Asa
Ben
My name is Ben Smith and I hale from Butler, PA, a moderately sized town 30 miles north of Pittsburgh. Here, we replace "you all" with "yinz", eat coleslaw on our sandwiches, and celebrate the birthday of our claim to fame, the Bantam Jeep. I found Buckhorn Gardens through Attra(https://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/internships/), a great resource for those interested in farming. I came seeking reprieve from that which is the mainstream American lifestyle. As an engineer-to-be, past internships have included rush-hour commutes, cramped cubicles, and caffeine-fueled productivity. For me, organic farming provided a gateway to a different lifestyle, a re-connection with the earth, and a crash course in some of life's most basic skills. At the farm, I spent most of my free time baking and biking. Bread-making in Colorado's high and dry regions produces some incredible creations. Check out the Recipes tab for a few of the elevation-adjusted recipes that I (and my coworkers, I'd like to think) fell in love with. Colorado's roads are also great for biking. I highly recommend cycling from Colona to Ridgway by way of the State Park bike trail in between. Though I won't likely return to the Western Slope for some time, a small part of my heart remains with the great people, places, and adventures that live along Route 50. As I write this 6 months in retrospect, I cannot shake the thought of how simple yet pleasurable a life I lived at the farm.
McKenna
Hello! My name is McKenna Sweet, and I am a recent graduate of Missouri State University. I have been gardening for a few years now, and have really picked up a love for sustainable and green practices. I believe small garden projects are important for EVERYONE! Some day I would like to start my own garden project... Somewhere, somehow! Having no solid plans after graduating with a bachelors in Anthropology, I decided to pack up, leave the Ozarks, and head for the Western Slope.... I couldn't be happier with that decision. The mountains and the gardens are just so lovely!
Sheridan
I'm Sheridan from Atlanta, Georgia. Currently I'm enrolled at the University of Georgia as a Horticulture student. Sitting in class all the time really got me itching to DO SOMETHING. I'm interested in sustainable practices and love plants so farming is exactly where I need to be right now. In the next 5 years I'd like to be working with farmers internationally or opening up my own business in the green industry but either way I plan to do a lot more traveling. However as far as the present goes I could not be more happy spending my summer in the beautiful Colorado mountains.
Victoria
Born and raised a Texan, I've been spanning the globe for the last 10 years looking for "home". I suppose you could say, I've got a bit of the wanderlust. The mountains have always been a special place for me, where my mind opens and my soul softens. Austin was home on and off for the last 13 yrs or so, and there I was a barista, a cook, a cellist, and a community radio dj. I was also a volunteer gardener with Nanny Goat Farms and Smiley Dog Farms, both wonderful experiences that got me started thinking that gardening was for me. I love diggin in the dirt! and being outdoors where the sun and air seem to make everything else fade into the background. In my travels I've seen a great many things. The powerful oceans of Australia, the tree covered mountains of the Blue Ridge Parkway, the hustle bustle of London, the rolling hills of Belgium to the graffiti covered Wall in Berlin and lots and lots of nowhere from central Texas up to the beautiful western range here in Colorado. I am so excited to be here and expect that it will teach me a thing or two about life; from seed to harvest. I LOVE FOOD! And perhaps that too, sent me in this direction, with the hopes of someday owning my own cafe with a garden fresh menu and seasonal delights. Nothing makes me happier than preparing a delicious feast and then sharing it. Trying new recipes and learning new things keeps me in a constant state of experimentation, which for me, is entertainment. Other things I enjoy are hiking, singing, star gazing, picture taking and simply observing this crazy world for all its wonder and glory. I couldn't live without music but I think that's a given, and as a classically trained musician, I feel really fortunate to have played and seen some really great shows, and I hope to continue the learning and sharing. If there's a saying I try to live by, it's "Dream BIG, baby girl" and I say it to myself as often as I can to remind my self that anything is possible if you want it bad enough.
Gerber
I grew up outside of Detroit, MI, graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2010, and have had a soft spot in my heart for the mighty San Juan Mountains since spending a season as a conservation corpsmember out of Durango after college. When I'm not in the gardens I can be found fueling up on coffee, biking 550 to Montrose and Ridgeway. Hopefully one day I can plan a ride down (or up?) to Telluride. My favorite veggie is asparagus and I am vigorously excited to be learning about local farming here at Buckhorn Gardens.
Aaron
I’m excited to be out on the western slope! This is my first time getting to see this beautiful country even though Colorado has always been my home. I love it! I’m from Denver and graduated from UCLA a few years ago in microbiology. Buckhorn is an amazing learning experience. When not helping with the harvesting and garden projects I’m usually reading, cooking, and fermenting stuff; enjoying the winter life of a farmer and getting my mad scientist on!
Jeremy "Jak"
My first eighteen years were spent in the Washington D.C. suburb of Fairfax, VA. After high school, I traveled south to Pensacola, FL where I began attending Pensacola Christian College, later transferring to the University of West Florida to study marine biology. Following my shifting interests from marine science to conservation ecology, I unearthed a new direction (manifest destiny?) for my life that synchronistically interlaces three of my deepest passions: birds, bikes, and buds (basically anything that grows). Once finals were over, I packed up my effects on my bicycle and rode 300 miles north to Starkville, MS to take a short songbird survey stint in the Delta and Tombigbee national forests. My surveying commitments and all the exciting environmental exploration along with it concluded two weeks earlier than I anticipated. Rather than kick myself for lacking foresight to make a “plan B” for the conclusion of the job, I decided to challenge my new direction and, accordingly, my faith: that if I committed to following this path it would, in time, manifest my destiny. I sent one single email to the only listed sustainability organization I could find within three hundred miles. And barely a week later, I was living and working on my first CSA farm in Tupelo, MS called Isis Gardens, as well as writing as the intern blogger for Gaining Ground Sustainability Institute of Mississippi (GGSIM.org). Farm life—or at least many aspects of it—is the life for me! It’d be futile for me to try to describe all that I learned while living and working with Horton & Genevieve at Isis Gardens CSA. But I couldn’t stick around on their farm all summer long, like the grit on the back of a farmer’s neck. My path and wanderlust colluded to call me back to the road; this time, the long road out west. I pedaled across the Big Muddy into eastern Arkansas; peaked over the Ozarks through southern Missouri; parlayed with the Four Winds in Kansas; and nearly passed out upon reaching my uncle’s house in Colorado Springs some 1,300 miles from Tupelo, MS. Ask me why I didn’t just fly out to Colorado, and I’ll tell you that I did! Cycling is as close as you can get to flying under your own power, like the birds. Why rush life? Instead, yield to it. Once we learn to see and deconstruct our fears like weirs, life has a way of brilliantly coursing through time, mimicking the majestic mutability of water. Case in point: Not long after arriving in Colorado and finding a seasonal retail job in Denver, I received a message from Horton & Genevieve inviting me to come intern again with them. But this time, they had scored the managerial positions over the gardens at Buckhorn Mountain Ranch and they needed an intern(s) who could help for the winter season and beyond and was committed to the cause. Neither they nor I could have predicted in Mississippi that five months later we would be reunited to work, learn, and glean together on a farm in the beautiful San Juan Mountains of western Colorado…Yet, here we are!
