons she’s learned and is learning.

“I love learning circles, and the knowledge and motivation that come from peer-to-peer connection and the sharing of experience,” says Nelson, while scratching her free-roaming goats behind the ears.

Top Conservation Tip: Start small! Start anywhere and focus on one small pocket at a time.

The earth has a deep wisdom that we humans understand a little. We are all inextricably connected, and only as healthy as the land, water, and our animal neighbors. As we trust the wisdom of nature, we learn to trust ourselves and make choices that benefit the health of humanity and our ecosystem.

Jennifer Nelson

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vines and two different types of mulberries. Along the south hill and pastures there are native grasses and plum trees and huckleberries. In the middle area we have our house and backyard and treefort and two re pits. The top pastures are for our milk goats, sheep, ducks, laying hens and guineas,” says Gasaway, carrying the newest addition to the farm, a rabbit, in a baby sling. “There is so much happening and we love showing it off to friends. Kids love coming over to walk the path and graze on all the offerings while they explore.”

Alicia Gasaway at Gasaway Gardens in Monticello: A Homeschool Homestead on a Mission to Learn Alicia Gasaway is giving a tour of her family’s 5-acre property in rural Green County. The land slopes slightly from a ridgetop, and the highest point is the vegetable garden near the county highway. It is surrounded by a fence to keep the free-ranging chickens out.

As Gasaway leads a group of women in among the raised beds, she points out plants and practices that might be of interest, such as the the drip-tape irrigation system and the fabric weed barrier. Her 6-year-old son in worn cowboy boots has walked beside her for the entire tour, adding his own anecdotes with condence. Now he’s crawled inside the small chicken coop to collect a bowlful of multi-colored eggs that he brings to show the group.

As Gasaway bends down to identify plants in the bed of medicinal herbs, her 3-year-old daughter runs up in a dress and kneels down beside her.

Gasaway holds a crushed anise hyssop leaf up to the child’s nose and embraces her while continuing to teach. The women ask questions, and offer their own stories, as other children come and go - some wandering off to chase ducks, others to feed the goats in a pen just down the hill. A few sit at a childsize picnic table eating and laughing.

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Gasaway and her husband Cameron homeschool their two children.

Taking care of the gardens and animals together is an integral part of their days, as is sharing the land and their produce with others through farm visits and a roadside stand.

“We have a wonderful natural food walk that goes around the border of the property. It starts with patches of asparagus, elderberries, black caps, juniper berries, crab apples, raspberries, and four different kinds of mint plants along the north side, with tansy, goldenrod, motherwort, mullein, and red clover among other things throughout. Along the east valley we have marshmallow and musk mallow and rose hips and grape

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Gasaway is eager to share what she’s learned in the three years they’ve lived on the homestead and the ve years they spent volunteering on other farms to learn before they took the homesteading leap. Gasaway regularly farm sits for neighbors so she can get ideas from how they manage their land. In 2022, she also did a land walk with Green County Conservationist Tonya Gratz, who helped her write a Conservation Plan for future practices that will build soil, attract pollinators and provide for wildlife, as well as the family.

“She took the time to answer all my questions about every little plant that I couldn’t identify. She told me about how they started, if they were native, what typical growing patterns were and what the uses were. After she left, I was inspired to continue to learn about aspects of the land that she pointed out,” says Gasaway. “We were interested in conservation from

the start. What would benet the most number of beings? We always think about this before we decide on an action plan.”

The couple has seeded natural prairie grasses, planted over 15 trees, uses rotational grazing, and set up a rainwater catchment system to water the garden. They are working to remove invasive species. Gasaway is also a budding herbalist, gathering leaves and owers from her garden beds and wild areas to make teas,

tinctures, infusions and avored honeys for herself, the family, and friends. She’s a repeat attendee and presenter at the Women’s Midwest Herbal Conference. The Gasaway Gardens property used to have the local one-room schoolhouse on it, and the legacy of learning is still alive and well here.

Alicia Gasaway’s children are willing helpers on the homestead. Mira, age 3, samples an anise hyssop leaf in the herb garden, and Harlan, age 6, mows a hay field with a scythe.

Top Conservation Tip: Read as many books as you can find time for and ask for recommendations.

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hog farm. From the road you see rolling hills covered in 55 acres of restored prairie and oak savanna.

These belong to Prusia’s partner, Steve Fabos, who owns a prairie restoration business. The farm is named after his mother. In the valley of the property, near where the buildings are, a trout stream meanders through a wetland.

Around the corner of the big red barn, dozens of pigs of all sizes and spots rummage in various paddocks, unless it’s a time of year where they’re pastured on Prusia’s 28 acres of upland hayelds. These are Prusia’s heritage Gloucestershire Old Spot hogs. She was the rst breeder in Wisconsin, bringing the pairs back from various states in an old Subaru station wagon.

April Prusia at Dorothy’s Range in Blanchardville: Bacon and Bobolinks “Bacon and Bobolinks” is a motto April Prusia uses often as a hashtag on social media posts for Dorothy’s Range, the pastured pork operation and farmstay she runs in the Driftless region of southwest Wisconsin. But it’s not just a motto. There is nothing Prusia loves more than the bubbly song of a bobolink in her elds, except for the antics of the piglets that run up to her for scratches in the farmyard.

Dorothy’s Range is not your average

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“I graze about 3 acres and do one cutting of hay in July after the upland songbirds have edged,” says Prusia.

“The hayeld hosts many rare birds, including my favorite, the bobolink.

I also often hear the grasshopper sparrow and the Henslow sparrow.

I hear coyotes and see evidence of badger. So far, everyone is living in harmony.”

Bobolinks - beautiful small black birds with striking white accents - have traditionally been abundant where cattle graze, nesting in hay elds and meadows. But as grazing lands are displaced by corn and soy crops, bobolinks are at risk. And so Prusia cares for a second rare species on her small acreage.

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demanding and heavy on the heart,” says Prusia, who is just over 5 feet tall and accomplishes the work without a tractor. “I use a garden hose, wheel barrel and little truck. I love my pigs and try to offer them a wonderful life. I love to see them grazing on pasture while being serenaded by rare songbirds. One of my favorite things in life to see is a piglet run full speed with a few pig pals.”

Before moving to Dorothy’s Range with Fabos, Prusia worked for ten years managing an organic vegetable farm, but her roots in sustainable food go even deeper. “I think I was conservationing before I even knew what it was,” said Prusia. “I grew up middle class - mom working in a factory and my father a stay-at-home disabled dad. He did his best to care for us by planting a huge garden, taking me shing weekly, and raising rabbits.

I thought they were pets! But we ate them, and he also trapped turtles and created a lot of food through his connections with the earth.”

Prusia bought her hay elds with a Socially Disadvantaged Farmer loan from FSA, and received a Frontera grant to restore an old hog house on the property. She worked with NRCS to get EQIP funding to build a catchment and diversion system to keep water from running off the barn roof into the barnyard.

Prusia also received a SARE grant to study the feasibility of opening a cooperative small scale mobile butcher

business in the region. Now she’s president of Meatsmith, a farmer/ butcher cooperative looking for a brick-and-mortar building to hold a small-scale pork, beef, lamb and goat processing facility.

“We can change the world by how we choose to eat,” says Prusia, giving one of several piglets rooting at her feet a

gentle pat. “We have to shift the way in which we value the landscape. We have to look at how our management serves bugs, birds, turtles, and all the native creatures, too.”

When she’s not wrangling hogs, Prusia serves on two Water Actions Volunteers (WAV) teams, which monitor several local streams monthly for pollution and biological activity (bugs that sh can eat).

Top Conservation Tip: Remember that conservation pays in all sorts of ways that you might not understand or recognize until you actually live it.

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natural resources with the goal of working for the National Park Service. When she found the science courses weren’t a good t, Endvick shifted to agricultural journalism and worked for farm journals. Today she’s the communications director for Wisconsin Farmers Union, where telling the stories of family farms drew her back home.

Danielle Endvick at The Runamuck Ranch in Holcombe: Following Conservation Dreams To Yellowstone and Back Danielle Endvick’s Instagram handle is @thesassysaunterer. It’s an accurate description of a woman who most often wears work-worn cowboy boots with turquoise jewelry and loves to photograph a hike in the woods more than anything - anything other than the family farm. Her other account is @ therunamuckranch where she’s telling the story of new enterprises by the third generation on her old home place. But that story almost never started.

“My dad bought the land, which neighbors the farm where he grew up, back in 1991. We spent some time living out of a camper in my Grandma Charlotte’s driveway next door. Dad worked full-time at the feed mill, so that led to lots of time tagging along with my uncles in the barn, picking up a colorful vocabulary,” laughs Endvick, who credits that upbringing with her strong sense of place and deep ties to the two farms and the land that bridges them.

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horseback riding through the forest.

The woods and river gullies became my playground, and I marveled at the wildlife,” she recalls. “I could also see the care and attention my Uncle Bob, who handled most of the family’s eld work, put into the land. Timing of the hay harvest and planting of seeds was done in a delicate dance with nature.”

In typical fashion, Endvick jokes that her passion for farming and caring for land came when she was knee-high to a grasshopper. But she experienced an epiphany in high school while on a trip out west with her Grandma Charlotte to Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks: “I learned about John Muir, Theodore Roosevelt, Olaus and Mardie Murdie. The wheels started to turn in my mind about how I could play a role in preserving the land for future generations.”

She headed off to college to study

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Endvick’s father milked at their Split Ridge Dairy all through her growing up years. But tough times in the 2000’s moved him to make the heartbreaking decision to sell the cows, crushing Endvick’s dreams of continuing the dairy. Then in 2017, Endvick and her husband Jesse decided to take the leap of re-inventing the land as The Runamuck Ranch, a cow-calf grazing beef operation. In 2019, the Endvicks wrote a grazing plan with the help of Tammy Lindsay, District Conservationist with the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). With that plan in place, they obtained Beginning Farmer funds through the federal Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) to install fencing and water lines. “Our pasture set-up is beyond what I could have dreamed initially, and the herd has never been happier,” says Endvick.

Endvick’s conservation “why” revolves around family and particularly her two sons hanging on the fence out by the cows: “We only get to be caretakers of this land for a short while. It’s our responsibility to respect those who trod upon it before us and to leave it better for those who follow.”

Top Conservation Tip: Find your people. Wisconsin Farmers Union and Wisconsin Women in Conservation offer wonderful ways to plug in and engage with peers on the same path. Sign up for pasture walks with the local watershed group or RC&D.

Berglane Photography

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The ethical thing to do is to care for the land and the soil. To care for it as if your children’s children are the ones who will farm it after you are gone. It’s ethical to bank wealth in the soil adding stable, organic nutrients and organic matter through green manures and cover crops. It’s ethical to include hay in between annual crop rotation to build soil. It’s ethical to graze cattle carefully so that their feet touch the earth and the sun is on their backs. It’s ethical to treat people right by growing nutrient dense food.

It’s ethical to leave a corner of the farm as a wetland for frogs and migrating waterfowl. It’s ethical to enjoy the sunset and see the fruits of your labor in the earth… to revel in the richness of the land around you and for once not wonder what it’s worth.

Val Dantoin

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willing to train others. I was always the only woman at the table and in the work crews, but they were gracious and almost never condescending. I will be forever grateful for them.” In 2003, Pestel won the Woodland Management Award from the Forestry Committee of Sycamore Trails.

Beverly Pestel at Rocky Pine in Richland Center: A Walk in the Woods Grows into a Lifetime Commitment to Conservation

From that Indiana property, the couple created a stockpile of white oak, hickory, cherry and walnut lumber that they eventually used to make window and door frames and cabinets in the farmhouse at their SECOND forest project, a 40-acre lot in rural Richland Center, Wisconsin. They call the place Rocky Pine.

It’s tough to imagine someone more gleeful than Beverly Pestel when she’s taking a walk in the woods - even when that walk is with heavy tools to haul logs, clear brush, or battle invasive weeds.

“We converted a sad and dying forest into a vibrant, healthy forest. But we started off just cleaning up our woods after a messy oak harvest on our newly-purchased property,” says Pestel of the conservation journey she started with her partner Bill Cary in 1993 on 60 acres in Indiana. “As we beat our way through the honeysuckle to reach the oak tops and cut them for rewood, we realized that there was a huge amount of millable lumber in there and using it for rewood was almost sinful. So it began.”

Pestel and Cary invested in smallscale logging and milling equipment - eventually purchasing a Multimate attachment that could be pulled with an ATV and turned into a skidder and portable winch. They joined the

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Indiana Chapter of the Walnut Council and the Sycamore Trails Resource, Conservation and Development Council, where they attended monthly meetings with professional foresters and participated in work days.

“Like many things in my life, I stumbled onto conservation. What began as a clean-up job so we could just walk through our woods turned into a commitment to land stewardship,” says Pestel. “There were 100 years of combined experience there with men

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“The land was probably half cultivated, half pastured until the early 70s. When Bill retired in 1997, we planted 8 acres of former farm elds to alternating rows of pine and hardwood,” says Pestel, describing the land as sloping steeply west to east from an oldgrowth forest on the ridgetop. Rock walls run north to south and there are multiple cave entrances.

The property is in the Managed Forest Land program with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, who undertook a unique project there in 2001 - direct seeding 2 acres of whatever tree seeds were available.

The resulting woods came up to be about ¾ walnut and ¼ oak. Another 15 acres of pastures grew back naturally with ash, maple, oak, basswood, cherry, black locust, cedar and a “smattering” of apple, mulberry, and box elder, says

Pestel, who rattles off tree names like they are old friends. But by 2000 the woods were being choked by honeysuckle, multiora rose, and autumn olive.

With the help of some DNR grants for brush removal, the couple began attacking invasives in 2010 with hand tools and gradually moved to brushcutters and chemical control.

By 2020, the majority of the invasive species were removed and are now controlled with foliar spraying each spring.

Now that their second forest is “under control,” Pestel says she’s focused on her latest passion project - converting 8 acres of the old cropland elds into native prairie plantings. Cary can no longer work in the woods because of his health, but he couldn’t be more proud of Pestel. “The woods are hers now,” he says. “She’s doing a wonderful job.”

“If the land is in your care, it is your responsibility to take that seriously, get the best advice on caring for it, and get to work,” says Pestel, with a big grin.

Beverly Pestel and Bill Cary stand in front of just one of the many kitchen cabinets they built from wood they cut and milled with small-scale equipment. “The woods are hers now,” says Cary. “She’s doing a wonderful job.”

Pestel is currently building a new ofce desk from wood she milled in Indiana.

Top Conservation Tip: Start with whatever you have, then grow into whatever gives you satisfaction.

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it. Why not give everyone the opportunity for the highest quality, best tasting produce by making locally grown food more accessible? That is my farm mission, and my personal mission,” says George, who owns D & S Gardens, an 11.5 acre farm in Pepin featuring perennial crops such as red raspberries, yellow raspberries, black raspberries, blackberries, rhubarb, blueberries and apples in addition to annual crops like kale, heirloom tomatoes, peppers, beets, carrots, dragon’s tongue beans, and radishes that come out of the hoophouse.

Sara George at D&S Gardens in Pepin: Growing Food, Farms and Farmers

Sara George is the Sele Queen.

Her phone is always at the ready to snap a shot, but it’s not because she’s an inuencer. It’s because she’s the ultimate farm connector. Whether she’s at a farmers market or a food safety training, George is taking names, making introductions, and in every way possible growing more food, farms and farmers.

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The person who appears most often in George’s seles is Faith, her young daughter, farm co-owner, and farmers market sidekick. George is grateful for the help, especially at the Red Wing Farmers Market, where she is a vendor and also the market manager.

She previously had managed the Wabasha Farmers Market and served as the Vice President of the Minnesota Farmers Market Association as well.

George is mentoring 9 other farmers markets across Minnesota to become regional food hubs and is a food safety trainer for Minnesota and Wisconsin. She also sells produce to schools and childcare facilities, and helps other farmers connect with institutional buyers.

George’s market vendors - and their produce - are often the subject of her photographs, but she regularly appears smiling next to an emerging farmer she has helped get a farm loan, a high tunnel grant, or cost-share

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funding for a conservation project as part of her roles as a program manager with Renewing the Countryside, a Connector with Go Farm Connect and a Regional Coordinator with Wisconsin Women in Conservation.

The drive to get farmers connected with resources started with George’s own discovery that she was eligible for United States Department of Agriculture funding as a small market grower. “I was leading a farm-toschool food tour at my farm, with schools, restaurants, farmers and staff from the University of Wisconsin attending. We were looking at the kale when someone in the back asked if I had applied to the NRCS for an EQIP grant for a high tunnel,” says George, who bluffed and said it was “on her list.” But that night she stayed up late looking up all the acronyms and programs she’d heard talked about that day. The next week she went into her county’s USDA ofce and applied.

Taking that step changed the course of George’s career and became a calling. Over the course of several years, she ended up working with NRCS to obtain EQIP funding for her high tunnel hoophouse, and technical assistance to design a drip irrigation system for the farm, pollinator ower gardens, cover crops and the perennial fruit gardens that slow erosion on a steep hillside. Now she’s dedicated to helping other farmers get access to similar programs, and she’s growing the local food system one connection at a time.

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and the meals created are documented in great detail on social media, with educational text by Lynch, who has also started offering in-person classes and experiences for various ages.

Heather Lynch of Green Haven Gardens in Brooklyn: The Magic of Plants and the Power of Pictures If you’re on Instagram and you crave a veggie-lled palette of photo content, take a look at @green.haven.gardens.

The energetic creator of this account, along with her husband and three dogs, has lled not only her 9-acre property with food and habitat, she’s turned social media into a healthy source of conservation inspiration.

“I believe that growing anything - a pot of owers, a houseplant, a vegetable garden - has the potential to inspire someone to be more connected to nature, and empower them to take a more active role in caring for our environment,” says Heather Lynch, who practices no-till raised-bed gardening. “We need to make it less intimidating to get involved, and show more people the impact they can have.

I think introducing people to the magic of plants in any way possible is a great place to start, and I think it will often grow from there into the desire to care for the land in any way possible.”

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and giving their pets a private offleash dog park. “Our realtor thought we were odd because one of the rst things I would do when looking at any house was walk into the backyard to see if it had full sun exposure,” laughs Lynch. Little did they know the pandemic would provide them with a surplus of time and space to work on their “food forest.”

Installed in 2020, the large kitchen garden has about 40 raised beds.

Over 50 trees, all different varieties, have been planted so far, including apple, pear, plum, cherry, peach, chestnut, and a wide range of smaller fruits like raspberries, grapes, currants, elderberry, honeyberry and strawberries. Lynch also has an ever-expanding native pollinator planting, as well as a large culinary and medicinal herb garden. All of these spaces, the produce harvested,

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Lynch credits her father with planting the seeds of conservation in her imagination - by teaching her how to cook seasonally from farmers markets, and by taking her foraging for mushrooms, blackcaps and gooseberries in “wild spaces.” “Once we left the trails everyone else used, we found plants and animals there that we didn’t see anywhere else, and it showed me very clearly how important it is to maintain those magical places,” says Lynch, whose next goals for her property involve renovating the “wild yard” outside of the gardens.

Seven acres of the property are not currently cultivated, and Lynch took a land walk with Green County Conservationist Tonya Gratz through this area in 2022 to develop a written Conservation Plan for future efforts here. The plan was funded through Wisconsin Women in Conservation.

“We want to maintain it as a sanctuary and habitat for as many animals as possible, and we also want to introduce more plant diversity to bring in even more animals and pollinators,” says Lynch. “‘I’m grateful for Tonya as a resource. She made me feel comfortable asking questions both during the land walk and after we received our plan.

She listened to our goals and put thought into resources to get us there.”

Top Conservation Tip: Connect with other local women for advice and inspiration.

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We can change the world by how we choose to eat.

April Prusia

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LaDonna Green of Growing Green Gardens, LLC, in Milwaukee: Spreading Smiles and Seeds in the Neighborhood If you hang out at a community garden in Milwaukee, chances are you’ve met LaDonna Green. A diminutive woman with a ready smile and yellow garden boots, she seems to know everyone and be everywhere that plants can grow in the city. She’s making sure that children are welcome - and working - in all of those spaces.

“I’m an early childhood education consultant and an urban farmer - in my business I bring those two things together. But it really started in self defense,” says Green, who began gardening in earnest during the pandemic to stay healthy and make sure that market disruptions wouldn’t limit her access to good food. “I found that children would come through and sometimes undo my work, or make a mess of it. I realized they needed someone to show them the value of growing food and put them to work in the dirt. While having fun, of course!”

Now she can be found in any one of several living classrooms throughout Milwaukee, teaching gardening to children through Growing Green

Gardens, LLC. She has several plots at Alice’s Garden Urban Farm, Firey Ridge Community Garden and Victory Garden Initiative among others. In 2023, she added classes for adults who are aspiring to be urban farmers - teaching basic conservation skills, planting, harvesting, food safety, building a compost pile, constructing a rain garden or starting a native pollinator habitat. Green was also recently hired to be a Garden Educator at Alice’s Garden. She also provides beginner vegetable gardening classes each month at Victory Garden Initiative and Firey Ridge Community Garden.

of USDA programs such as NRCS cost-share assistance for practices like low-pressure irrigation, high tunnels, and cover crops. She’s also active with Xerces Society and Seed Savers Exchange. Green is a WiWiC Conservation Coach, and is available to help other urban growers access the USDA’s new Urban and Innovative Agriculture programs in Wisconsin.

She won a Wisconsin Women in Conservation Baby Bee Award in 2023 for her signicant contributions as a new conservation professional.

“The earth is my home. As an urban farmer, I strive to work in harmony with Mother Nature by utilizing best practices as they pertain to conserving the land, water, and natural habitats of wildlife,” says Green. “I am passionate about conserving resources while growing foods free of chemicals.”

Green mainly grows fruits, vegetables and herbs, and none of them for sale.

She gives away most of what she grows, but she still takes advantage

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Susan Nelson in rural Monroe: Learning Fast from Friends, Passing it On to Others Once upon a time, rural landowner Susan Nelson picked wild parsnip and garlic mustard blooms for bouquets.

Now she’s learning about invasive species and working through a longterm plan to eradicate them in her woods and elds and replace them with healthy forest and pasture. She’s already helping others to do the same.

“I have always been interested in caring for our earth. Yet, to get up close to the land I now live on was something else,” says Nelson, who moved to her property outside of Monroe with her husband in 2004. They rent 8 acres of cropland to a neighbor and live on a 4.5 acre homestead that includes a mature woodland and perennial ower beds they have planted, along with plots of annual vegetables.

In 2020, Nelson got involved with the Soils Sisters, a project of Renewing the Countryside, which is an informal group of women farmers and landowners living in and around Green County who are committed to sustainable land practices and mutual support. “They opened my eyes to the possibilities that would allow me to be a better citizen of the earth,” says Nelson, who became friends with

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other women landowners through the Soil Sisters’ monthly potlucks hosted at various local farms and homesteads. “Through this group, I was introduced to Wisconsin Women in Conservation. This association then offered me the opportunity to have a conservation professional do a land walk with me and create a Conservation Plan for free. This was a wonderful learning experience.”

In 2022, Nelson began implementation of the Conservation Plan by burning a large patch of invasive buckthorn, and seeding the area with a mix of pasture grasses. In 2023, she hosted her own Soil Sisters potluck, touring fellow women landowners around her property to share the information she learned from her conservation planning process. Though she has a lot more to implement, Nelson wants other women to get involved with conservation planning and the educational events offered through Wisconsin Women in Conservation.

“I was like a sponge, taking in all the information given by the experts presenting. The programs were wonderful. I’ve saved all my notes, “ says Nelson. “I believe that the earth has taken care of us for many, many years. We have used up and then some of what could be given. It is our responsibility to not let the earth’s elements diminish more, be used up or become toxic. If that happens, we will perish. We must be mindful of what is put into the air, land and water in order to build back what has

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been taken away with the abuse and carelessness of society.”

Nelson serves on the Green County Board of Supervisors, and sits on the county’s Land and Water Conservation Committee. She was instrumental in placing a Clean Water Now advisory referendum on the November 2022 ballot, which passed with 84% of the vote.

Top Conservation Tip: Allow yourself to listen, sit back, listen some more, think, look at what you have and make a plan.

Valerie Dantoin of Full Circle Community Farm in Seymour: A College Educator with a Sharp Machete and an Even Sharper Pen Valerie Dantoin doesn’t mess around.

She knows her stuff and she’s got no patience for bad agricultural practices.

Or invasive plants in her pollinator strips. Dantoin developed and teaches 20 courses in the Sustainable Food & Agriculture Systems program at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College. But she didn’t grow up farming.

“I spent many happy summers on the farm with Aunt Beth & Uncle Merrill,” says Dantoin, but attributes her conservation ethic to a childhood spent outdoors picking berries with her grandmothers, shing with her grandfather, hunting with her dad and canoeing with her mom. “In college, I started out with a degree in Microbiology but knew the lab was not the place for me. I wanted to work with the microbes in the soil and connect with the land that way. I got a graduate degree in Agronomy but knew I did not want to work for conventional agribusiness.

Fortunately, I met and married a sustainable farmer and was able to nally fulll my calling to model a

farm that cares for the land and all its inhabitants from tiny microbes to top carnivores like wolf, bear and cougar, all of which have traversed our farm.”

on a tour of the vegetable elds, pastures, chicken tractors, riparian tree plantings, wildlife corridors and pollinator habitat.

Their 240-acre Full Circle Community Farm has been in her husband Rick Adamski’s family for 130 years, and is certied organic. Along with their son and his wife, they raise 90 head of grass-fed beef, pastured pork, freerange laying hens, and have 10 acres of organic vegetables. Managed grazing is a key practice on 90% of the acreage, as is saving space for wildlife and natural ecosystems to thrive. They have participated in CSP, setting aside riparian corridors, wildlife corridors, and buffers around a pond and a stream.

Dantoin demonstrated her method of eradicating invasive species with a machete, while assuring the group that there is no better occupation than growing food and providing environmental services in a sustainable way: “The ethical thing to do is to care for the land and the soil. To care for it as if your children’s children are the ones who will farm it after you are gone. It’s ethical to bank wealth in the soil adding stable, organic nutrients and organic matter through green manures and cover crops. It’s ethical to include hay in between annual crop rotation to build soil. It’s ethical to graze cattle carefully so that their feet touch the earth and the sun is on their backs. It’s ethical to treat people right by growing nutrient dense food. It’s ethical to leave a corner of the farm as a wetland for frogs and migrating waterfowl. And it’s ethical to enjoy the sunset and see the fruits of your labor in the earth, to revel in the richness of the land around you and for once not wonder what it’s worth.”

“I look forward to the time when the plow and corn and soy and brown elds and muddy waters are replaced by the always-green, protective blanket of grazing and riparian buffers.....and the blue waters that result,” says Dantoin, who serves as a Conservation Coach mentoring other women through Wisconsin Women in Conservation. She hosted a eld day on her farm for the project in 2021, leading a group of about 30 women

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Many of the 40 women who are gathered around Miller have already been following her story on Instagram at @driftlesscuriosity, where Miller posts daily ruminations on the latest success, failure and philosophical quandary she’s pondering. While she confesses that many in the group know more than she does about raising animals, attendees are still fangirling at the scope and sincerity of what she is trying to accomplish. Over the course of the learning circle discussion and farm tour, participants share their own experiences with the practices Miller points out. Community is built and hope created around the shared desire everyone has to do better by their land and its wildlife.

Joy Miller at Keewaydin Farms in Viola: Curiosity and Community in the Heart of the Driftless Joy Miller is barefoot in the middle of a small paddock of goats and sheep, talking about her struggles to keep them in and nd enough fencing to pasture them out. She’s new to sheepkeeping, new to goats, relatively new to farming - but she’s agreed to host a Wisconsin Women in Conservation eld day at Keewaydin Farms, the 200-acre ridgetop property she stewards with her husband Rufus Haucke outside of Viola. Miller is relentlessly curious and enthusiastically willing to include others on her journey of conservation experimentation.

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“Connection is key. First connect to the land and what it is asking for,” says Miller, who believes the land has allowed her to forge an unbreakable bond with the earth as home, livelihood, and comfort.

“Then connect to the community who can support you in implementing your goals. Conservation happens in connection.”

Haucke grew up on the rolling Dritless property, which was his family’s dairy. He’s operated it as a certied organic vegetable farm since 2004. 40 acres of the land is wooded, 60 acres is pasture, 90 acres are tillable, and 10 acres are homestead, including 2 acres in annual vegetable production and three hoophouses. There is an acre of hazelnuts, an acre of asparagus, and other perennial crops including fruit

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trees, raspberries, strawberries, aronia berries, honey berries, and rhubarb.

“Conservation lived in my head and in the pages of books I read until I started farming with Rufus and forming a personal relationship with the land in 2017, “ says Miller, who earned a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University. A course called “Deep Ecology” sparked her passion for conservation. “I became rooted in the philosophy of Joanna Macy and Arne Naess which helped me understand myself as part of the ecology. Keewaydin offered me a beautiful canvas to put what I learned into practice.”

Signicant parts of that practice have been shrinking the annual vegetable elds and converting them to notill, and implementing reduced and strategic mowing in the hayelds to protect grassland birds. The couple is developing bird sanctuary areas. “My hope is to work with Mother Nature to provide a balance of wildlife habitat, food production, and recreational space,” says Miller.

To that end, Miller has started a nonprot education organization called Driftless Curiosity that offers yearround workshops and experiences on the farm, many led by experts she has met in her quest to diversify and deepen Keewaydin’s conservation impact. The mission: “Deepening connections between people and the land through curiosity, experiential education, farming, social justice, and the arts.”

Top Conservation Tip: Connect with the land. Slow down and practice nature observation to learn what it needs.

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has been motivated all her life by a love for nature.

“I was born with a love for nature!” says Hankley. “My mom tells stories about me helping out the salamanders that would get in our window wells.

But my land connection history goes way back to my early childhood, when my parents, along with my aunt and uncle, bought 40 acres in Iowa County in the late 60s. I was fortunate to spend summers there in a small cottage with my siblings and cousins, exploring outside and forming a deep connection to the land.”

Heidi Hankley at York Prairie State Natural Area in Blanchardville: Stewarding her Nature Neighborhood in Driftless Green County Heidi Hankley has been volunteering down the road at the nearby 145-acre York Prairie State Natural Area for the past ten years - organizing workdays, clearing invasive honeysuckle, planting native seeds, and monitoring rare plants. Last year, she won the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) 2022 State Natural Areas Volunteer Steward of the Year award for those efforts. But Hankley

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Hankley channeled that love into wildlife ecology and environmental studies degrees, and spent time working for the DNR and the National Park Service. Then she got married and had children - deciding to be a stay-at-home parent and homeschool teacher. She says that decision gave her a great opportunity to volunteer with her two children, and other homeschool families, at the state natural area. These places are designated to conserve the best of Wisconsin prairies, forests, wetlands and other habitats. The DNR says these unique spots support 90% of rare plant species and 75% of rare wildlife species.

“I really wanted them to have the opportunity to grow up close to the land as I had, that’s why our family moved to our current home in the northwest corner of Green County, in the Driftless Region,” says Hankley,

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who has also planted half of their 7-acre property with native grasses and forbs. The land was previously planted to corn and soy and is now in CRP. She continually collects seed from local roadside prairie remnants and scatters them on the home prairie to increase species diversity, helped by periodic burns.

“The other half is wooded, including a lovely shaded ravine that carries seasonal water ow and has exposed rock cliff faces covered in native ferns, mosses, and liverworts. On the top edge of the ravine is a strip of oak woodland, including a massive, opengrown white oak that convinced us this was the place for our family to take root. In the center of it all is our house, garden, and small orchard,” says Hankley, pointing out the majestic oak and the chicken coop nestled underneath it. These days her girls have gone to college and Hankley is making art - paintings and ceramics - based on the natural beauty to which she is so attuned.

“My overall conservation approach is to act in a way that helps restore and support the diversity and function of the ecosystem,” says Hankley, who also serves as a Water Action Volunteer on a local stream and has been running a frog and toad survey with her family since 2010. “Spending time with the land observing what’s happening in my nature neighborhood guides the management actions I take.”

Top Conservation Tip: Volunteer! Take advantage of the many volunteer opportunities to actively participate in conservation with Wisconsin DNR, Prairie Enthusiasts and other organizations that run work days.

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have discussions. Local friends and mentors are many. And there are many I have yet to meet. My journey is far from over!”

Hess co-stewards Driftless Prairies in rural Lafayette County with her husband Jim. They have transitioned 60 acres of highly erodible, marginal farmland to a native wildlife sanctuary of remnant prairie, oak savanna, woods, and prairie plantings with soil gradations from dry to wet mesic.

Marci Hess at Driftless Prairies in Lafayette County: Passion for Birds and Bugs and Beyond Colleagues who get on a Zoom with Marci Hess can’t help but notice the jam-packed bookshelves that ll her screen. Ask her about them and she’ll happily list conservation authors like they are old friends.

“Books by Doug Tallamy, Thomas Eisner, John Himmelman, Bernd Heinrich were inspirational and thought provoking,” Hess says, who counts these writers among her many mentors. “There are so many; it is not possible to name even a handful. Some of my best mentors were people I didn’t agree with. The worst were ones who didn’t agree with me and refused to

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“We have worked for nearly 20 years bringing health to the soil and creating habitat for the wildlife. We have identied 245 herbaceous native plants so far; we seem to nd one or we’ll plant a new one each year. We have 50 native trees, bushes, and vines. We have many classied species -- plants, wildlife, and insects -- that enjoy living here.” says Hess, and she’s just getting started naming names. Her love for native plants led her into an exploration of the wildlife that depend on them, and she’s come to be a great lover of the amphibians and reptiles and insects that share her prairies.

“It’s an ecoSYSTEM — plants, birds, mammals, soil, herptiles, and insects. They depend on each other in an intrinsic and complex manner!

It’s a most incredible system of interrelationships and fascinating dynamics. Learning about the wildlife that depend on the prairie changed the direction of my stewardship,” says Hess, who has learned to photograph and identify the bugs she nds - making

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news as the rst to identify some for Wisconsin and national bug guides.

“My interest in insects has grown from my love of our native ecosystems.

Insects run the world. We cannot live without them. The smaller I went into learning about our ecosystem, the bigger my world became.”

But Hess’ prairie journey started with birds. Back when she and Jim lived in Madison, they began to take bird walks with the Madison Audubon Society.

Then they volunteered at Goose Pond by collecting prairie seeds in the fall months: “I learned when the seeds were ready to collect and what they looked like at that time, but didn’t know the color of the ower bloom!! Each week, after collecting for 6-8 hours, I would go home and study my plant books.”

When they moved to their rural property, the couple dove right into clearing their oak hickory woods of invasive non-native brush and garlic mustard, allowing diverse native vegetation to blanket it. They worked with NRCS to obtain engineering and funding to plant a 12-acre area with native plants to control run-off.

They worked with NRCS to restore a remnant prairie by rst clearing dense non-native brush, providing nesting birds an open, short-grass nesting area. NRCS programs also helped them restore a remnant bur oak savanna. They purchased an adjacent 8-acre remnant oak savanna and have begun restoration efforts on this, and are about halfway through the process, also working with NRCS.

Top Conservation Tip: Document your journey with before and after photos.

Celebrate your successes -- it’s so cliche’ but it’s really, really important!

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professionals from many organizations are in attendance, as well as curious landowners from across the western side of the state. Prairie restoration is a hot topic with this group, and the participants are drawn in by Farrar’s self-effacing storytelling.

Sally Farrar on Prairie in Pepin County: Stewardship as a Path to Fulfillment

“I had some concerns about using herbicides, and what was the best way to do site preparation,” admits Farrar.

“I talked to as many people as I could who had experience and expertise in land restoration and conservation.

I discovered that there are many philosophies, approaches and nuances, and that conservation is not an exact science. It’s not easy changing a seed bed. I weighed the information and advice the best I could. After the rst year it was a weedy mess thinking I’d made all the wrong choices. The second year was not much better.

Then, the 3rd year a prairie began to emerge. I didn’t realize, that’s just how it goes, it takes patience.

Sally Farrar speaks quietly, slowly, as though she is looking for just the right words to capture her earnest thoughts. She stands at the edge of a eld of yellow owers and waving grasses, wearing a crushed cowboy hat and sunglasses, addressing a small crowd of women encircling her. This is Farrar’s 13-acre prairie in rural Pepin, and the event is a Wisconsin Women in Conservation eld day.

Friends, neighbors, and conservation

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Farrar is a true believer in the efcacy and necessity of land stewardship, and has been changed by her experiences: “The natural world does not only bring us beauty and wonder, it is us, essential to our survival. We are living in a system of land ownership which has fragmented our ecosystems and was created by a harsh and brutal exploitation of the indigenous inhabitants who took great care in tending and caring for the earth.

Many current land use practices have destroyed the natural health and biome of our soils, compromising

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our clean air and water. It helps to cultivate the qualities of curiosity, patience, fortitude and delight to aid in the path of ‘doing something’ to restore that natural health.”

“The path of conservation can become a way of being, often a quiet and unseen mission that can lead to great personal reward and fulllment,” says Farrar.

Inspiration came from ecologist Cynthia Lane who had the vision and expertise to plant a 33 acre prairie in the early 2000’s.

Farrar got to witness the inception and planning, helping to fundraise for the project.

She was able to be part of mixing the seeds on planting day and later helped mow the planting on an old 1950s Ford tractor. “It was impactful to see what it took to create a prairie, it’s upkeep and the stunning fact that it was even possible. I witnessed her prairie come alive over the years as populations of insects, butteries, birds and wildlife rapidly increased.

It was a dream come true to attempt to plant a prairie on the land I have the privilege of stewarding.”

Farrar owns 72 acres in Pepin County - 22 open, 50 acres forested - and planted her own 13-acre prairie with an EQIP grant. She burned the prairie four years later with CSP funding.

Then she planted an additional 2-acre pollinator planting. Next on her list is a remnant savannah she would like to restore. There is always a list.

Heather Gayton at ZanBria Artisan Farms in Friendship Drawing on the Past to Build the Future “I’ve always felt drawn to water and that it was my life’s purpose to be a part of the crucial work to protect watersheds and advocate for the organisms which rely on them,” says Heather Gayton, who owns ZanBria Artisan Farms along the twisting banks of the LIttle Roche-Cri Creek in Friendship, part of a forested wetland property her family once used for hunting and shing.

She is the farmer lead for her local producer-led watershed group, and a regional coordinator for Wisconsin Women in Conservation.

“My indigenous roots and a deep connection to the land, water and all of Earth’s inhabitants, have always guided me toward conservation,” says Gayton, whose grandfather grew up on the Standing Rock Reservation in North and South Dakota. She grew up spending weekends at a family cabin in Wild Rose, where her love of nature was born. “My best memories as a child were outside sitting in solitude, surrounded by decaying understory beneath a canopy of trees. Building my farmstead, improving the quality of habitat and seeing an increase in

biodiversity have afrmed that I am on the right path. I love collaborating with others who feel this deep connection.”

Gayton moved to the undeveloped wooded property in 2020 with her two Huskies, her mare ZanBria, her gelding, Bayo, and her dreams of starting a small farmstead business with a conservation education enterprise. Once the Corps of Engineers nished designing a curvy road through the woods to access some high ground, Gayton built a house, chicken coop, and horse run. She obtained an NRCS EQIP grant to build a high tunnel hoop house in 2021. It’s lled in summer with heirloom squash, tiny heritage strawberries, old-fashioned tomatoes and three almond trees. Gayton winters her chickens and ducks in the hoophouse. She also broke ground on three acres of gardens, including a plot of ginseng on a wooded hillside, and has no plans to put more of her 20 acres into cultivation. Gayton is focused on restoring the forested wetland through invasive brush removal and creating paths so guests

can enjoy the magic of walking along the creek.

Gayton lost her 36-year-old horse and the farm’s namesake in June 2023.

But ZanBria’s son, Bayo, accompanies Gayton on daily walks to the Little Roche-Cri, during which she continues to formulate her restoration dreams. “I’m reaching out to many experts in their respective elds for recommendations on practices that align with indigenous wisdom and will honor the land for generations to come,” says Gayton. “I have already realized it’s not a sprint - it’s a multigenerational marathon.”

“It’s a big responsibility, the calling to take care of this land. When I feel discouraged, I remind myself of how blessed I am to be living in this era and how far women have come to be in a position to be stewards and advocates for Mother Earth. Our connection to the land, water and Mother Earth’s inhabitants is sacred.

It is through this connection we nd spiritual meaning and our purpose.”

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Women have been greatly overlooked in their role in agriculture. I believe they can be uplifted, recognized and opened to more opportunities in playing a central role in land stewardship.

Janet Gamble

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Janet Gamble at Turtle Creek Gardens in Delavan Janel Gamble has been a pillar of the organic farm movement in Wisconsin for decades. She has witnessed how the movement has changed, grown, experienced success and faced challenges. Now she’s focused on transitioning healthy land and soil wisdom to the next generation of organic stewards. “It is my task to grow nutritionally dense food for the well being and health of all people with the utmost respect for the earth and with the intention of passing knowledge to others,” she says.

“It is imperative to conserve and preserve our soil and water from erosion by incorporating annual and perennial species into our cropping systems and creating habitat for birds and other wildlife,” says Gamble, who was hired in 2010 to create infrastructure and systems for growing vegetables on the 80 acres at Turtle Creek Gardens in rural Delavan. She shepherded the farm through organic certication, and is now an owner of what she calls the “farm organism.”

Over time, Gamble has built the health of her soil by reducing production acres and adding grazing, cover crops and perennial spaces. Currently, 20 acres are for vegetable production

and 40 are in hay, rotational grazing lands, hedgerows, and permanent roadways and alleys with living cover. She obtained a grant from the Natural Resources Conservation Service in 2017 to control ooding on the west end of her vegetable elds.

The swales established were planted in native species to slow down soil runoff. There is a small orchard and aronia berry bushes.

“All these elements are working in unison towards what we call the ‘farm organism’ that embodies its unique eco-system and farm individuality,” says Gamble, who is currently experimenting with cover crops using just mowing and no tillage. “Soil conservation and building organic matter is of the utmost importance as we face climate change and look at the decline of biodiversity in the soil and environment.”

Gamble says her mentors have been other organic farmers and the regenerative agriculture movement in general. Her advice to beginning growers and budding conservationists is to connect with other landowners and the local professionals at the NRCS. She is a Conservation Coach with Wisconsin Women in Conservation and mentors beginning farmers with Marbleseed. In 2021, she hosted a Wisconsin Women in Conservation eld day at her farm, touring about 30 women through the elds, greenhouses, pastures and a buckwheat cover crop eld vibrating with bees.

“I nd these networks to be one of the most benecial strategies for sharing information and getting to know the community of like minded people.

I think this accelerates concepts that need on-farm implementation and further experimentation,” says Gamble. “Women have been greatly overlooked in their role in agriculture.

I believe they can be uplifted, recognized and opened to more opportunities in playing a central role in land stewardship.”

Top Conservation Tip: Take one step at a time and imagine what you want your landscape to look like. Observe, observe, observe.

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Kathy Ruggles and Sarah Broadfoot on Downsville Creamery Road: A Mother-Daughter Legacy of Land Stewardship

“My mom, Kathy Ruggles, has been an avid gardener throughout my life and has been working on prairie restoration projects since I was a teenager. She has been instrumental in nurturing my interest in plants

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and food,” says Sarah Broadfoot, Operations Director at Marbleseed, the organic-based farm education organization. She’s worked there since she was a young adult, having gone to the University of Minnesota for horticulture and starting a native plant landscaping business in Minneapolis.

Other than her mother, she says her main inspiration is FOOD: “I love cooking and eating really good food.

I love growing food. I love eating food that was foraged, shed, hunted.

I want to help sustain the natural communities that support this.”

time, they have taken advantage of various government programs to achieve their conservation goals. A 10KW solar system was installed in 2010 with a REAP grant. They used NRCS EQIP grants for a prairie savanna project between 2013 and 2015 and CSP grants for invasive plant suppression and riparian buffers. They have participated in a United States Fish and Wildlife Service Improvement Project. In 2021 they got an EQIP grant to do more conservation planning.

Broadfoot is doing just that, along with Ruggles, at the family property in Downsville, where they manage 70 acres of woodland, prairies and wetland to increase habitat for animal and plant diversity. Broadfoot returned to Wisconsin several years ago and now owns 1.5 acres that adjoins the property overlooking the Red Cedar River valley. Since she moved home, she’s planted fruit trees, native shrubs and owers, and manages a large vegetable garden with Ruggles:: “I’m passionate about working towards improving our food system and helping farmers lessen their impact on the earth. My gardening aspirations are now focused on my yard.”

Kathy’s Top Conservation Tip:

Ruggles, meanwhile, says her conservation inspiration was politics: “I got politically active in the 70’s and became interested in sustainable living and conservation at that time.”

She bought the property with her husband John Thomas in 1993. Over

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Any little bit helps. Don’t feel like you have to do it all at once.

Sarah’s Top Conservation Tip: Work with a group or individuals who have experience and are doing the work you want to do.

“Be open to new ideas and keep working on it. Pay attention to how the land is responding,” says Ruggles, who led a prairie burn worksop with Broadfoot and Thomas for Wisconsin Women in Conservation at the property in 2022. “Lead with curiosity.”

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past two years my husband and I have had a desire to nd a way to restore the symbiotic relationship within gardens and with animals. We are learning as we go, but really appreciate the connections and harmony that God has created in the earth at Beulah and with those who desire to support our vision.”

Efueko Landry at Beulah Family Homestead in Elkhorn: Raising Organic Food and Farmers for the Future Efueko Landry and her husband, Marcus, didn’t grow up farming.

In fact, they were Milwaukee ball players - Efueko played basketball for Marquette and Marcus played for the University of Wisconsin, before his professional career as a forward for the Knicks, Celtics, and the South Korean league. When an injury in the South Korean league forced him to retire in 2020, the couple decided to invest in their dream of growing healthy food and raising their kids with fresh air and hard work on a farm.

“My family and I had no prior experience other than my husband Marcus building our rst chicken coop at our previous home. Everything has been a hands-on learning experience that is full of fun and adventure with each new step,” says Efueko. “Over the

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That vision is an unusual one. As elite athletes, the Landrys have long appreciated the value of organically grown healthy food for themselves.

But at Beulah Family Homestead, they are growing a lot more than food for themselves. On their 19 acres in rural Elkhorn, they are also growing healthy food for hungry inner city families and providing garden experiences for hundreds more through their educational programs. In fact, these athletes are using basketball camps and school eld trips to bring young people out and expose them to farming. The mission is to build stronger families and communities through sports and agriculture, giving urban families and teenagers the skills they need to build a great future. They help to encourage some of them to go into farming, an occupation that hasn’t always had good connotations for African Americans.

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The farm is named for the Biblical term “beulah,” which means “married” and also refers to a beautiful land.

For the Landrys, the name connotes commitment to the cause of sustainable living, and they encourage the young people they mentor to be “all in,” regardless of what they choose to pursue. The Landrys certainly live that motto, raising cows, turkeys, chickens, sheep, goats, ducks, horses and vegetables in both gardens and hydroponic systems. They bought the former horse farm in 2021.

Efueko says the Wisconsin Women in Conservation program has been instrumental in helping the family access USDA technical support and funding. NRCS is helping them design and fund pasture renovations and water lines.

“I was grateful to attend a Wisconsin Women in Conservation seminar and the coordinator, Noemy Serrano, helped get us into a conservation program. The entire team has been so helpful and it has made the biggest difference in our journey,” says Efueko.

“I really enjoy the women-only setting.

It is actually less intimidating for me to attend and helped me feel connected and comfortable with learning.”

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W iW i C . o r g 2023

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