The SeatWeavers' Guild Gathering and Chair Caning Exhibit
July 30th-August 1st, 2010
The SeatWeavers' Guild is holding their annual gathering at Tillers this weekend. The gathering will feature a museum exhibit of chairs, stools, etc. on Saturday, July 31st from 10 am to 3 pm. The exhibit is free and open to the public.
Tillers featured on the front page of Greenstone Farm Credit Services Partners magazine
Tillers staff, interns, and ox team Herschel and Walker travel to Horse Progress Days this weekend. The event is a remarkable gathering of primarily Amish horse farmers and equipment manufacturers, showcasing the latest and greatest developments in horse-drawn equipment. The Horse Progress Days community has generously showcased Tillers' international work, leading to collaboration between Amish equipment manufacturers and Ugandan engineers. This year the event will be held in Topeka, Indiana.
Beef available in July! Call to reserve yours today!
July, 2010
Tillers grass fed beef will be available again this July and portions are still available for reservation. Reserve a whole, half, or quarter beef to fill your freezer! Reserve larger portions at lower prices to split with friends and family, saving everyone money! Check out the Food and Farm Products page of our Store for more information!
Kalamazoo Community Foundation Match Day
June 23rd, 2010, 11:00 am-6:00 pm
The Kalamazoo Community Foundation is celebrating its 85th birthday this year and has given Kalamazoo's nonprofit community--and generous donors like you--85,000 reasons to celebrate with them on Match Day!
Match Day is a very special event designed to help nonprofit organizations like Tillers International build the endowment fund established for our benefit at the Community Foundation. On Match Day, which will take place on June 23 in Bronson Park, the Community Foundation will match each dollar donated to the Tillers Growth Fund with 50 cents that will be available for us to use immediately. There are $85,000 in match dollars available!
On Match Day, you are invited to come to the park anywhere between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. and make a donation to the Tillers Growth Fund. Donations must be made in person and can be made by cash, check or credit card (Visa, MasterCard, Discover or American Express). You can come to the park and donate anytime throughout the day, but we encourage you to come early, because while donations will be accepted all day, they will only be matched until the $85,000 is exhausted.
For complete Match Day details, including information about maximum donations, how your gift will be receipted, and Michigan Community Foundation Tax Credit eligibility, please visit the Kalamazoo Community Foundation's website at www.kalfound.org.
Director Dick Roosenberg travels to Haiti
June, 2010
Dick traveled to Haiti last weekend to work with World Hunger Relief, Inc. on the use of oxen in their SRI rice production, inland from Cap Haitian. He will exchange ideas with a local group, GRADES, that is building farm implements for oxen in the community. Dick will be back as in instructor in next week's Oxen Basics class and for the MODA Gathering.
Developing a Mulching Roller for no-till weed control
May, 2010
Tillers now has a Cafe Press store!
May 19th, 2010
Now offering a wider range of apparel desings, bumper stickers, coffee mugs, tote bags, and more! Check out our new Cafe Press store. Profits benefit Tillers' Cook's Mill Learning Center facilities and international projects. Want to see something special on our Cafe Press store? Just call or email with your request!
Tillers staff and volunteers worked to put a new metal roof on the Abbey Draft Animal Barn this month. The barn looks great and is now protected from the elements. Thanks to Graber Post Buildings of Montgomery, Indiana for generous help with the roofing metal!
Tillers’ Springhill Barn, donated by the Mawby-Tatroe family, has been named the 2010 Michigan Barn Preservation Network (MBPN) Barn of the Year in the non-profit use category. A celebration ceremony will be held during the MBPN annual conference on March 12, 2010.
Criteria for selecting the Barn of the Year include quality of restoration, maintenance of historical integrity, documentation of restoration, and the setting and visual appeal of the barn. Winners receive a plaque, media coverage, recognition at the annual conference, and a one-year membership in the Michigan Barn Preservation Network.
Thanks to Russ Mawby for helping us compile a history of the Springhill Barn and its use, and congratulations to all who helped with the project!
UN declares 2010 "International Year of Biodiversity"
February, 2010
Biodiversity is at the heart of healthy ecosystems, including agricultural ecosystems. The protection of heritage livestock breeds ensures the intrinsic value of animals resulting from so many years of careful breeding for so many diverse desirable traits, as well as increasing the security of agricultural systems by reducing vulnerability to diseases and pests that may strike at only one or a few breeds and species. When agricultural or natural systems are widely populated by animals with low genetic diversity, such diseases and pests spread more rapidly amongst the population. Diversity may isolate such epidemics to one population pocket. Support your local farmers raising heritage breeds! For more information on heritage livestock, visit the ALBC's website, www.albc-usa.org.
Abbey Draft Barn to be featured at 2010 MBPN Conference
March 13th, 2010
Dick Roosenberg, Rob Burdick, and Tom Nehil will be giving a presentation on the deconstruction, relocation, and reconstruction of Tillers' Abbey Draft Animal Barn at the 2010 Michigan Barn Preservation Network annual conference at Michigan State University. Click to view conference information.
New Tillers YouTube video: Caning Chairs Class!
February 1st, 2010
New Tillers YouTube video: Appalachian Broom Making Class!
Tillers' ARC contest entries have made it to the final round to be judged by the panel
November, 2009
Tillers first ARC proposal, "Re-Designing Africa's Ox-Powered Farm Tools," placed in the top ten in three of the four prelimary rounds of public voting. Our second proposal, "Cushioning Climate Change with Farm Water Catchments," was posted later and never made it to the top ten. However, the judges decided to include both proposals in the final round for consideration by the panel. Thanks so much to all those who persevered through the ARC site's technical difficulties to endorse and comment on Tillers' proposals!
Springhill Barn featured in Michigan Barn Preservation Network newsletter
Summary: "The ability to build moderate-sized reservoirs at low-cost for irrigation water - that will fill-in for rains missing from traditional growing seasons - can reduce the affects of changes in rain patterns cause by global warming and immediately boost farm production. By using local animal power to construct the reservoirs, international support can pump a dramatic economic stimulus into farm communities while preparing them to weather the greenhouse effects that global industrialization seems to be causing."
Tillers enters the returned Peace Corps volunteers' Africa Rural Connect Competition
August 27-29 Tillers held work days at Inwood in Charlevoix. The timber frame built during the fall 2008 Timber Framing class was raised to house a team of oxen and the old stone slaughterhouse got a new roof. Thanks to all the volunteers who came out to help! Click to view a photo slideshow of the raising!
Springhill Barn receives paint
July, 2009
Finishing touches are being applied to the Springhill Barn as it receives its barn red paint job this week. The cupola is also being prepared for installation. Click to view a photo slideshow of Springhill Barn progress!
Horse Progress Days article on Bob Okello
July, 2009
This year's Horse Progress Days guide book featured a wonderful article about Bob Okello, who visited HPD in 2007. Bob, a talented metalworker from Uganda, has worked with Tillers and designed a plow appropriate for the animals, materials, and mechanics available in Uganda based on a Pioneer plow he was able to study at HPD and the Pioneer factory in 2007. This year, Bob packed the disassembled plow as luggage and flew from Uganda to visit Horse Progress Days again. He and Tillers' staff and interns demonstrated his plow in comparison to the original Pioneer version. Click to read the article (PDF 0.8M)!
Tillers' first Blacksmithing for Boy Scouts Class
June 6th and 7th, 2009
Saturday and Sunday, June 6th and 7th, Tillers hosted its first ever Blacksmithing for Boy Scouts class. The class was taught by Tillers' instructor Bruce Woodward, Shops Coordinator John Sarge, and volunteer assistant instructors Holly Fisher of Smartshop, Paul Carlson, and Herb Nehring. Over a period of two days, 12 Scouts learned such blacksmithing skills as drawing out a taper, making a decorative twist, riveting, and making an L-shaped bend. At the end of the two day session, each Scout had earned his Metalworking Merit Badge. The class was generously sponsored by Alro Metals plus of Kalamazoo and Dan Wood Co. Click to view a photo slideshow of the class! The class was also featured in the Sunday, June 7th, 2009 Kalamazoo Gazette, click to view!
Tillers is now on Facebook!
Cheesemaker Barbara Jenness featured in Michigan Wine Country Magazine
Tillers featured in the South County Commercial-Express, a publication of the Kalamazoo Gazette
May 9th, 2009
Tillers was featured in the Saturday, May 9, 2009, edition of the South County Commercial-Express, a publication of the Kalamazoo Gazette, Vol. 130 No. 19. Farm Coordinator Dulcy Perkins, intern Elijah Massey, and ox team Marco and Polo traveled to the Vicksburg Historic Village for a plowing demonstration on April 29, 2009. Click to read the full text of the article.
Abbey Barn deconstructed, relocated & raised
March-present, 2009
Tillers has completed the deconstruction of the draft animal barn on the George Abbey / former Tillers' site. The property has been sold, and all the remaining buildings demolished. The draft animal barn was the last barn in salvageable condition. The frame was repaired and reconstructed during Tillers' April Timber Framing and Raising class. Click for more information, to view a flash slideshow of photos from the project, or to donate to the project.
Rain storms threatened Tillers' annual Plow Day April 25th, but in the relatively clear skies between outbursts Tillers' and guest oxen and horse teams plowed this year's to-be corn field. Thanks to all who braved the weather!
Scattergood School volunteer visit
April 19th-25th, 2009
Students from Scattergood Friends School, a private Quaker boarding high school in Iowa, visited and volunteered at Tillers for a week during our April Timber Framing class. The students helped with farm chores, spring clean-up of the house and grounds, and the timber frame raising on April 25th. Thanks for all the hard work!
Launch of the Mozambique Project
March 16th, 2009
On March 16, Brian Webb and Rob Burdick departed to launch our Mozambique Learning Center project. They will spend the next three months establishing a Learning Center, which will function as workshop space and advanced ox farming college. Brian will remain on site as the program manager.
Tillers attends MOSES Farming Conference
La Crosse, Wisconsin
February 26th-28th, 2009
The organic growers of the upper Midwest know how to host a conference. They gathered 2,500 people in a string of concurrent sessions running 10 abreast, and keynotes running from Thursday to Saturday, February 26th through 28th. Todd Juzwiak and Dick Roosenberg gave a presentation to perhaps 150 people on farming with draft animals. Andrew Roberts and Larry Brummund helped staff a Tillers booth. One of the most exciting opportunities for Tillers was to meet the former Tillers' interns farming in the area. Robert Schultz, Summer Deal, Alex Crockford, Chris (Svenson) Chew, Todd, and Andrew were among the interns Dick was reunited with (Ed Chew was home shoeing horses). Several of these former interns are working with draft animals. Many other students stopped by the Tillers booth, including Mike and Ellen Moore who gave us a team of draft horses, Mike and Penny.
Tillers on PBS
2007
Tillers was featured on PBS's the Woodwright's Shop with Roy Underhill, season 27, episode 11. Click to see the video at PBS.com.
Tillers in Popular Woodworking Magazine
June 2008
Tillers was also featured in an article in Popular Woodworking Magazine, entitled "Great Workshops: Woodworking with a Mission" by Jeff Skiver, June 2008, p. 74. Click for the article abstract and to view a PDF slideshow of beautiful photographs of Tillers taken for the article.
Tillers eNews is a fast and inexpensive way of keeping our friends informed. Our goal is to keep it to the five minutes of reading that is most newsworthy and absolutely electrifying!
Published quarterly, the Nigh Ox keeps Tillers' friends and members abreast of our news, events, and classes. Click for color PDFs of our back issues. (What is a nigh ox?)
