What were you doing before you applied to Conway School?
Before applying to Conway School, I was managing a bakery and working independently as a residential gardener and sometimes small garden designer. I was also traveling when I could, working seasonally on farms to financially sustain my travels.
What brought you to Conway?
The desire to work on a larger, community-level scale.
How did you first learn about Conway?
I first learned about Conway from fellow Master Gardener classmate and Conway alum, Elaine Williamson. I remember looking up the website after hearing that she attended Conway and immediately knowing I wanted to attend, even though I didn’t apply for another four years.
Imagine we just met, and recognized we had common interests. How would you describe Conway to me?
Conway is a crash course in landscape design and land use planning with a heavy dose of ecology that will expose you to diverse perspectives and challenge you to question your own beliefs and assumptions about the environment and sustainability. It’s an exciting and challenging ten months of constant learning by doing, in the field, from immensely supportive faculty and staff, your classmates, and innovators in the field.
What advice do you have for someone just starting out in the field?
Don’t stop drawing! It is such an important way to observe and engage with the world around you and you are guaranteed to notice things you would have otherwise missed.
What are you doing right now, and what do you love about it?
I’m the Director of a small non-profit, Bramble Hill Farm, that was created to purchase a mixed agricultural and residential property in Amherst with the goal to protect and sustain the unique and diverse ecologies associated with open land and to explore alternative uses for productive agricultural land.
The farm was the third in the state to enroll in the APR program so the property has an agricultural easement that says the land must be used for agricultural purposes as defined by the state of Massachusetts: primarily for the raising and growing of livestock and crops for commercial sale. The nonprofit’s mission to explore alternative uses for productive agricultural land is directly at odds with the land’s agricultural easement, which is potent ground for exploring the role of farms and open land in our communities.
What I love about this work are the varied tasks required to manage such a diverse piece of land. No two days look the same and I am constantly challenged to adapt to the evolving needs of the land and the community it supports. One day I might be tapping maple trees to make syrup with a school group and the next, creating and implementing a grassland conservation plan; one day responding to a leak in our irrigation system and the next, coordinating the negotiation of a land lease.
Right now I am focusing on creating a succession plan for the nonprofit’s founder who wants to preserve affordable and secure access to farmland and housing. This work includes creating a master land use plan for the property, organizational and land management plans, and exploring alternative tenure models, such as ground leases, to create equitable legal and financial structure for passing along use of the land and its resources into the future .
List one or more books that you find influential in the field of ecological design and/or planning.
Garden Revolution by Larry Weaner has been an extremely practical resource for me for gardening and designing landscapes guided by the principles of ecological succession and site analysis.
What book changed your life?
Are Prisons Obsolete? By Angela Davis. This book completely changed how I understand the ways we collectively address or fail to address social issues and inequality through policing and imprisonment. Golden Gulag by Ruth Wilson Gilmore expanded this understanding and taught me how policing and prisons are intricately connected to agriculture, land use development, and environmental crisis.
What is your favorite tool? E.g., a type of gardening tool, digital tool, etc.
You’re unlikely to find me without a pair of Felco pruners holstered to my hip. I also love and use an app called Sunseeker all the time which allows me to see the sun’s path through my phone’s camera from any location at any time or day of the year. It’s a quick way to find the sun exposure of a particular spot and might be the best $10 I’ve ever spent.
Which aspects do you use to address urgent challenges related to climate change, environmental justice, etc.?
There are too many to name but I think one of the most important aspects I have carried with me is how to communicate complex ideas to diverse audiences.
What blogs or podcasts do you recommend? Particular posts or episodes?
I recently listened to a series of episodes from the podcast Poor Prole’s Almanac that were published starting in April 2024 covering the political origins and history of post-World War 2 land movements including the permaculture, organic, homesteading, and the back to the land movements. They also have some great episodes covering the natural history of keystone plant species popular in the permaculture, agroecological, and edible gardening worlds.