Willowsford Conservancy

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Village Voice

Did you know?

The beloved Farm Stand is back! This season you can look forward to an open Farm Stand twice weekly, a monthly seasonal Farm Stand in The Greens and additional access points to the Farm through increased volunteer, event, and program opportunities.

Moving Forward

Operation Resilience in Action

by The Farm Team

Spring is often a time for reflection and renewal, and it could not be truer for your Farm team this year. Over the course of the past year your new team has been actively listening—and we want you to know that we value and appreciate the feedback and grace you have provided us.

In the Summer 2021 issue of WillowsfordLife we outlined three goals for the Farm based on our preliminary findings and feedback: We need to build soil health, improve operational efficiencies, and increase community engagement opportunities—all three goals are aimed at providing our Farm and community with greater resiliency.

Building Soil Health

Soil health is key to resilience, especially during escalating severity and frequency of weather events driven by climate change. We have addressed this through the increased use of cover crops, extending crop rotations, reducing tillage, rotational grazing of the laying hens, and through a new community partnership with Apex Organix, a veteran owned residential composting company. Residents who participate in this service will have the opportunity to dedicate their finished compost to the Farm—giving every resident the opportunity to lend a hand in improving soil health.

Community Engagement

Connection is key to resilience, especially during times of uncertainty and the growing need for a greater understanding of the natural world. We have addressed this over the past 10 months by increasing the number of Farm program and events—we added a new children’s after-school program, hosted the Farm’s 10-year anniversary celebration, added opportunities for small group feedback sessions through Meet the Farmer events, added opportunities for the community to participate in farm tours and socials, increased volunteer opportunities, and conducting 1:1 listening sessions with several community members.

Improve Operational Efficiencies

Financial sustainability is key to resilience, fine-tuning operational efficiencies will provide the Farm with resources to focus on the preceding goals. We have addressed this over the past 10 months by reducing seed expense by conducting a seed inventory analysis, leveraged our drip irrigation system to reduce labor management hours and reduce water resource needs, re-oriented field layouts to reduce labor hours, prioritized repairing the road between the primary Farm fields to reduce maintenance expense caused by wear and tear on equipment, reduced winter share labor hours by half while outperforming sales figures from the year prior—this time savings allowed the team to address deferred maintenance concerns aimed at increasing the useful life of equipment and assets, sold assets that don’t fit our current/future needs and exchanged them with equipment that will reduce labor hours and increase our ability to retain our number one asset on the farm, our human capital.

Moving forward our team will continue to listen to the community and actively work on each of these goals to ensure the Farm is best equipped for the next chapter. This season you can look forward to an open Farm Stand twice weekly, a monthly seasonal Farm Stand in The Greens and additional access points to the Farm through increased volunteer, event, and program opportunities.

The Unsung Natives

by The Land Stewardship Team

There are often unassuming heroes all around us, and because of their modesty or appearance, they can be easily overlooked or misunderstood, and it becomes that much more satisfying when we reveal those heroes from the shadows and present them the spotlight they so well deserve. While there are underrated participants in sports and more, a few underappreciated locals are in our woods too. As a community, some of our favorite wildlife to spot are creatures such as foxes, bluebirds, and deer. But some of the less popular critters have a terrible reputation and do not get the recognition they deserve for their benefits.

You can find one of the most disliked locals slipping through the forest leaf litter or quietly hidden away in a fallen log. Eastern Rat snakes are the most frequently occurring snake species in our area, and while some people may be alarmed when they encounter one, these gentle snakes are shy of humans. As rat snakes are non-venomous and easy-going, they are quite harmless to people but are an effective predator for mice, rats, lizards, insects (even ticks!), and other tiny pests. Their propensity to catch these small pests makes them great backyard visitors and woodland residents.

Although a much smaller native, Orb Weaver spiders look intimidating enough to cause anyone to take a step back. During the late summer, you may spot these colorful spiders weaving a web in the branches of bushes or trees, and although they look like a creature from a Halloween movie, these spiders are very docile and harmless towards people and pets. They are masters at catching insects, and if you are lucky, one of these vibrant spiders may take up residency in your landscaping and feast on flies and mosquitoes that might bother you.

An incredibly clever waterways engineer, beavers have a long-held reputation for being hard to remove pests. They are one of the few species

of wildlife that manipulate their environment to fit their needs, and in the wrong location, they can be very destructive. In the right area, beavers can create diverse wetlands that become a habitat for a wide variety of wildlife. For certain species such as beavers, Willowsford Conservancy creates habitat spaces to draw in particular fauna in beneficial areas where they can thrive without conflicting with humans.

Willowsford Conservancy manages a variety of woodlands, grasslands, wetlands, and more so that all of our native wildlife species have a space where they can thrive. With our community being an integral part of these spaces, it is crucial to recognize the value to some of our wild neighbors. In most cases, some of these unsung heroes do more to benefit us than we realize. Have questions about some of our wildlife? Feel free to reach out to info@willowsfordconservancy.org for answers and resources.

Upcoming Conservancy Programs & Events

Please scan this QR code or visit WillowsfordConservancy.org for additional details and registration!

CSA Capacity Increased

Your Farm team is excited to announce that we are expanding our CSA capacity in 2022. This is in large part because of the incredible demand from our community, and for that we thank you! Why join the CSA? You will receive priority access to all things Willowsford Farm has to offer! Register today by scanning this QR code or visiting WillowsfordConservancy.org/Farm.