BELFAST — A few months ago, Shana Hanson, farmer at 3 Streams Farm in Belfast, was caught stealing hemlock branches from the Montville property of a young man, who proceeded to help her load vast quantities, and then…. figured out that he had lived at 3 Streams Farm when he was 10 years old! He asked what the other residents over the years were like, thinking they must be quite interesting.
Around the same time, an increased trickle of folks started calling Shana, after reading her bits in Mark Krawszyk’s Coppice Agroforestry book, noticing her SARE FNE22-013 Annual Report involving a new Chain-Flail Leaf Separator machine, or seeing her February NOFA NH Winter Conference presentation, Livestock want Browse: Practical Methods for Use of Woody Perennials.
Saturday, May 27th from 10 AM on into the evening, all such people who desire or have a connection to 3 Streams Farm, especially including (but not limited to) folks interested or experienced in use of tree fodders and browse, plus ast 3 Streams Farm residents, interns, apprentices, WWOOFers (work-trade stays offered through World-Wide Organization of Organic Farms), milk drinkers, blueberry cooperative members, and neighbors, are invited to meet each other, tour the 3 Streams Farm woodland and pollards, learn something (from safely cutting off large tree parts, to plant ID, rope climbing, or draft with a single ox), wander with goats and a very loving bovine, pitch in on a farm task, bring and eat potluck food, possibly burn some brush into biochar, and play and sing music by a smaller late fire.
Shana has been pollarding trees for dairy goats, one sow now retired, and sometimes cattle since 2010, and teaching others about this climate-positive shift toward tree-based ways of raising livestock since 2015. You can find resources about this subject at https://3streamsfarmbelfastme.blogspot.com . Other farmers and herdspeople are likewise experienced in use of trees to feed livestock, and some of them plan to atted; this is a rare chance chance to learn from them all in one place.
Cake will be provided, since at least three people present will have birthday to celebrate (…AND a past resident happens to want to replace a scrumptious birthday cake stolen in 2019!)
3 Streams Farm is also very happily celebrating the renewal of Goat Dairy CSA shares (call for details), because the State DACF, Northern Tilth, and Alpha Analytical Lab now say that last year’s all-season high, low, and all-over-the-place PFAS results were false positives, since the 537.1 water test used reads natural and beneficial cholic bile acids as PFOS (the one specific PFAS chemical that is said to mostly show up in milk).
RSVP Shana at 3 Streams Farm, 338-3301 Voicemail; please say your planned arrival time and phone number.