Farmer County: Centre

Entering Farmer #20356

Hello there. Our names are Sasha and Tony Bellucci. We are respectively 35 and 37 years old and have resided in Colorado for the past 11 years. Tony grew up in Pennsylvania and lived there for 25 years before moving west. Sasha was born in Ukraine and came to Pennsylvania by way of California when she was 13. As we’ve built our lives and skills out west, we are looking to return to our home state to be closer to family and live out our long term visions of sustainability, permaculture, organic agriculture, and community enrichment. We’d love to tell you a little about ourselves and our intentions.

Tony has spent many years working around plants and trees. His introduction to farming began at Greenmoore Gardens in State College, Pa. At the farm, Tony, along with farm manager Laura, ran a 50 person CSA. This included the management of 2 large tunnels of vegetables, a 20×12 propagation greenhouse, drip irrigation water systems, and a flock of 40 chickens. In 2020, he was studying Horticulture at CSU and was selected to intern at the Colorado State Extension office in Grand Junction, Co. where he curated an garden growing indigenous Ute ethnobotanical plants, herbs, and trees. Tony holds a BA in Communication and designed marketing materials, brochures, and signs for use in the garden and community. Currently, he has been working as an arborist and will soon be ISA certified. Daily tasks include management of fruit trees, climbing and pruning, felling/removing dead trees, and management of landscape plants. In his free time, he loves to play all types of music though his primary instrument is guitar. He plays in a successful band called Tumbledown Shack based in Fort Collins, Co. which plays 4-8 shows a month. He is a passionate soccer fan and enjoys being outside through his work or various recreation activities such as disc golf and biking.

Sasha is a successful mental health therapist with a Master’s in Transpersonal Counseling. For the last 9 years she has worked with clients with varying degrees of PTSD and complex trauma. In 2022 she completed Equinox Center’s 10 month herbalism intensive and integrates herbalism into her work with patients. She is fluent in Russian and spends much of her free time creating various pieces of art including traditional Ukrainian folk art. She is an accomplished artist and sells art, herbal remedies, and her leatherwork at local artisan markets. She enjoys spending free time outside riding her bicycle and playing disc golf with Tony.

Together, we share experience and a vision for a sustainable future. In 2012, we went to Chile to volunteer on a small 2 acre permaculture in the foothills of the Andes. While there, we were given our first glimpse into permaculture practices and self-sustainability. We tended gardens, cooked using fresh ingredients, and cared for the land, trees, and property. From that experience on, we have managed our own gardens both in Pennsylvania and Colorado. In 2017, we volunteered at a 33 acre permaculture in southern Costa Rica. We were given a month of training then managed the property for the owners while they were away. Daily tasks included pruning of plants, harvesting of food, processing food, caring for various animals including ducks, sheep, horses, and cows, greenhouse and compost management, and community outreach. We received our PDC (Permaculture Design Certificate) in December of 2017 and began to construct our own vision for this lifestyle. In 2018, we returned to Costa Rica where we helped care for a small 1 acre property while the owner was out of the country.

Through various experiences and education, we have slowly formulated our own vision for an agricultural and permaculture based lifestyle. We have always dreamed of tending the land, growing food, educating and impacting community, and hosting enrichment events. Our life in Colorado is rich however, we wish to return to Pennsylvania where we would be better able to enact this vision. We would love to sell food through farmers market or CSA, cultivate herbs and herbalism products for the community, and design community events where people can experience professionally prepared meals with locally grown food.

Entering Farmer #20333

I have experience raising many kinds of livestock.
I am looking to lease to own or buy a farm on sales agreement.
I’m interested I aquaculture and many other farming practices.

Entering Farmer #20329

I am a US army veteran, but I am a lot of other things as well. I am a former Peace Corps volunteer (agriculture in Mali), I am a proud father of two young children, and I am a former 4-H kid. I want to return to the rural life and give my kids the life I had growing up.
Experience
– I grew up in a rural area and worked on a (small) farm doing intensive vegetable farming
– I was trained and successfully ran animal husbandry operations in Africa (goats and rabbits)
– I am business and computer savvy and have been working in the corporate world for 10 years
– I am trained in skilled in basic animal medicine (vaccines, basic medical care, etc). While I would not perform surgery, I do feel comfortable with day-to-day care and standard practice
– My wife is no slouch either, she was a former water sanitation Peace Corps volunteer (how we met), and has been working in the business world doing marketing (online and real world) since 2010.

What I am looking for
– A small plot of land for regenerative agriculture (40-100 acres)
– I intend to primarily focus on small food crop production and dairy production- note, due to the large number of cattle dairy producers in the area, we will focus on goat milk, goat milk soap, and goat cheese products.
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Entering Farmer #20328

I am currently in search of a farm to own. I have advanced degrees in forages/grazing management and plan to have a multi-species grazing operation with hair sheep, cattle, and chickens. My goal would be to reduce amount of hay feeding days each year, so I would likely be stocked a little lighter, but employ strategies to extend the grazing season, such as stockpiling. If possible I would like to set aside a little land for pollinator habitat, and in a perfect world I would have some native warm season grasses to graze in the summertime. I would like to purchase yearlings or fall-born weaned calves in the springtime to take advantage of the spring flush of forages, graze native warm season grasses during the summertime, and then sell during the late summer and save the fall growth and stockpiled forages for the sheep to graze into the winter.

I grew up on a small conventional dairy farm where I milked Holsteins in a tie-stall barn, picked rocks, unloaded square bales, and chopped all of our hay once I turned 14. In middle school, I bought my own two Jersey heifer calves and worked to pay off their room and board, and their milk checks (along with working part time and coming home to milk cows) helped get me through college debt free. I interned on a ranch in South Dakota, which is where my love of grazing began and which spurred me to go to graduate school to study forages and grazing.

After moving around the country for school, I have finally found a place to settle and am looking to own a small farm. Ideally I’d like at least 20 acres of pasture and in a perfect world I would have some forested acres for hunting as well.

I have already thought out a business plan and created enterprise budgets for my dream farm, so now all I have to do is find it!

Entering Farmer #20306

Looking for a place for our family to expand pursuits and have space to share together. We would like space to grow our butchering and value added food production, beekeeping, maple syrup, and other interests.

Entering Farmer #20301

My name is Brock, I’m 33 and I’ve been farming for the better part of 13 years now. I started out on a raw goat dairy in northern FL, did a formal internship at Soil Born Farms in CA where I later became an assistant manager. We raised sheep, cattle, chickens, orchards, and vegetables. I then became the farm manager at a 50 acre diversified vegetable/sheep farm in southern Oregon. After that I spent the next 3 years starting my own farm business in southern OR raising 3 acres of vegetables, mixed livestock (Chickens, pigs, sheep, ducks) attending 3 farmers markets each week, managing a 30+/- member free-share CSA, and selling to about 10 restaurants. I relocated back east 2 years ago due to unmanaged wildfires that were getting worse each year, as well as drought and water issues. I worked for a year as a farm manger mostly doing tractor work in upstate NY on a 25 acre vegetable farm, and I currently manage the hay, equipment, livestock and orchards at a farm in VT.

My wife is Joelle who has been working at a geoengineering company working in sales and event organizing. She just finished her Masters in Business and in her free time is a certified yoga teacher, avid knitter and flower grower and organizer.

Together we both bring the necessary skills and experiences to operate a profitable farm business.

Entering Farmer #20292

I am a 27-year old master’s student in Education, Development and Community Engagement at Penn State University in the Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education. I spent the first 20 years of my life in Central PA then enlisted in the Navy as a Construction Mechanic. After a 5 year enlistment I returned to Penn State to pursue my education and was conferred my bachelor’s in Agricultural Science with a minor in Forest Ecosystems. My current goal is to start a farm and join the Veteran Farmer Network by creating a nonprofit that will focus on empowering veterans and community members to pursue careers in agriculture. I think there are a few things as important as feeding the country, and I hope that I can become a part of the solution to the problems we are seeing on a national and global scale. I have experience working with multiple NGOS, academia, and state-level organizations.