The People
Ryan
Ryan is a lover of food with a story and a pursuer of the wisdom found in nature. He cares about honoring each life form on the farm and taking care of the ecosystem in the region. Some of his favorite activities on the farm are walking the pastures at sunrise, moving the sheep, harvesting raspberries, following wildlife tracks, and propagating trees from seed.
He grew up in southern New Hampshire and spent many weekends skiing and hiking the white mountains with his Dad and brother. He loved sports, but excelled most in golf and in Track & Field. These experienced being active outdoors planted the seed of an appreciation for the natural world that would develop later in life.
Ryan pursued a bachelors degree in Business Administration at Bryant University and then spent 4 years working in corporate finance. Wanting to change the trajectory of his life, he left finance and began a journey to find a way for himself and others to live a life in closer connection to the natural world. This led him first to Maine Primitive Skills School where he learned and eventually taught survival skills, homesteading arts, and naturalist knowledge. He volunteered on several farms through WOOF.org working with dairy goats, organic vegetable farmers, rotationally grazed cattle, chicken and managed several orchards. In 2019 he received a Permaculture Design Certificate from Sowing Solutions Permaculture in western Mass. While working part-time at Stout Oak Farm, an organic vegetable farm in NH, Ryan met Meghan in 2019 and together they began a search to find a place to build a land-based community. They eventually decided to start a farm and were fortunate to connect with Mae & Greg at Clover Hill farm. Thus, began Shake the Tree Farm.
Meghan
Meg is a part-time farm helper who loves spending time outside with the animals, getting her hands in the soil, and getting to know the generous nature beings on the land as they change through the seasons. She works as a mental health counselor most days, specializing in expressive arts therapy, and practices Shamanism, Reiki, yoga, and herbalism. If you’d like to learn more about Meg, you can check out her page at owlpath.org!
History
Shake the Tree Farm is a project that is years in the making. It was born from a desire to live in closer connection with the lifestyle nature intended for us. Meghan and I have a vision to add our flavor to the growing number of folks building strong local communities by re-engaging with our landscapes in a regenerative way.
Clover Hill Farm is the name of farm we now tend and it is in the town of Alfred, Maine on what was once Pequawket land.
This land was once known as the Garland Family farm and operated as a dairy and sheep farm as far back as the mid-eighteen hundreds. In the mid-1900s parts of the farm began to be split up and sold. Margarit and her husband …. bought the land with the old farmhouse and large dairy barn in 1980 and practiced ….until 2016 when Mae & Greg bought the property. Mae & Greg revived Clover Hill Farm and began growing organic vegetables. While selling their vegetables at farmers markets they noticed an opportunity to sell bread and it became their best selling product. Clover Hill Bread was born and you can now find delicious flatbreads and sourdough loafs at the New Morning Natural Foods store in Biddeford. In 2023, Ryan and Meghan began a long-term lease of 23 acres of pasture and fallow gardens. In the first year they planted 350 feet of raspberries and strawberries, started 500 trees in air-prune boxes, welcomed 7 sheep and 1 goat onto the pastures and transplanted the rabbitry near the berry patch. 2024 promises to be an exciting year for the farm as berries begin to produce, rabbits find their way into local restaurants, and the lambs are born on the farm for the first time in many decades.
Mission
Our mission is to create a thriving land-based business, by growing food in perennial crop systems, helping others do the same with our edible and medicinal plant nursery, producing pasture-raised meat using rotational grazing to mimic the natural movement of animals on the land, provide educational and therapeutic experiences for people on this beautiful land we now call home. We want to produce high quality food for our region, enhance the productivity of the land for ourselves and wildlife. We also want to make lasting connections with our neighbors and friends by sharing experiences and food.