The Naturita Community Library is hosting Melanie Eggers and Bodie Johansson for “A Love Affair with Local Food: Can We Recreate a Resilient Food System” with Art Goodtimes, West End Stories & Poems Director, on Sept. 10 at 6 p.m.
Eggers and Johansson are co-founders of the Apple Core Project, with Johansson serving as the head tree grafter. Eggers is additionally the vice president of Fresh Foundation in Norwood, and interim director for SWIRL, the Southwest Institute for Resilience, DBA the Southwest Institute for Resilient Living. SWIRL’s mission is to promote self reliance, local food production and healthy communities through living models and education.
Eggers grew up in New Effington, South Dakota, the daughter of a Midwest farmer. She attended Moorhead State University and Bauman College of Holistic Nutrition and Education online.
Johansson grew up in Redvale and went to school locally. They learned recently that his great-great-great grandfather, James Britton Timms, grafted apple trees in Illinois.
The couple met and fell in love over a conversation about apple trees at Telluride’s Wilkinson Public Library. He was in the process of putting up a grow dome at the Telluride school for Kris Holstrom, founder of SWIRL and owner of Tomten Farm, who lived on Hastings Mesa above Placerville.
Together, Eggers and Johansson own the Pinion Farm Homestead, now home of the Apple Core Project in Nucla. It’s a 40-acre farm and orchard operation where they’ve pastured Kunekune and Mangalitsa pigs and 100% grass-fed Devon steers, rotationally grazed on regenerative pasture. They've installed a swale system to improve soil health. They also have an apple orchard, which includes more than 20 heritage varieties, and a food forest with more than 600 perennial nut, fruit, vegetable and herb plants.
Pinion Farm Homestead was homesteaded originally by the Swedish Lundahl family, who were founding members of the Colorado Cooperative Company. The original farm included an old farmhouse, built in 1907, and numerous buildings, including an icehouse, winter food storage, a chicken house and barn.
The Lundahls raised pigs, chickens and cows, and they harvested ice from the upper spring-fed pond for the townspeople. They butchered animals in the stone building near the house, cultivated apple, peach, mulberry, apricot and plum trees, plus grew hay, corn, oats, barley and vegetables.
All are invited to Eggers and Johansson’s local food talk Sept. 10.
“Melanie and Bodie have been working in local regenerative agriculture for many years now,” said Goodtimes, director of the Telluride Institute’s Talking Gourd Poetry Program. “We are excited to talk with them about how we can bring resilience to our food systems in the West End. Come and join the discussion.”
West End Stories & Poems, happens on the second Thursday of each month, is free and open to all ages, thanks to the generosity of the Naturita Community Library, a Town of Telluride CCAASE grant, private donors and Talking Gourds’ Fischer and Cantor poetry contests. The library provides free refreshments.
For more information on poetry contests and Talking Gourds programs, all may visit the website www.tellurideinstitute.org/talking-gourds. For questions about the event, all may text 970-729-0220 or email Goodtimes at art@tellurideinstitute.org,
