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5/21/2022 Hello! This is Lynn and Dennis Roitt of Silver Pond Farm's first blog post! We used to publish a newsletter for family and friends, but when farm life got too busy, that fell by the wayside. Now that the farm is changing direction, we want to chronicle the changes and share with our community the steps we are taking along the way. First, where did this begin? Dennis grew up on a dairy farm in eastern Wisconsin, and his love of hard physical labor was formed during those early years. Lynn developed an appreciation for agriculture in her college years, and although her plans to join the Peace Corps never came to fruition, her degree in Soil Science has stood her in good stead over the years. During that time, she became passionate about the importance of organic, regenerative, small scale agriculture, long before all those words became associated with it. She also wondered why the farmer couldn’t cut out the middlemen and market directly to consumers about the time CSA was being developed, but independently of any knowledge of the movement. Time passed, lives developed independently of the early influences and each other, and then in 2006, Dennis and Lynn met. How will remain a relative secret for the moment..... We soon knew that our lives would continue forward together, and in 2008 we were married in Wisconsin. One of the passions we shared was a desire to produce nutritious food (or buy it from a CSA or farmers market rather than the grocery store), and so the search for a farm ensued. Lynn’s mother was from Wisconsin, but Lynn’s first visit to the state was in the summer of 2001 for a Bahá’í conference in Milwaukee, which was followed by a trip to Door County with her mother and daughter. The bucolic scenery dotted with pretty farmsteads prompted her to proclaim to her mother that she wanted to live in one someday. Little did she dream that within a decade that dream would be within reach. We found our farm through an unlikely sequence of events, and were soon qualifying for the bank loan and preparing to move in. From the start we’d made arrangements to rent adjoining land for pasture, realizing that we’d need more acreage to keep a healthy organic dairy going. Although dairy prices tanked soon after beginning our dairy, we persevered until the fateful day that the land owner from whom we rented our extra grazing land decided he had other plans for it, and suddenly we went from 23 grazable acres to 4. Our faith in our purpose on this farm is strong, however, and so we prayed and contemplated, and suddenly realized that the no-till regenerative farming model of a market garden CSA was the solution. Hence, Silver Pond Farm CSA! At the root of our effort stands our initial realization that this farm was a gift to us. We have never felt guided as strongly as we were when led here. It truly seems to us that there was a purpose in our finding it, which seems to be to enable this farm to become the center of a community of people. Our vision of this community is of people united in the pursuit of health, nutrition, and joyous, ethical and just relationships -- with the land, the animals, and the people who come together to make Silver Pond Farm a reality. Lynn’s agricultural science background and Dennis’s strong farm work ethic and experience are going to be the foundation of our efforts as we break ground, plant crops, study best working models, and strive to put this dream into reality. The mainstays, however, will be those of you who share our vision of community and join us to make this CSA a reality. In conclusion, we welcome you to become part of this farm family. Some may be sometimes visitors, some will become part of the family. All will share in the bounty possible when we combine passion and integrity in the pursuance of healthful existence.