Lucy Beck		Debbie Ramsdell
	Tanya and Matthew		Marjan van den Belt and Robert Costanza
	Marlee, Rick & Nina		The Devine Family
	Per, Jenny, Solvei & Aren Eisenman		Cara Taussig and Marty Gawron
	Dennis and Trisa Gay		Marc Greenblatt
	Shelia Kerr		Carina Cartelli and Joe Lasek
	Melissa Mcginty		Sarah Sinnott
	Elizabeth Storey		Larilee Suiter
	Peter van Schaick		Mary Van Vleck
	Clark and Suzanne Hinsdale		Jonathan, Lorelei and Finn Atwood
	Gordon Gieg and Amy Snyder

Tanya: I was born and raised in Montreal, graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto and returned to Montreal to study at Concordia University. After a semester of my new curriculum, my mother and I attended a weekend long conference north of Montreal about Community Supported Agriculture. Toward the end of a long weekend of workshops I found myself dancing among farmers to a traditional Quebecois jig. Little did I know, that the woman I was do-si-do-ing with, would later that evening inform me of an available apprenticeship at her farm in Ontario.

I impatiently finished up my second semester that winter and that spring I was immersed into a completely foreign experience and it very quickly changed my life. A few months into my farm apprenticeship, Matthew arrived (on bicycle from Ohio) to volunteer on the farm and to attend a workshop on strawbale house construction. We exchanged our first words while picking sweet peas and spent the rest of the summer together working on the farm.

After gaining more farm experience together in California and Oregon, we found ourselves in Burlington and decided to stay for awhile. Here, we had the experience of growing our first market garden together. After completing a Permaculture Design course together in the Bahamas, I moved back to Montreal to run my own seed farm and to work on a couple of CSA farms.

But eventually, the distance between us brought us both too much heartache and I decided I would join Matthew in Albuquerque where we created our second and bigger market garden. From there we moved back east to a remote farm in upstate NY and ran another market garden. Despite the beautiful deep silence, pitch-black darkness, starry nights and exquisite beauty we found in the Adirondacks, we realized the remoteness of it all was a challenge and we disliked having to drive so far to buy toilet paper and cereal.

Finally, during our long search for a situation that would meet all our wants, (land, community, productive neighbors, proximity to the city, etc.) we came across CVC and joined as full members in November of 2005.

We started Bloomfield Farm in Spring of 2006 here at CVC , offering a small CSA to residents and attending the farmers' market. For the 2007 season, we partnered with another farm close by to offer a larger CSA and we continue to attend the Shelburne Farmers' Market on Saturdays and to wholesale our veggies locally.

Matthew : After several consecutive single-season projects, I'm excited about our opportunity to put energy into one place for a long while. Prior to our return to Vermont, we lived on a beautiful farm just across the lake from Charlotte, between Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks, forming wonderful relations with some folks committed to creating healthier ecosystems. We were drawn back to the Champlain region from New Mexico, where Tanya and I managed in one short season to grow a small organic urban farm, and develop some great friendships. I landed in Albuquerque with vague plans to return to school for landscape architecture, after an earlier investigation into ecological design on the west coast. Tanya came out to meet me, and led me back east. We had lived in Burlington several years earlier, arriving homeless and broke, as WWOOFers, volunteer laborers on organic farms. We considered farming at the Intervale, but scaled back to a backyard market garden in the Old North End. Before Vermont, Tanya and I had WWOOFed together in California and Oregon. I met Tanya after cycling from Ohio to Ontario to work at a farm and learning center, where Tanya was then a lovely and hard-working apprentice. I had recently left an education center in West Virginia, completing my graduate work in environmental education. I intended to complete my degree by working overseas, but I was somewhat "radicalized" during my first stay in Albuquerque, and with help from some friends, became committed to creating "sustainable" community closer to home, beginning by planting a small garden and helping to build earthships in northern NM. This desire to help create more ecologically healthy communities, combined with our interest in agriculture and cooperative production, attracted me to the CVC project. The energy, commitment, and quality of the group of people we found, kept us involved.

Earlier formative chapters in my still brief yet illustrious development include riding my bike with my great uncle from Florida to Ohio; many days and nights on a sailboat and rural island in the Bahamas, teaching of and exploring the most incredible creatures and systems, and studying botany; and enjoying a modest but supportive upbringing with my loving mother, brother, aunts, uncles and cousins in Ohio, with visits to my father and family in Florida. I was born in Florida, where my father still resides with his wife and my younger brother. The best things for me involve planting and tending our land, simple and appropriate tools, good company and food, hard work and creative expression, and generally exploring. And though I hope to have some time to see more of my family and old friends (maybe they'll consider moving here too!), I love living here and am excited, and often overwhelmed, by the work we have chosen and accomplished.