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In November 2024, I completed the Organic Farming Training Program (OFTP) via the MSU Extension! 

I come from a farming family but I didn’t grow up on a farm at all. As things shifted (as families sometimes do), the farming fell away 10 years before I was born & in just one generation there was a gap. No real roots or connection to my family heritage, just a hole where the farm was. 

Maybe this explains the big mystery around why I love heavy machinery so much?!? (IYKYK)

Recently, while talking about my farm stand aspirations, I found out my mother once ran her very own farm stand as a teenager! Funny how we can still learn things about people we think we know! 

Now, At 38, I’m jumping heart first into farming. Like a calling- It feels like a secret backdoor entrance to my timeline and who I always could’ve been. The connection to food and nature and the living collective that I was never taught to notice was finally shouting so loud that I had to pivot and listen.

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While in the farming program, I was able to take what skills I had dabbled with over the years as a hobby farmer with a small rented plot and dive deeper. Get more specific and hone in on my offering.  Learning more about how to map out site plans of my homestead,  and how to think about my growing space as a whole- how to really see what community needs I could fill with what we grow and how to best utilize the space we are lucky enough to call our own!

I have big dreams of someday moving to a bigger plot of land, but I've come to realize our growing space in the city center of Lansing, Michigan is the perfect launching pad.  We currently have a 4,700sqft lot and I truly am so excited to see what we can offer to our direct community from our backyard in the coming years! 

I'm writing this in mid-Aug 2025, and am about to launch the farm stand! Keep up with our journey and come stop by to see what we have to share! 

We are located on the corner of Lenor and Beal in Lansing! 

Find me on insta!  @TheChillOutTentDotNet 
[Photos on the left are courtesy of @chelseawhitakerphotography) 

-Bee