Tillers' Learning Centers

DreamAcres Homestead Wykoff, MN

Inwood Farm Charlevoix, MI

Cook's Mill Scotts, MI

DreamAcres is an organic farm nestled in a beautiful valley outside of the town of Spring Valley in Southeastern Minnesota. Todd Juzwiak and Evie Barr live the life many often dream about. With their two children, the family runs a 30 member CSA (Community Supported Agriculture, or subscription gardening) with oxen. Todd and Evie deliver organic produce to families in Rochester and Spring Valley areas weekly. The oxen are used to make their own hay and to cultivate the crops. The house, built during the 1995 Timberframing class, is as comfortable as it is practical. You hardly realize the farm is off the electrical grid, nor miss the so called 'Modern Conveniences." A small hand pump at the kitchen sink draws water up from a catchment tank, and they cook on a woodstove. They are working to create an intentional community based on sustainable relationships, and have entered a partnership with Tillers to host classes in homesteading skills. This setting allows for people to gain reality-based confidence in starting a homestead of their own. With classes in farming with draft animals, maple sugaring, wood stove cooking and blacksmithing, families can get the skills they need to start on the track of their own homesteading goals.
Todd and Evie have taken the initiative to live a life of their choosing, one that, with its lack of amenities, has fulfillment and rewards beyond what home entertainment centers and nine to five jobs can offer. By opening their farm to others, they offer people a chance to probe their own dreams.
DreamAcres holds several classes a year, including Timber Framing, Farming with Oxen and Horses, Logging, Gardening. Woodstove Cooking, and the new Flourish Summer Camp for youths. Call or write if you are interested in learning more about DreamAcres and sustainable living in the U.S. For Class Registration: Call Tillers' central office at 800-498-2700 or DreamAcres Homestead at 507/352-4255
Directions: Located in Southeast Minnesota, DreamAcres is most easily accessed from the city of Spring Valley. Travel seven miles east on County Road 8 (Farmer Street), until the pavement turns to gravel. Continue down the hill to a driveway on the left (north side of the road). Welcome!
Past Classes

The original Inwood Farm was nestled in a long valley. To the west is a tall ridge, which sheltered the homestead from the strong winds off the lake, and to the east and north is Inwood Creek, lined with cedar trees. The farmhouse, a barn, perhaps a granary or corncrib, and what was once a slaughterhouse sat within workable proximity to each other. The people who lived and worked there have passed, and their stories have faded. Today all that remain are rock foundations, a stone building, and scattered fruit trees. Rebuilding these structures will require investigation in historic archives to find what the barns were used for and what the buildings looked like. Call or email for volunteer opportunities.

Cook's Mill is Tillers' new Kalamazoo learning center. It replaces the site on Sprinkle Road where we taught students from around the world for years. Tillers did not own the Abbey Farms and could not afford to purchase that land at commercial rates.
The Cook family managed a water-powered mill at OP Avenue for many years. More recently, the Parish family assembled several small farms around the mill into one 465-acre parcel. Tillers purchased it from the Linssens and VDS Farms.
Our new site will inspire international and historical students. It offers a wide variety of farming conditions. The site was originally shared by seven farms, each of which Tillers will rebuild to illustrate a range of technologies. Its range of slopes and soil types offer many challenges to resource conservation. New blacksmith and woodworking shops will cluster around the mill, and pastures will be restored for productive grazing. Most of Tillers' classes are held at this site. See Classes by Date for listings.