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Meet the folks at D Acres...
Staff
Residents
Board of
Directors
Guest Teachers
D Acres
of New Hampshire Staff:
Joshua J Trought (Executive Director)
is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Colorado
in Boulder. While at the University he participated in School Year
Abroad in Spain studying Spanish & European Economics. The program
provided not only an opportunity to perfect basic Spanish but also an
opportunity to travel Europe and North Africa. In addition, he worked at
Campus Recycling Center in Boulder, which provided an in-depth
experience that illuminated the realities of large scale recycling.
Josh worked at a Health Clinic for Marginalized Peoples in Boulder,
where he served as a nurse’s aid to translate and record vital signs for
predominantly Spanish speaking patients. He was an Intern for the
National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder acting
as a research assistant in a project that measured high atmospheric
levels of Methyl Bromide and other greenhouse related gases. During the
summer of 1992, he served as an intern at the National Park Tapanti in
Costa Rica analyzing species diversity and assisting in day to day
duties of park rangers.
After receiving his B.S. in environmental studies, Josh spent several
years interning and volunteering in various environmental and
agriculture projects. These included participating in the
Solar Energy International summer intern training programs in
Colorado, building a straw bale house in the Pacific Northwest, building
a timber home with locally forested materials in Wyoming, post-hurricane
reconstruction of homes on St John, USVI, and farming on several organic
farms and experiencing sustainable communities in the US and South
America. As a self-directed learner, Josh has acquired knowledge and
skill in environmentally sensitive construction and agriculture.
Involved in many community service activities, Josh received the
Dorchester Citizen of the Year award in 2003. Josh currently
serves on the Dorchester Conservation Commission and as the Dorchester
representative and Treasurer of the Pemi Valley Solid Waste Council. In 2006, Josh
was recognized as a leader in his community by the Union Leader in their
"40 under 40" award program.
Josh’s avocation is woodworking and he is a member of several NH
Artists’ Groups including Artistic Roots, an Artists Cooperative in
Campton, NH, and is the president of the Cardigan Mountain Art
Association located in the Mascoma Valley. He is a juried member of the
League of NH Crafters in woodworking.
Over the last ten years, he has developed and implemented the vision of
D Acres of New Hampshire, committed to educating others in environmental
stewardship of land and forests within a framework of community shared
decision-making. Josh’s commitment to social justice and sustainable
living has led to his ongoing efforts to share his knowledge and skill
in underserved areas such as South America. He spent the winters of
2001 and 2002 volunteering with an NGO,
"La Caravana Arcoiris Por La Paz," promoting the importance of peace
and connection to the earth. In the summer of 2008, Josh worked as
an intern for the Bread & Puppet
Theater in Glover, VT.
See
:38 of Josh on You
Tube .
Regina Rinaldo (Kitchen
Manager & Fiber Arts Coordinator) Regina arrived at D Acres on a rainy day the
second weekend of September 2008. It was the day before the 2008 Health
and Wellness Conference—a celebration of living healthfully and with
sustainability in mind. She jumped right into work, cooking the final
meal for 70 or so conference participants. It was the best way to get to
know the other residents and the layout of the kitchen.
Regina has always
had a love for food, but it wasn’t until her junior year at Houghton
College in western New York that she understood the joys of preparing
food and sharing it with others. That year was spent living in Walldorf
House, an all women humanities house. Living in this community with
thirteen other women, cooking, studying, laughing, and making decisions
together allowed Regina to develop a new sense of how to live in the
world. This year impacted her life, subsequently effecting future life
choices (living arrangements, job/work choices, eating lifestyle,
consumer choices).
Regina graduated in 2003
with a B.A. after majoring in both Writing and English; she has a minor
in Biblical Studies. These studies have given her the tools to think
critically and express her self in various ways, specifically through
writing. Regina keeps a daily journal of her life’s adventures, a
practice she has developed since she was a teenager. She regards writing
as a discipline, and uses it as a means of processing her thoughts and
recording significant happenings. She has hopes of publishing other
creative writing, but is currently happy to focus her writing energy on
maintaining this daily diary.
After college, Regina
embarked on a great trek across the country to explore the Northwestern
United States for the first time. Her travels took her as far as
Fairbanks, Alaska where she spent two months exploring the wild
frontier. She almost stayed, but decided to return to the Northeast,
closer to her family. Her brother Chris encouraged her to take a
position as an Instructor for the School Program at Sargent Center for
Outdoor Education in Hancock, NH where he had been working for those
past three years. This position began her residency in New Hampshire.
She spent a full academic year living and working at the camp: teaching
various ecology lessons, wilderness skills, team-building, and just
general fun to groups of young kids between grades 4-8.
It was wonderful living
so closely to her brother, and learning outdoor living skills and
community building techniques, but Regina was being pulled to another
outdoor skill—organic farming. This building interest brought her to The
Daloz Mill and Farm, a small CSA and market farm in Hancock, NH. She
spent a summer as a farm intern, developing her weeding, harvesting,
seed planting, and culinary skills. Regina perfected her Radish Salsa
recipe and concluded that growing food organically and sustainably is
vital to maintaining a local community.
As the season came to an
end, Regina wanted more—more farming, more food, more homesteading
skills, and more education. She was interested in combining education
with farming, and was fortunate enough to find an immediate position at
a small Quaker-based boarding school, The Meeting School (www.themeetingschool.org).
This position allowed her to remain in the Monadnock Region, as well as
develop teaching skills. During her three years at the school, she held
many responsibilities: houseparent, kitchen coordinator, writing/fiber
arts/literature teacher, milker, plus many other community tasks and
duties. The school cared for their own flock of sheep, which they bred
for the meat and the fleece. Regina learned to clean, card, and spin
this fleece into yarn, which she then used in crochet projects. This
experience began an involved interest in Fiber Arts, specifically
weaving.
After leaving The Meeting
School in June 2007, developing this Craft and Art skill became
important to Regina’s next steps in life. She attended a weaving
concentration course at Penland School of Crafts for two months in the
Fall of 2007. This class solidified Regina’s love for weaving and gave
her the confidence to continue this craft as a lifelong Art. Regina
endured a mentally involved Winter and Spring of quiet and reflection,
some farming and weaving, after which she joined The Bread and Puppet
Theater (www.breadandpuppet.org) in June 2008 where she was an
apprentice and volunteer. She continues to volunteer with the theater
and hopes to return to help with as many performances as she can. This
is where she met Josh Trought, who made a welcoming invitation to join
the D Acres community.
Her
journey to D Acres has been winding, but her cumulative experiences in
farming, cooking, art, and community have prepared her mind, body, and
spirit for the work she is now enjoying.
Bethann Weick (Farm
Staff & Board
Secretary)
As the daughter of a farrier and a gardener who
grew up in Kintnersville, PA, she learned that growing food and working
hard was par for the course. Beth attended Colgate University in
Hamilton, NY, where she graduated salutatorian with a BA in Latin
American Studies and Social Geography. Fluent in Spanish, she studied
and worked in the Dominican Republic, Peru, and Mexico during her
collegiate years. In the D.R., she spent six months studying social &
political history, as well as community development while working for a
small non-profit doing micro-credit/small business education. A year
later Beth traveled to Peru, where she pursued themes of sustainable
development, both taking university classes as well as working with
highland communities installing irrigation systems. A month in Mexico
was focused on archeoastronomy research and cultural history. These
experiences enhanced Beth’s understanding of global social issues and
the attendant economic inequities, and ultimately led her to focus on
land-based, agricultural efforts of rural development within her own
community.
Between her time abroad and semesters at college, Beth spent summers
working for the Appalachian Mountain Club’s White Mountain Huts in
northern New Hampshire. The work was lucrative in experiences and
challenges, and she continued to pursue backcountry work
post-graduation. It was rugged, involving search & rescues and the
packing of hundreds of pounds of supplies each week to maintain the
recreationists passing through the mountains. The fragile ecosystems
and dramatic weather atop New England’s highest peaks further developed
her love for the northcountry climate and landscape. These experiences
influenced Beth’s concept of stewardship and land-based care, and
imparted a love of simple living influenced by weather and seasonal
changes. Ultimately she worked nine seasons for the AMC – five summers,
one fall, two winters, and one spring. This grounded her in a
northcountry community.
Beth first came to D Acres as an intern in April
2008, ready to entwine her agricultural convictions with her love of the
northcountry. After two seasonal stints at the farm, and a summer spent
hiking the Appalachian Trail with her mother, she returned to D Acres as
a full time resident in August 2009. While she engages in a variety of
farm operations, her focuses include gardening, animal husbandry,
educational & community outreach, and writing. Beth is invigorated and
enthused to be a part of the process towards local food, vibrant
community, and thriving small-scale agriculture.
D Acres
Residents:
Scott Codey
is the D Acres bread baker and the
one principally responsible for flour being absolutely everywhere on
Wednesday nights.
Prior to arriving at
D Acres, Scott was Director of Advocacy at Citizens Committee for New
York City, an organization that supports community organizing and
activism in New York City. He was also a co-founder of the New York City
Fair Trade Coalition, an all-volunteer grassroots organization dedicated
to raising public awareness and increasing demand for Fair Trade
products. Scott also worked at the International Human Rights Law Group
(now Global Rights) in Washington DC and ran a public education campaign
for TransFair USA (now Fair Trade USA). Scott currently serves as board
chair of the Fair Trade Resource Network.
D Acres Board of Directors:
Gary Walker (Chair)
He was born and
raised in Southeast Virginia, in what is now the city of Portsmouth,
Virginia. It was predominately a small rural farming village at the
time. He graduated from high school in 1960, and started engineering
school in that same year. In 1965, he was awarded a Bachelor of
Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Polytechnic
Institute in Balcksberg, Va. During his undergraduate he was a
cooperative engineering student working for the US Navy in the area of
overhaul and repair of existing ships.
After graduation, he took a job at the
Aeronautical Systems Diversion working for the US Air Force at Wright
Patterson AFB in Dayton, OH. He was there 12 years working primarily
on new aircraft design specifically the area of external aerodynamic
loads. In 1971, he passed the Professional Engineering Exam.
In 1977, he accepted a job with the USAF
located in Madrid, Spain. In 1980 he returned to the US to work at
Hanscom AFB in Bedford, MA. In 1984 he attended a six-month course for
Program Managers at the Defense Systems Management College at Fort
Belvoir, VA. In 1985 he was awarded a Masters degree in Business
Administration from Western New England College. He retired from
civil service in 1997 though he continued working as a consultant for
Dynamics Research Corporation until 2002.
Upon retirement, he and his wife
Beverly moved to Wentworth, NH. He enjoys spending time with his
daughter, Cindy, playing bridge, researching genealogy, reading and
immersing in activities at Starr King Universalist Fellowship.
Ronda Kilanowski
(Treasurer)
Ronda
began working for Malone, Dirubbo & Company, P.C. in September 1989.
She has been working in the public accounting profession since 1984.
Since she was certified by the New Hampshire Board of Accountancy in
February 1989, she has concentrated her professional growth and
technical proficiency in areas that are beneficial to small and medium
size businesses. Ronda currently serves on the Grafton County
Economic Development Council as well as the New England Peer Review
Board.
Bethann Weick
(Secretary; Staff Representative) See
above bio.
Robert "Bob" Richer
Bob has spent all his adult life as a
teacher. In the early 1970s he taught field communications as a
lieutenant in the Army and did drug and alcohol counseling in Vietnam
with the Signal Corps. During the 1980s he accepted a position as an
organizational development consultant for the Army creating courses in
Leadership Transition Management, Stress and Crisis Management, and
Career Development. From the early 1990s until his retirement in 2006 he
managed the careers of over 600 scientists and engineers in an Army
research and development organization.
Although he has been a
vegetable grower most of his life and is a UNH certified Master
Gardener, his current focus is on Forest Gardening. Bob and wife, Celine,
have been members of D Acres since 2004. Following Bob's retirement they
moved to Groton in July 2006.
D Acres
Guest Teachers:
Kayla Dauphine Kayla Dauphine has been folk/circle
dancing since 1995. She has attended numerous dance workshops and week
long dance camps to study with teachers from Europe, South America, and
the United States. She has led dance circles in Plymouth, Wentworth and
Franconia, and presented circle dance programs to senior centers,
women’s groups and schools. Her passion is gypsy dancing and teaching
beginners. She is currently Program Director for Neskaya Movement Arts
Center in Franconia, NH.
Mark Fulford Mark Fulford is a well-known,
independent farm consultant and educator whose range of topics and
expertise encompasses transitioning from conventional to organic and
biological agriculture, soil, crop, and forage nutrition, and preparing
agriculture for peak oil, climate change and economic drift. He also
teaches non-electric water technologies, hands-on skills in organic
orcharding, organic no-till crop production, commercial and small scale
composting, and fundamental rural skills and small farm food
preservation.
Mark Fulford addresses audiences from a wide range of backgrounds and
philosophies embracing common sense, science, and cultural wisdom for
the times we live in. His lifelong study of the natural world and
immersion in agriculture on his own farm and abroad grounds his
practices in experience. Mark and Paula Fulford operate Teltane Farm in
Monroe, Maine.
Gayle Hannan
Gayle Hannan is a Reiki Master and graduate of the Barbara Brennan
School of Healing. In 2005 she attended The Energy Touch School where
she learned advanced holographic energy healing techniques. Gayle has a
B.S. from Northeastern University and has worked in the Real Estate
industry in various capacities for the better part of 25 years. Since
2000 she has developed Hannan Healing Arts, an energy healing practice
in Campton, New Hampshire. She works with people, animals and the
earth. Much of her interest includes raising consciousness awareness of
energy medicine, as well as teaching and helping others to experience
the healing effects of Energy Medicine, which integrates the physical,
emotional, intellectual and spiritual components of Human Energy Field
(aura).
Terry Anya Hayes
Terry-Anya is a Maine-based writer, herbalist and educator, whose past
lives have included lengthy sidebars in New York City, Morocco and the
American Southwest. She raised her three daughters as a single parent
and graduated from Brooklyn College in 1984 with a fistful of honors and
a degree in Film. She is an award-winning poet and writes frequently on
health issues. Terry-Anya’s core herbal teachers remain Rosemary
Gladstar and Peeka Trenkle; she studies whenever possible with other
luminaries of contemporary herbalism.
From childhood, poetry, plants, reverence for the earth, and the desire
to heal have been central to Terry-Anya’s life. In addition to annual
workshops at D Acres, she teaches ethical wildcrafting and plant and
mushroom identification wherever the herbs and fungi beckon, leads
popular classes on herbal medicine making and managing health with
medicinal mushrooms at the Natural Gourmet Institute in Manhattan, and
since 1988 has taught for a week each summer at the International
Women’s Writing Guild conference at Skidmore College. She was
co-director of Poets Union in Brooklyn, New York for over a decade and
is a past president of the New York Mycological Society.
Ivy
Page
Ivy Page is a poet whose poetry has been described by Ross Gay as,
"passionate, sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes hilarious poems,
(which) always have a deep and generous intelligence." She lives in
the White Mountains of New Hampshire with her husband and two
daughters. Her love of poetry stemmed from listening to her
Grandmother reading poetry aloud to her as a child. She graduated from
Plymouth State University with a BA in English, and graduated with her
MFA in Creative Writing in 2009. Her work has appeared in journals
nationally, and her first book Any Other Branch, will be
available through
Salmon Poetry
of Ireland in March 2012. Her second book, Elemental, will be
out with
Salmon Poetry
in 2014. She is the editor and founder of Organs of Vision and
Speech Magazine. Ivy believes that poetry needs to be heard,
so she runs two open mics for poets in New Hampshire.
Darcie Shedd
Darcie
Shedd has been a popular Yoga and Fitness
Instructor in
New England for over 12 Years. Darcie is currently pursuing the
intense certification of Anusara Yoga with Sara Rose in Northamption
Massachusetts. Darcie is also a Massage Therapist, Thai Yoga Body
Worker, Reiki Master, AEA Certified Aquatic Personal Trainer and
Excercise Instructor. Darcies' classes have variety but, stick to the
principles of Anusara Yoga.
Louise Turner
Louise
Turner has a Master of Science in Occupational Therapy with over 30
years of experience in hospital, home care, transitional care, and
nursing home settings. With her medical background she has a deep
understanding of current medical and health issues that our society is
experiencing. Her interests in nutrition and herbal medicine complement
and broaden her medical background. She is a Chapter Leader for the
Weston A. Price Foundation, which supports the restoration of
nutrient-dense whole foods to the American diet along with the necessary
food preparation and preservation techniques.
Louise has shared
her knowledge about food preservation techniques at D Acres and recently
led a workshop on Sauerkraut-Making. In the future she plans on
contributing additional workshops that incorporate preparation of
fermented fruits and vegetables, raw milk and dairy products, meat stock
and broth, and nuts and grains.
Beverly Walker
Beverly Walker is a member of the NH Artists Association. Having studied
with numerous teachers over the years, Walker’s most recent studies have
been at The Studio School in Nashua in master classes with painter James
Aponovich. She received her AA degree in Studio Art from Rivier College
in Nashua. She has also participated in studies at the Art Institute of
NH and the Currier School in Manchester. For over two years she was a
juried member of Artistic Roots Gallery and Teaching Center in Campton,
NH, and has also exhibited at galleries in the lakes region, and in
juried shows throughout the state including the League of NH Craftsmen/NHAA
joint show in Concord in 2004.
At
present she is teaching at D Acres focusing on the fundamentals of
drawing, to help students gain a strong foundation for all art
work-realistic to imaginative and abstract.
Beverly lives with her husband Gary in Wentworth where she maintains
her studio, “Fox Haven,” and continues to explore line, color and space,
as well as collage and making books.
David Wichland, Wichland Woods
Wichland Woods is a
unique local myco-business located in the Monadnock Region of New
Hampshire. By educating the public about mycology, we strive to promote
people’s awareness about the health and ecological benefits of
mushrooms. Through various workshops, Wichland Woods encourages people
to expand their gardening realm into a mycological-friendly landscape.
We educate the public on the techniques of “backyard mushrooming” and
how everyday resources can be used to cultivate their own mycelia
network. We create over a dozen local strains of mushrooms, which are
carefully expanded using sterile techniques. We have trained under Paul
Stamets of Fungi Perfecti and have spent 8 years studying and
experimenting with growing mushroom in a plethora of different indoor
and outdoor mediums.
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