Growing up on my family's farm in Pennsylvania, I never would have pictured the life I live at Willow Haven farm. As a kid I spent summers in our large family garden we called, “The Truck Patch”. I helped mom every summer, picking beans, weeding, and cutting fruit and vegetables for the hundreds of jars of canned and frozen produce we put up. Now I spends less time out in the field and more time in the kitchen doing the same preserving for my own farm family. Farmer Reuben values my many hours doing much of the behind the scenes marketing, writing emails to cultivate customers and capturing the farm story each week. I'm always learning along the way in my quest to improve the farm experience for each of her current and future farm members in our 500+ member, year-round customized farm box delivery program. Reading our stories will connect you with your food in a way you never experienced before. Someday soon you will want to fit local food into your life and we'll be here to help you.
We Lived in a Yurt: Homesteading Conference Registration Open!
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Hello Reader, Yes we did! [skip to Homestead Conference info here] Our friends' self-designed yurt was on a farm in the mountains of New Hampshire in 2000! As we stepped out of our car in mid-April with Baby Annika, we gingerly stepped around melting snow and frigid mud on our way to the canvas yurt that would warm us. Both young couples (the Gagnons and the DeMasters) started out married life with principals and ideals that we wanted to implement in our lives. Having a head start and connections in New Hampshire, Ken and Bresca showed us what an attempt to live a simple life, off the grid, could look like. Every function of daily life had a system to make it sustainable: the composting outhouse, the hand crank clothes washer, the wood fired stove, the home made baby food and diapers. Their start on this path was supported by a homesteading family that owned land and had built their home and buildings decades ago. Our friends bought land a couple years and another baby later, so we visited again to see what the simple life looked like. The same yurt had been moved to the new location and was the center of the homestead that included a small barn, a few sheds, garden and pastures. Unfortunately, the pressures of this way of life took it's toll on the family and a few years later they broke up. The simple, sustainable life is complicated.It may not be wise to attempt it all at once - especially not without community support. The skills of homesteading can be learned at your own pace, slowly or quickly. Learn with friends and family. Join groups with the same interest. Without land, you can still learn much and even practice producing and preserving your own food. Read. Watch Videos. Purchase online courses. Visit historic and modern places that are actually doing what you want to do. Reuben and I started out gardening without our own land - a disaster. Our first home was heated by a wood stove and hand chopped wood. I started canning chow-chow, tomatoes, salsa and jam to fill our self-constructed shelves in the basement. We even experimented with storing carrots in a bucket of sawdust over winter and using the cement stairs beneath the Bilco doors to the basement for long term food storage. Neither worked well. But the 50 lb bucket of honey we invested in was so successful that we moved it between three homes in those early years. Fast forward...With family support, we were able to return to the family homestead. Luckily, we didn't have to build a yurt to shelter our growing family because the original log cabin farmhouse was upgraded enough and large enough for us to move into with my parents. Reuben still wants to build a yurt somewhere on the farm. With my mom and dad's memories of farm life, their lives of skill building, Reuben and I expanded our knowledge and experience into a livelihood which we share with others through Willow Haven Farm. After hosting aspiring homesteaders for visits, hiring farm interns, teaching volunteers, offering bread and fermenting classes, educational farm tours and herb walks we are ready for the next step. It's all coming together as an On the Farm Homesteading Intensive with our friends and collaborators at Harvest of Wisdom. Announcing the Third Annual On the Farm Homesteading Conference
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Workshops
- morning and afternoon workshops with breakfast and lunch
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hands on workshops
- Sourdough Bread Baking – limit 12 participants
- Organic Vegetables to Grow to Cut Down on Your Grocery Bill
- Bring Life to Your Landscape with Native Plants
- Meal-Planning Year-Round with Seasonal Skills
- Crafting Potent Herbal Remedies at Home
- Fermenting Fundamentals: Gut-Healing Veggies & Beyond
- Farm-Fit: Functional Strength Training for a Sustainable Life
- The De-Gradation of Food: Going Back to the Basics
- Designing Productive Small-Space Food Forests
- Emergency Birth Basics, Home Remedies & Post-Partum Recovery Plans
- Behind-the-Scenes Tour of Willow Haven Farm with Farmer Reuben
| Register Now! |
Thank you for supporting your local farm.
We'll keep farming for you!
Reuben and Tessa DeMaster
Willow Haven Farm
Directions to the farm
P.S. Make THIS your Labor Day Weekend Plan! You won't regret it!
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Tessa DeMaster
Growing up on my family's farm in Pennsylvania, I never would have pictured the life I live at Willow Haven farm. As a kid I spent summers in our large family garden we called, “The Truck Patch”. I helped mom every summer, picking beans, weeding, and cutting fruit and vegetables for the hundreds of jars of canned and frozen produce we put up. Now I spends less time out in the field and more time in the kitchen doing the same preserving for my own farm family. Farmer Reuben values my many hours doing much of the behind the scenes marketing, writing emails to cultivate customers and capturing the farm story each week. I'm always learning along the way in my quest to improve the farm experience for each of her current and future farm members in our 500+ member, year-round customized farm box delivery program. Reading our stories will connect you with your food in a way you never experienced before. Someday soon you will want to fit local food into your life and we'll be here to help you.
Hi Reader, If you’ve been thinking about coming to the farm tonight for Pizza Night—this is your friendly nudge.👉 Reserve Your Pizza Tickets Now Still deciding? Here’s what you might be wondering: ❓“We eat healthy—can we even go out to eat anymore?”Yes. This is your kind of night.Our pizzas are handcrafted with real ingredients your body can recognize:– Organic sourdough crust (naturally fermented and easy to digest—even for many gluten-sensitive folks)– Pastured meats– Local Caputo Brothers...
Hi Reader, We’ve just opened reservations for you to our most requested farm event! GO NOW! The most delicious and memorable events we host all summer: Brick Oven Pizza Night at Willow Haven Farm This is more than a meal—it’s real food, a peaceful setting, and a connection to where your food is grown. Whether you’ve been part of the farm for years or you’re just discovering us through the General Store, we’d love to have you join us. You’ll enjoy wood-fired pizza made with: – Organic...
Hi Reader, I didn’t always eat organic. When my husband Reuben decided to start farming, he chose the organic method simply to be different from the other farms around us. At first, that was it. But as we connected with some of the smartest farmers in the world—people who had studied the land, the science, and the history—we began to uncover just how much modern farming has damaged our food… and our health. We learned that conventional farming doesn’t just spray toxins—it strips the soil,...