#sandbox libby

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Late night site-building. Sandbox will soon have an online marketplace for you to meet our members and check out their products! --Jeny

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Sandbox at MOSES Conference 2014

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MOSES Conference 2014 - Libby

Sometimes you have to leave home to know home.  After mulling over the pros and cons of taking a few days away from home, my dear friend/co-worker and I decided to attend the Midwest Organic & Sustainable Education Services (MOSES) organic farming conference.  With 2 gifted tickets to Organic University, we woke before the sunrise and sped out of town on perhaps the coldest and iceist day of our frigid winter to date with a rising temperature of -12.  With little time to prepare, I threw random “emergency items” into my car haphazardly; these items included 20 tea lights, a few Luna bars, the title to my car (just in case), and my friend added 3 jars of frozen curry “for the road,” and about 200 ounces of brewed coffee.    

As the sun rose, we laughingly belted out Michael Jackson tunes, munched on fresh donuts from Red Wing, and soon we were rolling through the white-capped bluffs of what could have been the breathtaking scapes of Colorado or Montana, but was in reality, just LaCross, Wisconsin. (It is also likely that only a midwesterner would make that comparison). With excited energy akin to childhood holidays, we refilled our canister of coffee, and settled into a day-long session with Mark Shepard on Farm Scale Restoration Agriculture.  With a renewed devotion to perennials, keylining, and microbusiness, I left the 8 hour workshop ready to turn Sandbox into acres of perennials and polycultures.

But unfortunately, outlawing annuals, would likely pose a problem to many of our incubating new farm businesses.

On a similar thread, I was heartened by a keynote speech given to thousands at MOSES, focused on the values and processes of Permaculture, because we, as young farmers, are entering a time of immense economic and environmental shifts, and we were reminded collectively that now is the time to “creatively use and respond to change.” This sentiment is the 12th Permaculture Principle by David Holmgren, and also sticks with me more than the others for some reason. To learn more about permaculture principles follow this link http://permacultureprinciples.com/principles/

As we begin to thaw off, MOSES demarcated the divide between the depth of winter and the faint hints of a shifting landscape.  While we left Wisconsin with fresh knowledge and new connections, I also came away with a strengthened sense of purpose and self, and for that I am ready to tumble head first into the growing season and anticipate the inevitable challenge of creatively using and responding to change as we grow together. at home.  - Libby

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The Sandbox Logo - Libby

With outstretched wings and balanced upon one foot, the redheaded Sandhill Crane appears prepared to take flight. And perhaps it is. Or perhaps it’s preparing to settle into it’s native Anoka Sand Dunes where Sandbox Cooperative is located, just as our white snowy landscape begins it’s melty transformation to the first brownish tones that demarcates Winter from Spring.

Like farmers awakening from an immure yet hope-filled winter, Sandhill Cranes return to Minnesota beginning in March and continuing throughout April. They are surprisingly large birds, standing five feet tall with seven foot wingspans.

Recently reported: “Cranes are one of our success stories,” says Tony Hewitt, “along with the Canada goose and bald eagles. “They’ve really made a huge comeback.” wrote Lisa Meyers McClintick in her Star Tribune article entitled “Comeback of Sandhill Cranes.”

Cranes, like cooperatives and sustainable agriculture, have gone from near extinction to flourishing and to even, growing, here in Minnesota. Grow with Us at Sandbox Cooperative is our mission. As the Minnesota Sandhill Cranes are expected to migrate home in March and April, so too, begins the migration of Sandbox members back to the, quite literally, sandy soils we work in, as well as the metaphorical sandbox we come to create, play, work, and collaborate in.

-Libby

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Dear Sandbox - Libby

Dear Sandbox Community,

    As a trained papermaker and natural dye artist, I toil among the word of permaculture enthusiasts and those moved by visual art.  As a 90’s baby, I came of age during a time when “arts for arts sake” was a grant proposal of the past, and an ideology of yore.  As Millennial professionals alike navigate the bourgeoning green economy, I am heartened by many of my peer’s drive to marry passion and solutions to social and environmental problems.  Friedrich Nietzsche denoted “We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once” We are finding ways to “dance” with these elements and create a unique way to individually affect change in the world.  Since graduating from college, I have taken to wearing a peer coaching hat more often than I’d have ever imagined.  Because of these inadvertent coaching sessions, I have come to accept the following collected qualitative data as fact:

“There is no set career path anymore; it is all subjective.  People really want to help the world’s environmental, social, and health problems.  People are unwaveringly passionate. People want to be outside. People really care about their community(ies). People really don’t want to work traditional 9-5’s”.

One more thing:

People know that; They just don’t know what to do about it.

Sandbox helps you know what to do about it.

And how to dance in the Sandbox.

-Libby