I grew up in rural Indiana County, about two hours west of State College, where my family grew some Christmas trees and raised a small garden.  It must have been enough to pique my interest in agriculture, as I have always enjoyed anytime spent working on farms.  My love of working outdoors led me to study forestry at Penn State where I am just finishing up a graduate degree.  Over the last few years my interest in agriculture, combined with a growing passion for local economies and responsible resource use, convinced me that I needed to learn more about organic food production.  The more I learned the more interested I became, and so I decided that I wanted to get some hands on experience producing delicious, fresh, locally-eaten organic food.  So here I am!  I have already learned a diverse array of skills, such as picking rocks, transplanting chard and feeding chickens!  I hope to one day combine interests in forestry and agriculture to provide both sustainably harvested forest products and food to my community.  In the mean time, I am looking forward to learning, working, and helping to provide you with some tasty veggies.

I was lucky enough to be born and raised in a beautiful hollow near Port Matilda, close to State College.  Until I found my chance to come here (another gorgeous place), I was fortunate to work at Penn State in a crop and soil science research lab, after getting a biology degree from Juniata College. I’m constantly amazed at how much the crew here accomplishes and how much there is to learn.  I’ve helped with my parent’s fair sized garden enough to foolishly think I had a sense of what it’s like to plant a lot of veggies in a day. Helping with a planting of almost ten thousand onions in a day made me realize how wrong I was.

I started working at Village Acres in April of 2008.  I started here not knowing what to expect.  Since then I've learned more than I ever thought I could about growing vegetables.  One day, I'm hoping to start my own farm and provide organic food to more people.  I'm excited and looking forward to this summer and all the new things it will bring, including my first child.

My employment with Village Acres began in 2008 right in the middle of the summer.  That meant a quick introduction to my coworkers and right to work.  I was amazed at the amount of responsibility that I was given so quickly.  It’s truly an on-the-job training.  From that day forward, I have been learning a whole new language.  Before I made this career change, I worked for 15 years in an office in front of a computer every day.  It is wonderful beyond description to be outside breathing fresh air, hearing the birds sing, and getting dirty. 

I’m new to organic produce farming, however I’m familiar with the hard work that is involved with farming.  I grew up on a dairy farm south of Port Royal.  As a child I had a variety of chores such as feeding chickens, gathering eggs, milking cows, and driving tractor.  My parents also planted a lot of green beans, sweet corn, and potatoes for many summers while I was growing up.  Naturally at the time I didn’t appreciate all the hard work, but now I am very thankful for the work ethic that my parents instilled in me. 

As a Village Acres CSA member since 2007, I’ve always enjoyed eating the colorful variety of produce I receive.  Now that I get to harvest, sort, portion, and pack your (and my) CSA box, it has given me a whole new appreciation for the delicious food that is grown on this farm.  I’m blessed to be a part of this great Village Acres crew and to play a part in bringing “live” food to your table!

I grew up in Guys Mills, PA, a tiny town about 40 miles south of Erie.  My parents were not farmers, but they gardened extensively, and my dad worked in a variety of sales jobs in the food industry – so I’ve spent a lot of time eating homegrown produce, mass-produced frozen food, and everything in between.  I went to college at Penn State where I got a degree in environmental resource management and then went on to study plant ecology at Stony Brook University on Long Island.  I learned a lot in graduate school but I was never sure if I really wanted to work in a university for the rest of my life.  What really made me happiest was not writing papers or planning experiments but just working with plants, both outside and in the greenhouses on campus.   I have always been an environmentalist, concerned with how society was going to manage to live on the land without destroying it, and I was simultaneously becoming more and more excited about cooking and eating good fresh food and reading more and more worrying news about the problems with conventional agriculture.  Now this was a problem to get passionate about!  I decided the best way to figure out what was going on with sustainable agriculture was to jump right in and get a job on a farm and because I had loved the landscape of central Pennsylvania while at Penn State, I decided to look for something nearby.  I arrived here May 4 and have been learning the ropes and growing your vegetables ever since.

This is a great farm to learn how to: grow organic vegetables, run a CSA, work on a small family farm, build a shed, weed, hook up an irrigation system, drive a tractor (or two, or three...), transplant....  It has been a great learning experience and I look forward to an abundant growing and harvest season in 2009.
Three years ago my family & I were living in New Jersey where I was working in a career that had nothing to do with farming.  Sensing a leading from God to get more in touch with the land and my own family, we made the move to the farm.  Before coming to Village Acres, I apprenticed at a farm in Virginia, which had buffalo, broilers (meat chickens), layers (hens), pigs, goats and geese.  I've certainly had ample contact with the soil and have enjoyed working the land, most of all with my family close by.

My dream is to open a small bakery/cafe that is entirely locally sourced, so I came to the farm in April 2009 to learn more about vegetable production. I wanted to see if I could do it all- be a self-contained operation. I don't think I can after experiencing the work and care that goes into all the fruits and vegetables this farm produces. What I have learned is how to work hard in the sun, how to raise seedlings, and how amazing things are accomplished with a whole community's involvement. And I don't think my co-workers mind too much when I offer them my bakery experiments.