Philo Ridge Farm has been one of BLC’s core management projects for the past ten years and we’ve watched their team grow the operation and grow the impact they have in their community. For this month’s blog post, I want to share a piece that their team recently published speaking to the creative process involved in managing a kitchen at the heart of a farm.

Why potatoes you may ask? Why is our team so fascinated by potatoes? The honest truth is that I don’t know. And that I let go of trying to answer that question a long time ago, and I instead rolled up my sleeves and joined the #potatoes team Slack channel.

We are grateful for this work, for our team, and the communities and landscapes that we spend time with. Here is to all of the learnings and questions that lay ahead in this year of 2023.

We talked to Brooklyn about how her role at BLC inspired her to explore new ways of thinking about how, and for whom, business systems are designed, and how human-centered systems can support not only the business but the communities it engages with.

I love to ask what books people are reading and what they are learning. I always come away from these conversation with new ideas and exciting book titles. It also means that I have books piled on tables all around my house.

Over one hundred thousand years ago, during the last ice age, clothing was arguably introduced as a form of survival and protection from the elements. For millennia, and up only until recently, our garments have been solely produced from animal or plant material- many of which are grown or harvested from farm and agricultural processes. Since their origin, textiles have been transformed by cultures and individuals into a representation of status, wealth, personal expression, gender, and ingenuity. To tell a story of the history of textiles, there is a lot of ground to cover.

We chatted with Operations Director Luiz Da Costa to better understand what drew him to work with BLC and how he thinks about managing teams.

Our team is constantly curious. Observing, listening, and learning are core aspects of the work we do. And summertime, with its longer and lighter days, often provides more space and energy for cultivating our curiosity.

A poem written by Meriwether Hardie.

Landscapes are ephemeral yet eternal, singular yet ubiquitous, living and inert, and shaped through time by forces as large as tectonic shifts and as small as single-celled organisms. To fully understand landscapes or to capture their essence is impossible and yet, as humans, we must try because they are our very foundation. Landscapes are what root us, nurture us, and inspire us as a species and as individuals.