Starting a Farm from Scratch: Part 1
by Chris Grataski
Brad SalonMy work at Roots combines my love for wilderness and adventure, hard work with good folks, building with my hands, and constant problem solving. Although I have a love for all the skills I have devoted possibly too much time to flint knapping stone tools and find ever increasing complexity and challenges to pursue with that skill. I have a love of bow building, archery, and hunting, a skill that has tested me on every level. The skills of tracking and awareness are brought to bare in every skill I work. The Scout classes are near obsession for me, but you will see that should you attend. Learning to connect these skills to the present day, to the present conditions of the world, I strive to re-evaluate and grow my perspective. My work is done in the company of friends, all determined in their own ways to make the world a richer, healthier place. I started teaching wilderness skills in 2000. Aside from there skills I have a deep love for telling stories through the mediums of picture and video.
B.A. Individualized Studies, Goddard College, 2006
Sarah CorriganSarah is an herbalist and primitive skills practitioner who has a focus on ethnobotanical studies. Informed by these land based arts, she finds they offer the rewards of self reliance through skill, responsibility and gratitude through growing and gathering, and the awe and wonder of things through the beauty of the natural world. In effect, that this interaction can educate us to being more capable, responsible, and healthier human beings. As a student and an educator, she remains passionate about continuous learning, and facilitating a student's relationship to the natural world through supporting their own learning processes.
B.A. Art History, Drew University, 2005
Vermont Center of Integrative Herbalism Clinical Herbalism 3 year program
Nick NeddoNick Neddo is a sixth generation Vermonter who has been making art since he could first pick up a crayon. He grew up exploring the wetlands, forests and fields of his bioregion and developed a profound curiosity, respect and love for the community of life around him. As a young teenager Nick identified primary focuses that would become life-long pursuits: study of the natural world, Stone Age technology (popularly known as primitive skills) and creating art. Trusting the inherent value of these skills, he continues to embrace their pursuit with a ravenous appetite fueled by a genuine love of the living world and the creative process. He has traveled the country extensively, visiting the last great wildernesses, seeking traditional skills and experiencing the landscape’s majesty, which are common themes in his artwork.
Nick has been teaching wilderness survival and living skills, tracking, drawing and nature awareness professionally since 2000, although he considers himself a perpetual student. You can find his latest artwork and other creations at www.nickneddo.com.
Chris GrataskiChris is a farmer, herbalist, and design professional working at the confluence of regenerative food systems and wilderness management. His work in ecological design is focused on holistic land-planning and agroecology, with special attention to bioregional food systems, wildlife ecology, and cultural renewal. As an educator he has taught across North America on the intersection of social and ecological issues, urging a re-engagement with traditional skills and ecological design as integral components of a renewed social imagination. At Roots he teaches courses in permaculture design and applied ecology, and in 2017 will be establishing The Stone River Homestead, a diversified research farm on the Roots campus exploring the nexus of agroforestry, medicinal plants, and bioregionally adapted seed.
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