I married into this farm 40 years ago.
This is a preserved farm, it's always gonna be a farm. We've got to protect the
soils. I don't take it for granted. You know it's, it's really special to me
and our whole family and you're never done learning when it's coming to
farming.
Well, it's special to me because it's where I grew up. But you have great views from
the top of our hills to see the Delaware Water Gap. The left is Pennsylvania, on the
right is New Jersey. And for us as a family it's our history. This farm has
been in my family for close to 100 years. My great-grandfather purchased this
homestead we're in today and decided to go into the dairy business. Then my
grandfather took it over. He was a star farmer and a master farmer. Four years
ago I purchased the farm from my grandmother,
and here we are today selling grass-fed beef.
We practice no-till farming, putting cover crops in after other crops, we do
rotational grazing. The conservation practices that we implemented over the
years were fencing the streams so the cattle didn't have access to the water,
causing soil erosion there, poor water quality and the loss of nutrients that
we wanted to keep on the land. We also implemented contour strips on our hay
ground. We took highly erodible land and put it
into permanent pasture, created a lot of biodiversity, better drainage, better
soil structure, less runoff. We installed waterways and planted switch grass around
woods for wildlife. And then on our other project, which we call the school project,
we fenced in and preserved wetlands and also put in bee pollination habitat, and we
promote education of conservation practices.
Well, the school property was a Christmas tree farm for 45 years. Through
funding through NRCS and some others we ended up putting cattle on it. I never
planted any grass on the property. I knew if I put the cattle on it and managed the
property the seed bank of grasses that are in the soil will start to come out
of dormancy. I recommend the NRCS highly because they will help you
with funding, and direct you in the right path on what to do and give you
great advice on different conservation practices. To have healthy cattle I think
it all starts with healthy soil, a healthy ecosystem, clean water and air.
And if you have all that, the rewarding part or it all is the peacefulness.
We definitely have a lot of birds going overhead. This farm is really special to
our whole family. We worked really hard for it. I just like being in peace and it's
perfect. He was with his grandfather always on the farm when his grandfather was living,
spending all the time up here in the farm and it's just a way life. Oh yeah.
I'm proud of this award because of Aldo Leopold's contributions to the field of
environmentalism. Leopold was a significant philosopher and
environmentalist and he was also a practitioner of what he spoke about.
I feel it's a big honor to get this award. You know the conservation practices that
we're doing here for almost 22 years now, a very big honor for us.
My hopes for this farm in the future is to keep it going and keep the
conservation practices going so future generations will have something.