Recently 30 acres of forest next to our farm were logged out. This deforestation will have an enormous impact on local wildlife that was already under pressure from habitat loss due to housing development in our area-- not to mention on our livestock as predators become increasingly desperate for a meal.

Obviously it was our neighbor?s right to sell their timber. We can?t fix that situation, and getting mad solves nothing. So we choose to get to work helping the local ecosystem adjust by planting permanent hedgerows of native food trees and shrubs.

We are committed to planting native food hedge to help replace wildlife foraging habitat. While many of the tree and shrubs are already on our land and can be propagated or transplanted, we will also need to purchase trees and supplies.

Our goal is to raise at least $1500 for this project. This way we can order bareroot trees for planting this fall/winter.

If we somehow raise more than this amount, we will put it towards extending the hedge or even adding a second food hedge on the lower part of our farm. We can?t possibly have too much habitat!

This was something my grandmother said, although the original source is Chaucer. The meaning is simple enough: you are only as pretty as your actions. This thought has shaped how we farm and the standards we hold ourselves to.