Food at the homestead is organic. Will and the other team members feel strongly about eating food grown without chemicals. We believe organic food production is better for the environment and for our health. We also try to buy local food that hasn’t been transported across the country. Buying local food is one way we try to reduce our carbon footprint (the amount of carbon dioxide pollution for which an individual person or group is responsible). We further reduce our carbon footprint by storing food in an ice house (pictured here) and a root cellar rather than in an electric refrigerator.

Much of our food is grown right here at the Homestead. Will has been growing organic vegetables in the gardens for forty years. When he first built the Homestead, the soil quality was poor, but with some help from compost and other organic fertilizers, it became productive. We also raise chickens. We feed them our food scraps and round out their diet with some organic chicken feed. They lay eggs for us to eat. We compost the food scraps the chickens won’t eat. Leaves from the area provide an additional source of organic material for the compost pile. Natural bacteria in the compost pile eventually turn the food and leaves into rich organic dirt we can use to fertilize our gardens, completing the cycle of resources.