The Farmers!
Melissa grew up on a homestead in New Hampshire where her family grew, gathered, or raised most of their food. It’s possible that she prefers the company of animals and plants to people, though she loves connecting with our farmers market friends.
After dedicating many years of reforming the nation’s child welfare system, she longed for opportunities to get out of her head and onto the land. She co-founded Tangled Thicket farm to embody the transformation of a harmful and inequitable food system and to help restore connnections between human beings and the rest of the natural world.
On the farm, she is in charge of the farmers market, book-keeping and finances, main field crops, scything, and preservation. She also shares researching, planning, planting, harvesting, dreaming, weeding, restoration, and many other tasks with Joanna.
Joanna moved frequently as she grew up, but mostly within the Pacific Northwest. Through her teens and early-twenties, she commercially fished in Alaska, which is where she developed her love of physical labor in connection with the earth. Off farm, she also works as an adjunct college English instructor and book designer.
Hoping to join the artistic, academic, activist, and earthy parts of herself, she co-founded this farm with a dream to create a place that helps members of the community, avoids maintaining systems of oppression, and participates in the creation of a future that relies on regenerative practices that help our planet thrive.
On the farm, she is in charge of the hoophouses, orchard development, chicken coddling, and infrastructure maintenance. She’s an amateur beekeeper and budding herbalist. She also shares researching, planning, planting, harvesting, dreaming, weeding, restoration, and many other tasks with Melissa.
The Specialists!
Joe (right) visits us on weekends in order to tackle the farm tasks that require sword-work and swashbuckling. He has cleared hoophouses of blackberries, fields of laurel and excessive shore pine, and pathways of tripping hazards. He has helped us in too many ways to count.
June regularly can be found in the propagation hoophouse, which was gifted to her after a couple years of unpaid labor. Now she has an official location to sit during her unpaid labor. She is the best company, helps with all plant babies and hoophouse care, and even farmsits for us!
Chuck knows many, many things. We call him at all hours of the day with questions (or requests) ranging from carpentry to electrical conduits, framing to foundation work, irrigation to names of tools. Without his considerable help, would have no outdoor bathroom or electricity in the barn!
The Beasts!
Virgil is in charge of wrangling winter squash, boosting morale, and escorting bicyclists down the street without leaving the farm.
Ninja destroys voles, rabbits of all sizes, other villains, and is generally in charge of appropriately spacing lettuce, kale, chard, and broccoli. She is the only one who knows how to use that fire extinguisher.
Winter herds pigs, chickens, people, other dogs, cats, herbs, trees, balls, pedestrians, visiting children, coyotes, hummingbirds, and beetles. She tries to herd Ninja but that doesn’t go over well.
Rosie is the matriarch in charge of all things. Especially entertaining Virgil, but also enforcing regular walks, rabbit population control, and the eating of all meals and snacks.