About
It all started when…
Our farm story
Rustic Roots Farm began when my husband and I moved back to our countryside “roots”. We bought the farm in 2010 and began to live closer to the land. We started an organic vegetable garden, fields of herbs, bees, goats, fruit orchard, and chickens. We teamed up with my in laws to combine another bee yard and sheep. We also salvage wood and turn what would have become firewood into lovely wood products. Rustic Roots Farm is dedicated to being a small farm and remaining a small farm. I hope to sustainably use our 10 acres to become prosperous but not at the risk of ruining our natural ecology. In this regard, we are working on removing invasive species, improving pollinator habitat, and maintaining soil quality through cover cropping.
Rustic Roots Farm is verified through the Michigan Agriculture Environmental Assurance Program (MAEAP). We are verified in Farmstead System, Livestock System, and Forests, Wetlands, and Habitat System. https://www.washtenawcd.org/maeap.html The verification shows effective land stewardship practices that comply with state and federal regulations and show producers how to identify and prevent agricultural pollution risks on their farms.
What we do…we farm! We farm for fun. This came out of loving growing, raising, nurturing life and that continues.
Mission..
bees
We started out with some bees when my father-in-law saw the lack of bees on his farm. He begin researching beekeeping and started a few hives on his farm. The next year, the bees migrated over to our farm as well. Together we have roughly 50 hives in any given year. We have three bee yards and work hard to insure good genetics for future bee generations.
baas
Jan and John have the sheep farm. They have a flock of 20 Shetland sheep and shear each year to produce yarn, roving, wool batting for comforters, and raw fleeces. They have raised sheep, horses, chickens, and now bees for over 50 years. Their interests remain in farming now that they are both retired, Jan has authored many farm books (found in the Shop section!) and John does beekeeping and farm projects.
buds
Plants and wood! We began by growing food for our family and now offer a variety of fruits and vegetables from our farm shack. When we moved to the farm, we found hundreds of dead Ash trees due to the Emerald Ash Borer. Seeing the potential in this hardwood, we started a furniture business. Initially working from our garage, we expanded to a sawmill, a barn, and a kiln. Jeff crafts custom furniture pieces, all milled, kiln-dried, planed, and cut here on the farm.
bawwks!
Our pasture-raised chickens spend most of their lives outdoors, foraging for bugs, grass, and more. They roost in our spacious old barn and are fed kitchen scraps and Dexter Mill non-GMO feed. Roaming our orchard, yard, and forest, our diverse breeds include Brahmas, Australorps, Americaunas, Rhode Island Reds, Marans, Lakenvelder, Dominique, Sussex, Orpingtons, and Wyandottes. We also have 1-2 roosters for hawk protection.