Dancing the Land Farm

Dancing the Land Farm Dancing the Land Farm is a non-certified organic farm in Clearwater, MN. We grow food, flowers, and medicinal plants, goats for milk and fiber. And more!

Dancing the Land Farm is a diverse little organic farm in Clearwater, Minnesota. We raise goats, sheep, chickens, and ducks for meat, fiber, milk, and eggs. And we grow a vast variety of organic, non-gmo produce, herbs, and flowers for Farmers' Markets, restaurants, CSA members, and special events.

There's been a wild plum thicket along our driveway my whole life, and their scent when they bloom in the early spring i...
05/04/2026

There's been a wild plum thicket along our driveway my whole life, and their scent when they bloom in the early spring is among my very favorites--along with my mom's old buffalo currant, and then, just a little later, lilacs. It roots me into time like any holiday (holy day)--like the return of the redwings and cranes in March, like first night I sleep with the windows open, like the first day we plant seeds in the greenhouse. This smell says it's time to plant hardy things outside. The smell sounds like peepers in the marsh and courting, nest-building songbirds. This smell is the bright, tender green of new leaves. The scent wafts on soft breezes, especially in the evening.

The thicket had been getting old. The trees were gnarled and thinning out, and grapevines were taking over. I was watching my old friends slowly live their lives to the end. But then, a couple years ago, in the thick of one tragedy or another, our lawnmower broke. And because of said tragedy or another, fixing it was not a priority. I think the mower was broken for two years maybe (honestly it still is), before we got one at a garage sale? And in that time, while the hungry jaws of conformity lay dismantled, a whole new generation of young plums grew up in the lee of my dear thicket!

A few old ones are still there, but these ones are flowering in the grandeur of their first big bloom! They are glorious!

A child and a dog--both very excited about baby chicks. But for very different reasons. For now the chicks will be in th...
04/22/2026

A child and a dog--both very excited about baby chicks. But for very different reasons.

For now the chicks will be in the brooder, until all the eggs in the incubator are hatched. Then we'll see about getting them adopted by a mama hen in the big flock. But Gladys, my would-be mama hen, must've caught wind of my plans and decided she wasn't ready--she hasn't been on her nest the last two days. 🫤

If a hen hasn't been sitting long enough, her body won't have the proper hormonal cues that make bonding with chicks possible, which would spell disaster should we try to graft a clutch onto her. So, we'll see what happens!

I did move the brooder into the greenhouse since the temp requirements are similar enough in both places that they help each other out. And that means I've got soft, sweet peeping as I sow, which is lovely.

That video is my attempt at the excited mama hen clucks that always get her clutch running over to see what delicious morsel she's discovered. She'll always pick whatever it is up and drop it several times until a chick gobbles it up. It's how they learn to forage!

I've named her Gladys. And she is mean. She's the meanest hen we've had in a long time. She doesn't just peck at me when...
04/20/2026

I've named her Gladys. And she is mean. She's the meanest hen we've had in a long time. She doesn't just peck at me when I'm collecting eggs. She pinches and twists. She goes through sleeves and gloves. And she'll go for me even if I'm not bothering her and only collecting from the nest above or below her. On the day these photos were taken, I thought she was going to go for my eyes! My best bet at thwarting Gladys is a chunky silver cuff from my dear

Gladys is going to be a fierce mama. ❤️

My incubator is about to explode like fuzzy, peeping popcorn, and you better believe I'm going to give as many chicks to Gladys as I can.

I like to hatch out the specific ones I want, then give them in the night to the broody hens that have been frustrated as hell with me when I steal their eggs. But if I don't steal them all, things get ugly (and gross) quick in a big flock of community-nesters. I like the mean ones as mamas best. They're usually tender as can be with their babes, but don't take no s**t from rooster, dog, or raccoon. I've even seen them fight off a hawk attack from above!

I just go in after dark, sneak babies under their skirts, and wait. Usually the mama will start cooing and softly talking to the babies--who in turn will peep contentedly back. Once I hear that, they're usually good to go.

I've done it a whole bunch, and only had one hen refuse her clutch. But she got jealous after I gave her babies to another hen and so they co-parented after that. Brilliant.

I love it because then the chicks have a mama and spend their earliest days learning how to be chickens roaming around the farm within the safety of their mama's orbit, instead of being cooped up in a brooder with lights and Lord of the Flies children-raising-children weirdness. They learn their culture and get to have meaningful relationships. And I don't have extra chores. Brilliant again!

It was basil!! Huzzah! Seed saving can contain cliff-hanging mysteries on many occasions, but this was a fun one. The re...
04/18/2026

It was basil!! Huzzah! Seed saving can contain cliff-hanging mysteries on many occasions, but this was a fun one. The rest of this flat, and all the seeds from this batch were an assortment of celosia varieties, so at the end, when all the shiny celosia seeds were sown, I had this little handful of black lumps left. Some of which were most certainly mouse poop--they must've gotten into the bags as they dried down in the greenhouse--but some looked suspiciously like the only other seed I had dried in the greenhouse with those celosia: lime basil.

So I figured, why not try 'em out?

It is indeed odd that the basil seeds would have ended up in the celosia bags, it's hard to imagine mice carrying the tiny seeds around from bag to bag--without just eating them--but that must've been what happened. The basil bag had tons of seeds and looked undisturbed, but alas, mice are very very clever!

Curtis questions my surety about their identity, as "mouse plants have very similar cotyledons."

True enough.

More signs of life. Sound on for the last one! 🐸
04/15/2026

More signs of life. Sound on for the last one! 🐸

The forsythia is blooming. The peepers and wood frogs are singing in the marshes, redwings, too, and cranes. A pair of C...
04/14/2026

The forsythia is blooming. The peepers and wood frogs are singing in the marshes, redwings, too, and cranes. A pair of Canadian geese have moved onto the pond, while snow geese fly high overhead. Trumpeter swans have scattered themselves across the corn fields. A loon drifts on the lake. Buds are swelling and the sap has run its course. There is rain falling, right now, and my window is cracked open to let in the night sounds and the breeze. Owls calling to each other across the woods.

You know, I've always struggled being on social media and participating in what I thought was just icky capitalism, but...
04/13/2026

You know, I've always struggled being on social media and participating in what I thought was just icky capitalism, but I'm realizing it was just regular commerce, and really it's just pretty darn radical being a small farmer--let alone a lefty one in a rural area.

I feel like all the work we've done building community around us and moving from our relationships first (with the land, the people we feed, our family and chosen family, our neighbors, with ourselves, and each other) has created something truly remarkable and revolutionary, even if it's just so simple as growing good food and feeding people.

And I feel like we (all of us) are in the woods right now, and we will be for a while yet, and and and are all still saying it's gonna get worse before it gets better, so my goodness we need each other now.

And all us Minnesotans have barely caught our breath from the ICE madness this winter, and there's still so much to do. And keeping what we built these last four months isn't a given, it's something that takes work. And I see us all doing that work, even though we're tired, and I'm so proud.

None of this has anything to do with that sleeping chicken or those beautiful eggs, except that I've struggled with posting pretty pictures and musing about the beautiful details of this life when it seems like everything is on fire for so many. But that just means I'm lurking more and contributing less, and that doesn't feel right either. So I offer you all pretty chickens and eggs and a missive that says there is still so much beauty in this world. There is so much worth protecting and caring for. Sometimes we need to be reminded of that. Sometimes we need a soft place to catch our breath while we get ready for the next chunk of dark woods ahead.

I believe we were made for these times. And I'm ready for all of us to keep rising to the occasion--with a sense of humor, please; some skill and strategy; and truly together.

Also, Curtis will be sad if I don't say it: we've got only four CSA shares left for this season! We'd love to have you with us for the uncertain woods ahead--at least you'll be eating well!

I was in the greenhouse yesterday, sowing seeds, greeting the season's first sprouts, and just indulging in a moment of ...
03/27/2026

I was in the greenhouse yesterday, sowing seeds, greeting the season's first sprouts, and just indulging in a moment of self-reflection while I worked.

I consider life to be about collecting skills and experiences, and about rooting that collection into relationship and story. And so I've spent years collecting and rooting and relating.

So I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise that all that collecting amounted to something of substance, and yet I found myself in one of those rare moments where we can see ourselves from the outside--with the extra contrast of an observing eye that is usually faded by the progression of the day-to-day--feeling kinda stunned that the skill of planning and running an entire farm season just lives inside me. That every bit of that complexity--all the timings and temps and light requirements, all the spacing and location and amounts and harvest techniques, all the relationships and ethos and ethics, how to interpret the language of this place and time and the progression of the season--all of it just lives in me.

Coming back to this season after our sabbatical has made for a spring without the muscle memory of stress and more capacity for presence, so there's just this sensation of engaging in a dance I know so well I don't have to think about my steps. There's space to add grace and I get to see the majesty in how we all come together in concert to make a magic we could not make on our own. Me and all the seeds and sprouts, all the chickens and sheep, the will of the sky and energy in my own limbs.

It's not that I don't ever look anything up anymore, or that I'm not learning new things all the time--I am--and it's not like we're not always evolving in how we do things and trying new things, it's just that this rhythm--the rhythm of seasons and seedlings and wild birds, of snow and mud and rain then green, of planting and tending and harvest, of CSA and market and community, of quiet winters, the exuberance of spring, the abundance of summer, and the deep breath of fall--is MY rhythm, too.

It lives in me, as it lives in the world around me.

It would be harder to ignore it than to move with it.

I checked my roster and I've got FIVE CSA shares left for the 2026 season! If you were on the fence, now's the time.
03/23/2026

I checked my roster and I've got FIVE CSA shares left for the 2026 season! If you were on the fence, now's the time.

Signs of Spring.Flats sown with friends, kin. Seeds sparking in the quiet dark and unfurling the possibility of a future...
03/23/2026

Signs of Spring.

Flats sown with friends, kin. Seeds sparking in the quiet dark and unfurling the possibility of a future. Our future.

Tulip noses pushing through the soil, buds swelling around the crescent moon, the snow melting, even in the shade of the woods, and the sun, setting between solstices, making the middle road across the sky.

Nettles sprouting in the greenhouse. Good dogs and rabbit kits. The sheep before shearing.

It feels grand to be back at it this season. Farming again.

There's so much happening right now. For most of us in Minnesota, life just changed suddenly at some point in December a...
02/04/2026

There's so much happening right now. For most of us in Minnesota, life just changed suddenly at some point in December and we haven't seen normal since. It's hard to imagine the future.

Each day has been rising to meet the moment, learning the skills we need to keep each other safe, endlessly adapting, doing what needs doing, and strengthening and multiplying the bonds between us.

I'm struck by the presence and absence of foresight as I live through these days, how terribly short-sighted this invasion is, how those behind it are cultivating the tools and impetus of their disassembly as they go about it. While they're playacting primitive definitions of strength and power–not seeming to ever realize that power-over can never stand against the strength of belonging to each other–we are creating long-lasting networks and systems that will now be here to hold us whenever we need them. They can't see how much stronger they are making us.

The literal seeds for this next season arrived in the mail sometime in January. The contents of this little box will, not too long from now, populate a couple acres of gardens, to feed and flower hundreds of people–may it be so. Perhaps it's hard to imagine green growing things here in the deepest part of winter. But I know what is sleeping below the snow right now. I know what generous thing is dreaming there.

While it's true that it takes time to build good things worth having, and it takes no time or skill to destroy something–it's also true that it's very hard to destroy a leaderless movement, just like it's impossible to stop the determination of weeds, the turning of the seasons, or to break intricately interconnected communities.

What we've built and are continuously evolving will be here long after this moment.

I'll start the first seeds of the season this month, because I believe in our future.

The spark that lives in the soil, that gives life to everyone, doesn't give a s**t about an ice storm in January. The thaw is coming.

And when it does, and all that ice breaks up, apart, and is gone, what we have built will still be ours. We'll still have our songs, our vigils, and our bonds. We'll still have each other.

Address

19485 Estes Road
Clearwater, MN
55320

Telephone

(320) 558-2853

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