Tryon Life Community Farm

In progress!

Our fabulous writing intern from Green Mountain College in Vermont, Emily Aronowitz, has just put the finishing touches on the enlightening Farm Story. Thank you Emily for all your work here this summer!

You may see a technical overview of the land acquisition, whereby this land was saved.

TLC Farm's organizational structure is designed to empower people to become part of the decisions and actions of embodying a new world.

Participants

TLC Farm runs on love and creativity, with an enormous amount of volunteer energy fueling our projects. Below are the bios of the Board of Directors and key organizers & volunteers (more to come!).

Board of Directors
Brenna Bell. Brenna brings to her work ten years of organizing experience, as well as an extensive background in environmental law and education. She has spent many years in the Tryon Creek watershed: first as a student at Lewis & Clark College, where she self-designed a major in Social Ecology; next as a counselor at the Tryon Creek State Park summer day camp; then as a student at Lewis & Clark Law School, where she was President of the Student Bar Association and received an Environmental and Natural Resources Certificate; and finally as a resident and core organizer with Tryon Life Community Farm. Brenna has worked for numerous non-profits, including the NEDC, the Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center, and she is currently the part-time staff attorney for Willamette Riverkeeper. She is also blessed to be raising her daughter, Ember, in the strong and supportive TLC Farm community.

Hope Medford: Hope is a certified professional midwife, having attended over 300 births; a successful painter with a solo gallery show under her belt; and a passionate teacher of art and hand-drumming. Her background in social work -- she has been employed at both a hospice and a domestic violence shelter -- deepens her commitment to healing broken lives and communities. Part Cherokee, she also has a strong interest in indigenous ways, and participated for nine years in the Global Peace Walk uniting tribes and races. She has extensive experience with Lakota and Pueblo ceremonies, and has lead ritual at the Hanuman temple in Taos, NM. Currently, she is helping build the environmental education program at TLC Farm, linking arts and the environment.

Judy Bluehorse Skelton - Board Co-President: Educator and herbalist, Judy Bluehorse Skelton, works with Multnomah and Washingtion County Indian Education programs, the Confederated Tribes of Siletz, OMSI, and many other groups throughout the Northwest. Speaking and leading field trips, herbal walks, and cultural activities, she focuses on the tradition and modern uses of our native plants for food, medicine, utensils, and more.

Of Nez Perce, Cherokee and Chickasaw descent, Judy is a member and mentor of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society, and assists in the Clinic Medicinary at the National College of Naturopathic Medicine, and is an adjunct professor at Portland State University.

Tod Sloan - Board Co-President: Tod Sloan was trained in personality theory, counseling, and psychotherapy at the University of Michigan. He taught psychology at the University of Tulsa from 1982 to 2001, where he founded the Center for Community Research and Development in 1998 and served as department chair from 1999 to 2001. He joined Lewis and Clark’s Graduate School of Education as Professor and Chair of the Department of Counseling Psychology in 2004.

Tod is the author of two books: Life Choices: Understanding Dilemmas and Decisions and Damaged Life: The Crisis of the Modern Psyche. As an advocate for a perspective known as critical psychology, with special concerns about the possible negative effects of scientistic psychology on societal development both in postmodern society and in the global South, he has been working with colleagues to develop relevant participatory modes of psychosocial practice. He edited Critical Psychology: Voices for Change, a collection of reflections by critical psychologists on the relations between psychology and social change.

At Lewis and Clark, Tod teaches seminars on the social context of counseling, dialogue practices, social theory, community consultation, and critical psychology. His current scholarship involves developing systems to support activists and change agents in grassroots ecological and social justice organizations.

Miles Uchida - Board Treasurer: Miles Uchida has been on the staff collective at People's Food Cooperative in Portland, Oregon since 1995. Miles is a Co-manager and has been the Financial Manager since 1999. As FM, Miles coordinates financial budgeting, monitoring, training, and reporting to the Collective Management & Board of Directors. Miles also served as Expansion Project Manager (EPM) for People's store "green" expansion and renovation, which was completed in 2002. As EPM, Miles contributed toward overall co-op preparedness, worked with the Collective Management and Board to get consensus on key elements of the project, developed funding sources including securing grants and loans, and oversaw the construction/renovation and various contractors. Miles' experience with co-ops and collectives have included working at the Che Cafe collective on the University of California at San Diego campus, living in informal housing cooperatives in San Diego, working on a consensus basis with several groups during the 1991 gulf war, and shopping at Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco growing up during the 70's and 80's.

Toby Hemenway: Toby Hemenway is the author of the first major North American book on permaculture, Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, and an adjunct professor at Portland State University. He is also Scholar in Residence at Pacific University.

After obtaining a degree in biology from Tufts University, Toby worked for many years as a researcher in genetics and immunology, first in academic laboratories including Harvard and the University of Washington in Seattle, and then at Immunex, a major medical biotech company. At about the time he was growing dissatisfied with the direction biotechnology was taking, he discovered permaculture, a design approach based on ecological principles that creates sustainable landscapes, homes, and workplaces. A career change followed, and Toby and his wife spent ten years creating a rural permaculture site in southern Oregon. He was associate editor of Permaculture Activist, a journal of ecological design and sustainable culture, from 1999 to 2004. His current project is developing urban sustainability resources in Portland, Oregon, where he now lives. He teaches permaculture and consults and lectures on ecological design throughout the country. His writing has appeared in magazines such as Whole Earth Review, Natural Home, and Kitchen Gardener. He is available for workshops, lectures, and consulting in ecological design.

Samantha Backer - Board Secretary: Samantha has been living in community for seven years and is fascinated by the ways in which we communicate with one another, especially in resolving conflict. She has an MA in Counseling Psychology and has focused her studies and practicum on rites of passage and young women. Samantha loves fiber, textile arts, and primitive crafts. She is the co-creator of Tinctoria, a line of clothing dyed primarily with plant and insect dyes.

Al Thieme: Al Thieme is an animal tracker, naturalist educator, and founder of r Cascadia Wild!, a conservation and environmental education organization. Currently, Al practices as an Acupuncture Specialist at Battle Ground Acupuncture in Battle Ground, Washington.

Key organizers and volunteers

J. Brush. Brush is a writer, organizer, videographer, and computer consultant, with a long history of participation in cooperative communities. He has spent much of the last five years working with peace and social justice organizations to improve communications, strategic thinking, and coordination. Most recently, he has worked with the Green Bloc to document their direct actions linking global justice convergences with long-term urban permaculture and community gardening. He has also worked in South Africa, building relationships between US activist communities and SA poor peoples' movements struggling for community empowerment and basic services. He has been published in a variety of periodicals, and presented a plenary paper at the 2002 Radical Philosophy Association conference at Brown University. Currently, he is focused on developing TLC Farm's information technology infrastructure and publicity materials.

Bonsai Matt James: Matt has been a bonsai practitioner since 1984; he had a small bonsai nursery by age 15, began teaching at 16, and has owned and operated a nursery and landscape business since 1999. His university studies focused on educational arts and photography, as well as music and teaching. Now, he is a certified permaculture designer, nursery owner and successful professional artist, and has wide experience in the fields of native and exotic bonsai cultivation, permaculture design and practice, landscaping & gardening with natives and exotics, stone masonry & sculpture, tincture & salve preparation from wild-crafted herbs, natural building, earthen oven construction and baking, and photography. His long-term plans are to continue living and working at Tryon Life Community Farm and teaching the broader community how to live more sustainably on the land.

Sue Romas: Sue has lived and worked at the Farm since June 2005. Her work with the non-profit includes lead bookkeeper, social ecologist, child care provider, and part of the physical ecology working group. Along with her husband Russ, Sue cares for Cedar Moon's chicken flock and our two sheep. She also raises twins Myrtle and Guthrie, born in 2005, and daughter Hazel, born in July 2008. Sue spent her formative years raising sheep and chickens in Bozeman, Montana and then moved to Ashland, Oregon to study theatre at Southern Oregon University. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Scenic Design from that institution. She married Russ Romas in 2005 and settled in Portland.

Sue's passions include fiber arts, especially spinning, knitting, felting, and weaving; cooking, fermented foods, and food preservation; theatre, drawing, and painting; farming and raising animals responsibly and respectfully. Sue loves learning new things and is usually reading two or three books simultaneously. Her favorite foods include home-made pie, cheese, cucumbers, pasta, and fish-and-chips. Recently, Sue has been helping to start a theatre company, and is continuing to expand her knowledge of knitting techniques.

Laura Kathryn Dvorak: Laura has been a core volunteer of TLC Farm since 2005. She is currently active in the realms of Community and Youth Education, Social Ecology, Physical Ecology, Spiritual Ecology, and Events, and will be co-facilitating the 2009 Summer Immersion Program in Community Sustainability at TLC. Laura is a certified Permaculture Designer and Teacher, and is excited to delve into co-teaching her first Permaculture Design Course at TLC this summer, with Matt Bibeau and Marisha Auerbach.

Laura acted as Nourishment Coordinator for The City Repair Project's Village Building Convergence in 2006, and loves to feed the masses fresh, local, organic, and delicious food. She is happy to play a key role in sourcing and preparing the amazing food served at TLC events, along with other farm residents and volunteers. She is also excited to work in the gardens and learn about all of the food and medicine growing right where she lives.

Laura received her Dual Masters Degree in Geography and Education (with a focus in Leadership in Ecology, Culture, and Learning) from Portland State University in 2007, where she studied Portland's community food movement; Native fishing rights in the Pacific Northwest; and ecological sanitation (composting poop!). You can read her master's thesis on humanure in the 'Resources' section of the TLC farm website.

Kelly Hogan: Kelly has been living at TLC Farm with her 2 children (Talon and Yarrow) since August, 2007. After traveling for many years, she finally settled in Portland in 2004 and began a three year Waldorf teacher training program. In fall 2007, she was an assistant teacher for the first year of Mother Earth Kindergarten, an all-outdoor Waldorf kindergarten at TLC Farm. In 2008, she created the Mother Earth Faery Garden, the all-outdoor preschool at TLC Farm. Her volunteer hours at the farm include outdoor education for children of all ages, creating a rites of passage program for youth, being a core member of the social ecology working group, volunteer coordinating, donor appreciation, and caring for the goats.