Session

Descriptions

Saturday, May 24th

Sunday, May 25th

Sunday
Block 5 | 9:00 - 10:00 am

Crafting Herbal Teas

Stephanie Miller
MysticPine Farm · Mysticpine-Farm.square.site

Learn from a grower's journey to curate and experience the many flavors of herbs and flowers. Herbal infusions create a energetic synergy that flows like water. Stephanie will guide us through a tea fueled journey to discovery the benefits of a daily herbal tea ritual. Blend brewed teas to find what surprise flavors exist for you and learn how to curate for benefit and flavor.

  • Stephanie Miller of MysticPine Farm; hailing from Philadelphia, wears multiple hats as a disabled organic farmer, herbalist, and chef. With over two decades of experience cultivating food in diverse spaces, she embodies afro-indigenous land stewardship by nurturing crops using only natural means. MysticPine Farm, located in her ancestral community, is where she grows sustainable heirloom produce, forest-farmed mushrooms, and medicinal botanicals. The farm also serves as a catalyst, helping her community combat health disparities through access to therapeutic farming. Stephanie’s commitment extends beyond the soil; she advocates for equitable food access while dismantling barriers faced by black farmers.

Deciphering the Cut Sheet

Margaret Crick
Open Door Homestead · OpenDoorHomestead.com

When sending animals to processing, weather it's for yourself or for customers, filling out cut sheets can be overwhelming and confusing. Each processor has a list of regulations that they are required to follow depending on their inspectors. Each processor has different cut sheets and will often call the same cut by different name. By knowing what to expect from a cut sheet you can better communicate with your customer and the processor limiting the number of mistakes and surprises when picking up the meat. This allows you as a producer to better serve your customer and setting yourself separate from other producers.

  • Open Door Homestead LLC is a family operation located in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley. We are committed to providing families with quality products. Our focus is doing the very best for our animals so that the end-product is the very best for our customers. We also believe in educating our customers and answering all questions so that customers can make good, educated decisions when feeding their families. We are currently offering pork, beef, eggs, and dairy herdshares. We also will be offering Homesteading workshops throughout the year. We have a passion for teaching others to be self-sufficient on small acreage.

Easy Build: Chicken Tractor (Part III)

Dwayne Jones
Redd Cabbage Farms | Redd Cabbage Cares · @the.joneses

Each part of this multi-session demonstration may be attended individually. This is a hands-on building workshop.

Constructing a chicken tractor doesn’t have to be a daunting task. We’re going to grab a few pieces of wood, a roll of hardware cloth, a few screws, and some basic power tools, and let the fun begin! You’ll also learn why chicken tractors are such a great tool for providing your chickens with fresh forage while keeping them safe and contained, all while improving your garden soil naturally.

  • Dwayne, a self-proclaimed handyman turned farmhand, is a Richmond native with a passion for gardening and farming. After spending about 15 years as a novice gardener, he decided to take things more seriously over the past five years, driven by the desire to create a more sustainable and healthier lifestyle in the face of today’s uncertainty. When he's not pulling weeds, petting pigs, or hunting for eggs, you’ll find him in his workshop searching for drill bits—though he's convinced the chickens are hiding those too!

Mending Circle

Strings Applewood
Bramble Community · bramblecollective.xyz

Bring the project you’ve been working on (or wanting to work on) or start something new! Learn or practice various mending styles including darning, visible mending with embroidery thread, and needle felting.

  • Strings (they/them) lives, plays, and works at Bramble, a collective homestead project in Bumpass, Virginia. Strings identifies as a chaotic-good anarchist, gardener, musician, maker, learner, and unschool parent who loves to hang out in the woods and make mild mischief. Fiber arts and crafts rank high among their favorite fidgets.