Shelterbelt Farm

In the mainstream culture of the United States, land is a commodity, and private ownership is a respected right. In most indigenous cultures, we belong to the land (not the other way around), and the soil, plants, and animals on that land are our kin.

We live in the former but I deeply prefer the beliefs of the latter.

In 2020, I spent a lot of time thinking about the future of our farm. Craig and I are privileged to own 24 acres–the result of family generosity in the form of early inheritance–and lease another 17 acres adjacent to our land. My children have shown no inclination toward farming, and I was struggling to balance the scale of our farm with all my other commitments. At that time on our small farm we had 150 sheep, 10 cattle, 100 laying hens, the orchard, and the glamping cabin to manage, in addition to all our kids’ activities, off-farm jobs, and also a large subsistence farm producing veggies, fruits, and more for my family and friends.

In 2020 I also spent a lot of time thinking about justice and equity. I was reading Ibram Kendi and learning the US history that I wasn’t taught in school. I was also watching history unfold in real time as George Floyd was murdered in public by a man who had sworn to protect and to serve. I was despairing at the persistence of inequities and racism in our country, despite decades of civil rights advancements.

I struggled to find some meaningful way to contribute, beyond self-reflection, deepening my learning and making donations to organizations doing good work. My thoughts coalesced around land. After extensive discussion, Craig and I decided to try to give 3/4 of the farm’s acreage (18 acres) to someone who would ensure it would be stewarded in perpetuity by people whose culture had been pushed to the margins of society by violence and oppression.

Fast forward six years, through several dead ends and many hard lessons learned: in April 2026, we signed a 99-year lease with Stephen Henhawk, a member of the Wolf Clan of the Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫʼ Nation of the Six Nations Reserve in Canada. The land we have been farming is part of his ancestral homelands, stolen from his people during General Sullivan’s genocidal sweep in 1779. Stephen dreams of creating a home base here, a place for ceremony, cultural revival and education, growing traditional crops, and bringing some of the Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫʼ diaspora back to their homelands.

The 99-year lease is meant to be a short-term solution though. In our culture of private land ownership, the deed to a property represents power, and it is still our hope that Stephen and his people will eventually be able to hold the deed to this land. So while signing the lease felt like a celebratory moment after six years of work, it’s really just the beginning!

I want to acknowledge Jon Brown, Jack Hornickel, and the law students at the Pace Food and Farm Business Law Clinic. Without their thoughtful, knowledgeable, and pro bono guidance, we wouldn’t have gotten to this point!

What does all of this mean for Shelterbelt Farm? We will go from managing 41 acres to about 6, so that will obviously require a shift away from primarily raising grass-finished lamb. In the next year we will be planting hundreds of trees – some for fruits and nuts that we could sell, and some for biomass, mulch, and feed for livestock. We will likely dip our toes into woody plant propagation, offering plants for sale, and raising poultry on a larger scale again. We just sold our best young ewes to a friend who farms in Cortland, and made an agreement to buy lamb from him to sell to our customers, so we will still have grass-finished lamb from the same genetic lines available in our farm store and online. It will no doubt take us a little while to find our footing in this new reality, but we’re excited for the change, to see what new possibilities emerge. We hope you will continue along with us on our farming journey, as we quite literally can’t do it without all of you!